24/11/2024
Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood legend, is celebrated in a retro post from the magazine Into. The LGBTQIA+ online portal's Henry Giardina looks back at her time as one of the first high profile activists for AIDS research and care, when that syndrome was rocking the gay male community and others in the United States. Taylor—the subject of a new documentary on Max—cofounded The Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) in 1985. Before that, she hosted a dinner that raised 1.3 million for the AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA.) She wouldn’t stay silent about her friends who had already died, and she wouldn’t let her living friends go on suffering in silence. “If it weren’t for homosexuals, there would be no culture,” Taylor once said. “The idea that God should choose his children [to suffer]—his geniuses to whom he had given the talent to make it a different, more beautiful place for us mere mortals—made me so angry.” Rather than act the part of a remote, inaccessible grande dame of old Hollywood, she used her fame and privilege for good. She was hands-on at amFAR, often butting heads with others at the organization who wanted to prioritize finding cures over helping current AIDS patients with food and housing. She visited the Coming Home Hospice in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro district and offered to help patients with whatever they needed, from letters written home to dog walks for their pets, to physical affection and laughter. She spent time on the ground of these wards, and encouraged doctors and nurses not to wear unnecessary layers of PPE or abstain from touching the patients who had been treated for so long like lepers." Celebrate Elizabeth Taylor's humanity and compassion and check out the excellent essay by Henry at https://www.intomore.com/culture/icons/this-vintage-video-shows-the-true...
