Elizabeth Taylor – AIDS Activist

Although I am a “Celebrity Scribe” I’m not interested in fluff or gossip. I’m all about seeking, understanding and incorporating important lessons into my life.

I invite you to read this post about the iconic movie star, Elizabeth Taylor, who died on March 23, 2011. Perhaps you were never particularly enamored with her, but I suggest you read this with a different set of eyes, a different perspective. Think of her life as a 79-year-old treasure map that offers up a bountiful trove of wisdom that might be useful in your own life.

After watching a few scenes from her old movies, some black and white news clips, several interviews she did with famous journalists over the decades, and footage of her testifying before Congress on behalf of AIDS research, I came away with a greater understanding and appreciation for the extraordinary woman Elizabeth Taylor was.

She experienced extraordinary highs and devastating lows. She was married eight times to seven men; she had four children, one of whom she adopted with Richard Burton; she survived numerous brushes with death, had about twenty major operations; made more than fifty films, and earned two Academy Awards.

This video about Elizabeth Taylor is narrated by another legend, Paul Newman, who co-starred with her in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Her impressive jewelry collection, which was mostly given to her by the men in her life, was reportedly worth $150 million. It included the 33.19 carat Asscher-cut Krupp Diamond that Richard Burton bought for her in 1968, and a 69.42 carat diamond called the Taylor-Burton Diamond, that was cut from a stone weighing 240.80 carats.

Knowing how much Elizabeth Taylor loved Richard Burton I was surprised to learn that at an auction to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, she removed an emerald and diamond ring from her hand saying the ring was her engagement ring from Burton.

“Please know that it is not easy for me to give it away. It is only my commitment to AIDS that persuaded me to let it go. My love is inside that ring forever.”

Elizabeth Taylor

That gesture is a testament to the greatest legacy Elizabeth Taylor leaves behind as an advocate and activist for HIV/AIDS patients.

Her Humanitarianism

Elizabeth learned about the rarely-talked-about disease when Carrie Fisher brought her attention to how gaunt their friend Rock Hudson looked. In those early days there was a stigma attached to what was perceived as strictly a sexually-transmitted disease, so when Hudson was diagnosed in June 1984, his publicist and doctors told the public he had inoperable liver cancer. It wasn’t until July 1985, while in Paris, that he issued a press release and admitted he was dying of AIDS.

Elizabeth said, “I kept seeing all these news reports on this new disease and kept asking myself why no one was doing anything. Then I realized I was just like them. I wasn’t doing anything to help.”

She first took on the AIDS problem in December 1984, when a 13-year-old hemophiliac Ryan White from Indiana was diagnosed with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment. Because of the lack of education available to the public, everyone became paranoid about contracting the disease, and Ryan’s school banned him from returning. The lengthy legal battle that ensued thrust Ryan into the national news.

In 1985 she became the Founding National Chairman of amfAR, which is The Foundation for AIDS Research, and in 1991 she founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

She lent her voice to the voiceless, her iconic image to those who had previously been invisible, and her compassion and determination to a cause many had shunned. Her willingness to speak out against apathy and silence in the early, frightening days of the epidemic, and her instinctive sympathy for those in need, earned her a place as one of the most influential advocates for people living with HIV in the U.S. and around the world.

Also, because AIDS was thought to be a “homosexual problem” it was largely ignored by policy makers, so in 1986, Elizabeth Taylor went before Congress and publicly chastised the Ronald Reagan administration.

I am not here in Washington to have people like me. I am here to talk about a national scandal of neglect, indifference, and abandonment. I will not be silenced, I will not give up, nor I will not be ignored. It’s my life now and it will be until there’s a cure.”

Elizabeth was referring to Senator Jesse Helms’ strong opposition to federal financing of AIDS research and treatment to help those who were suffering. Helms’ ignorance and religiously-based bigotry were obvious when he opposed the (Ted) Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988 stating, “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.”

I shudder to think how much damage was done by Jesse Helms’ narrow-minded thinking during his five terms as senator.

To everyone’s amazement Ryan White lived five more years until April 8, 1990. During that time Elizabeth expended a great deal of time and effort to keep AIDS in the forefront of peoples’ minds. She supported the Ryan White Care Act that was passed into law four months after he died—a piece of legislation that provides services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

Elizabeth’s unwavering compassion and outspoken support for the HIV/AIDS community influenced other celebrities to get involved, including her friend Michael Jackson, who dedicated his song, “Gone too Soon” to Ryan White; Elton John who started his own AIDS foundation; and Princess Diana, who made sure the media photographed her hugging AIDS patients.

The Loves Of Her Life

When I heard Elizabeth Taylor had died, I imagined her being happily escorted into heaven by the two men she called the great loves of her life—third husband, film producer Mike Todd, and her fifth and sixth husband, actor Richard Burton.

Mike Todd was 23 years older than Elizabeth and she adored him. They were only married 13 months when Mike’s private plane the Lucky Liz crashed on March 22, 1958, over New Mexico on its way to New York. He was 49 years old.

In a later interview Elizabeth said that she would have been on that plane if she hadn’t had pneumonia. Mike had postponed the trip for three days hoping Elizabeth would get better, but destiny had other plans for her.

Years later, Elizabeth told Barbara Walters, “Mike came upstairs five times to say goodbye, and we held each other and cried. I didn’t sleep that night. He promised to call me from Albuquerque where the plane was refueling and when the call didn’t come at the designated time, I knew.”

