Elizabeth Taylor to have heart surgery

(CNN) - Elizabeth Taylor is having a "procedure on her heart," she announced on her Twitter page.

"It's very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery, so that my heart will function better," the famed actress wrote.

"Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate. I'll let you know when it's all over. Love you, Elizabeth."

The 77-year-old Oscar winner did not go into further detail about her heart condition or the medical procedure. She was briefly hospitalized this summer for "scheduled testing," she said at the time.

She checked out "sore, but intact," the actress said in an online message posted July 17. Her publicist had denied tabloid rumors that her hospitalization was brought on by her grief over the sudden death of her close friend Michael Jackson in June.

Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to publish what they are doing using 140 characters or less. Taylor posts regularly on her account, DameElizabeth, which has more than 155,000 followers.

She opened the account this year at the suggestion of her close friend, author and actress Kathy Ireland, publicist Dick Guttman said.

She posted emotional messages in July to counter rumors about how she was dealing with the news of Jackson's death.

"Although my grief over Michael could not be any deeper, I am not on suicide watch as some of the cheaper 'rags' would have you believe," Taylor wrote July 5.

Taylor -- who uses a wheelchair because of scoliosis, or abnormal curving of the spine -- gave fans several days advance notice of her last hospitalization.

The London-born movie star has won two Academy Awards for best actress: first for "Butterfield 8" in 1961 and then for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in 1967.