Screen legend dies
Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, 79, died in Los Angeles overnight.
According to reports, she died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre after a six-week hospital stay for congestive heart failure.
Seen as one of the last actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age, the Oscar-winning actress was thrust into the spotlight in her childhood, rising to fame with her role as Velvet Brown in Grand National, aged 12.
As well as Taylor’s long career in films including Little Women, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cleopatra, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof and Giant, one of her greatest legacies will be her work for HIV/AIDS.
Taylor was a strong supporter of HIV/AIDS charities in the US. She helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research following the death of friend Rock Hudson. Her one-time daughter-in-law, Aileen Getty, was also diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s.
The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation estimates she’s raised $US270 million over her many years of work.
In 1986, Taylor testified before the US Congress on behalf of the Ryan White bill to plead for a funding increase for emergency AIDS care in areas hardest hit by the epidemic.
It is believed she once personally telephoned president Ronald Reagan to demand he attend a public function for HIV/AIDS research, which is thought to have ended his heavily criticised public silence on the subject.
Her 1989 visit to South East Asia’s first AIDS benefit in Thailand and coverage of her visit to AIDS patients at Chulalongkorn University Hospital in Bangkok was also considered a major step in battling the stigma of the disease.
For more information on Elizabeth Taylor’s foundation, visit: www.elizabethtayloraidsfoundation.org
She is an angel as she has left much of her wealth to Aids charaties
She was the most glamourous and also the most attractive female movie star of the classical film era.
Guess she became deeply involved in Aids fundrasing because of her deep frienndship from Rock Hudson.
You only have to watch her in some of her classic films to see what a movie STAR really is. Her support for Rock Hudson shows her true greatness, loving friendship, an inspiration.
The westboro baptist church is apparently planning to picket her funeral, I am normally a tolerant prson but these people disgust me. This woman who has done so much for bring support and acceptance into the HIV crisis should be remembered in peace.
You have to admire a person with such cred as ET had. To come out in support of something most shy away from, to have worked in an industry that she worked in and with many who were openly and closeted gay, in my opinion deserves a standing ovation. The legacy she started will not finish just because she has, it will continue.
Congratulations on a life well lived and for giving back to the community that supported you
It is very sad that such wonderful person who was a great advocate of our rights, supporting us during the hysteria around AIDS, has passed on. Elizabeth Taylor helped our commmunity in so many ways breaking down barriers.