LIFE LESSON: We take life for granted until we lose a loved one or our health. We are oblivious to the grand miracle that we get to live each day. The key is not to wait until tragedy strikes to appreciate life. We should treat each day as if it is our last. Don’t dwell on things we can’t change.

Perhaps on some subconscious level Mike sensed something. Just hours before the flight he phoned a few friends, including Kirk Douglas, trying to round up a gin rummy player for the flight. Reportedly he said, “Ah, c’mon, it’s a good, safe plane. I wouldn’t let it crash. I’m taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

At 26 years-old Elizabeth found herself alone with her and Mike’s seven-month-old daughter and her two small sons from her previous marriage to Michael Wilding. Years later, Elizabeth admitted that Mike’s death affected her in a such a self-destructive way that she didn’t care if she lived or died.

As most people know, the grieving widow found comfort in the arms of Mike Todd’s best friend, Eddie Fisher, who was married to Elizabeth’s close friend, Debbie Reynolds. When Eddie divorced America’s Sweetheart and married Elizabeth on May 12, 1959, a little more than a year after Mike’s death, the public’s sympathy turned to ridicule.

“It wasn’t until I almost died from pneumonia five years later, while filming Cleopatra that I realized there must be something I was meant to do in this world, otherwise I would have been on the plane. When I got out of the hospital I looked at everything with a different sense of awareness. All my senses were so much more acute. Ever since then I’ve had a passion for life.”

So did Debbie Reynolds forgive Elizabeth Taylor?

“It was after many years when both of us had remarried,” said Debbie. “I was going to London on the Queen Elizabeth ship, and I looked up and I saw tons of luggage going by me—birdcages, dog cages and nurses, and I realized Elizabeth was on the same ship as me. I almost changed my mind about going, but my husband said, ‘Don’t be silly, we won’t be on the same floor, but of course we were.

“So I sent a note to her room, and she sent a note back saying that we should have dinner and get this over with and have a good time. Because we were very good friends when we were 17 and went to school together on the MGM lot, we had a wonderful evening with a lot of laughs. It was one of those things that happen in life, and you just have to get through it.”

LIFE LESSON: Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. It is absolutely essential to your peace of mind. Resentment and bitterness will only poison your mind, body and spirit.

In 2001, Elizabeth and Debbie, along with Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins, co-starred in a TV movie written by Debbie’s daughter Carrie Fisher called These Old Broads. In a true-to-life scene Elizabeth’s and Debbie’s characters talk about the husband they had in common.

When asked if the movie was cathartic, Debbie Reynolds said: “I got her view point and she got mine. I had warned Eddie when he left that she would throw him out after a year-and-a-half because he wasn’t exciting enough for her. But Eddie was crazy about Elizabeth. He loved her very much. She was the most glamorous star of our generation. Women liked her and men adored her, including my husband.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

– Mark Twain

Elizabeth’s Career

The movie studios capitalized on Elizabeth’s gorgeous blue/violet eyes, her double set of eyelashes, her raven-dark hair and fair skin, casting her most notably as the bride-to-be in the original 1950 version of Father of the Bride with Spencer Tracy; a society girl in A Place in the Sun (1951) with Montgomery Cliff; the Texas rancher’s daughter in the epic, Giant (1956) opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean; Maggie, the sultry, yet sexually-frustrated wife of Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Katharine Hepburn’s niece in Suddenly Last Summer (1958); a call girl in Butterfield 8 (1960) with Lawrence Harvey and Eddie Fisher (for which she won an Academy Award); and an Egyptian Queen in Cleopatra (1963) with Richard Burton that earned her a record-setting contract of $1 million.

And then there was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). It seemed impossible that 32-year-old beauty was chosen to play Martha, a frumpy, drunk in her mid-fifties who engages in vitriolic, verbal taunts with her husband George, played by the actress’s real-life husband Richard Burton. Elizabeth gained 22 pounds for the role; she wore extra padding, make-up that aged her, and a gray-streaked wig. It was a remarkable performance that earned her a second Academy Award.

Years later she said, “I am sincerely not worried about getting old.” Perhaps that’s because Elizabeth nearly died a couple of times and she understood what was truly important.

LIFE LESSON: The more beautiful you are, the more difficult it must be to lose the very thing people admire you for. But Elizabeth Taylor didn’t mind playing such an unflattering part. If we live long enough, we’ll all get old. We must make peace with the idea that beauty is fleeting, and we won’t be taking any material possessions with us when we die. What matters is the richness of our character, the compassion we develop, and the love that we share.

Elizabeth Taylor was a beautiful child who grew into a beautiful woman. Her career began when she was twelve years-old, and she starred in the 1944 movie National Velvet. She playing Velvet Brown, a girl who desperately wants to ride an unruly horse in the Grand National steeplechase.

This clip has beautiful horses, breathtaking scenery, and it is set to the upbeat tempo of Keith Urban’s song, “Days Go By.”

Elizabeth hurt her back doing her own stunt falling off the horse, and she was hospitalized several times during the movie. It was the first of many injuries and illnesses that would plague her over the years.

LIFE LESSON: No one has the perfect life. Even those with unbelievable beauty, brains, money, fame, and success, don’t escape unscathed. We are all someone’s child and often times someone’s parent. We all bleed and we all mourn. Don’t ever be jealous of anyone else. Focus on living your own life in the best way possible.

Rest assured that whatever station of life we are placed, princely or lowly, it contains the lessons and experiences necessary at the moment for our evolution, and gives us the best advantage for the development of ourselves.

– Edward Bach

Thank you Elizabeth Taylor for all that you have contributed to make the world a better world. Your beauty was far more than physical. You were beautiful and strong on the inside as well.