HOLLYWOOD -- Elizabeth Taylor is finally on the mend.

That's the word from her long-time friend, songwriter Carole Bayer Sager.

"Liz is doing a lot better, but it's going to be a long road to recovery this time," admits the Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist of such tunes as The Best That You Can Do, That's What Friends Are For and On My Own.

Taylor fractured a vertebra when she fell against a bedstand in her home on her birthday last year.

"Even though she can still barely get of bed, it was her spirit, not her back, that was most seriously injured," says Bayer Sager.

"Liz is an amazing woman. She has survived so many life-threatening illnesses and accidents -- but to go from brain surgery to this fall seemed too much for her.

"There's no question she was beaten this time. She wasn't bouncing back. Just before the fall, Liz had committed to a new film project -- that's how positive she was feeling.

"We all felt no one deserved this one, and that's what Liz felt too."

Bayer Sager says she visited Taylor recently and brought the actress a gift.

"I gave her a tape recorder and told her to start dictating her life story.

"I told her she doesn't have to publish it. She just has to see how she's beaten adversity in the past."

Bayer Sager collaborated with Canadian composer David Foster on the songs for the new animated musical Quest for Camelot, which opens May 15.

The duo also wrote One True Friend, the theme song for the movie new Meryl Streep movie One True Thing.

"We wrote it for Bette Midler, but practically had to twist her arm to sing it because it has the word friend in the title."


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