Early and personal life
Tyler is the daughter of Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith; and Bebe Buell, a model and singer. Having grown up with the understanding that rock star Todd Rundgren was her biological father, she only found out the truth about her parentage at age 9, after noticing that Steven Tyler's daughter Mia Tyler looked like her twin. She then changed her name from Liv Rundgren to Liv Tyler but kept Rundgren as a middle name. Liv's mother named her after Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann. In 1979-80 Bebe Buell was romantically involved with Stiv Bators and Bators lived with the two of them in Portland, Maine for a period where Bebe kept a house. Liv's father was also rumoured to be Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist of Deep Purple and Rainbow. The rumour was started by Elissa Perry the wife of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry who apparently wanted to put doubt into Tyler's mind that he might not be the father.
Career
After starting a career as a model (with a height of 5' 10"), she quickly moved into acting. She first became known to TV audiences when she starred alongside Alicia Silverstone in the Aerosmith music video "Crazy" in 1993. Later, she was cast almost simultaneously for Silent Fall and Heavy; the filming of Heavy was delayed until she became available. By the age of 20, she had already starred in several successful movies, including Stealing Beauty, That Thing You Do! and Inventing the Abbotts.
Although it was her appearance in Armageddon (which was released on her 21st birthday, and included the song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by her father's band) that made her known to a very wide public, she has proven herself in more sophisticated acting challenges such as Onegin (based on the 19th century Russian novel by Alexander Pushkin), in which she convincingly portrayed the character of Tatyana Larina, and two movies directed by Robert Altman: Cookie's Fortune and Dr. T & the Women. Her most successful role came in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which she played Arwen Undómiel.
Tyler was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1997. She was also voted the 6th Sexiest Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire Magazine in September 2002, and #2 in TheAge.com's Top 100: Natural Beauties of all time in 2004.
Private life
On March 25, 2003, she married British musician Royston Langdon of the band Spacehog. On December 14, 2004, she gave birth to a son, Milo William Langdon, in a New York hospital.
Tyler's ancestry is a combination of Italian, German, Russian and Cherokee Indian on her father's side.
