An "Interview" with Elizabeth Taylor...

On February 27, Elizabeth Taylor turns 75. For the last 20-plus years of that stupendously epic life, Miss Taylor has spent far more time raising money for and awareness about AIDS than making movies or getting married - two things that kept her quite busy during her first 55 years or so.
But hey, what movies! "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" "Giant," "A Place in the Sun," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Suddenly Last Summer," "Raintree County," "Father of the Bride," "National Velvet," "Butterfield 8," "Taming of the Shew," and, of course, "Cleopatra." She won two Academy Awards (five nominations) and received a third Oscar for her humanitarian work in 1993.
And what husbands! Married eight times (egads), she took two trips to the alter with the love of her life, Richard Burton and was widowed by the other love of her life, Oscar-winning producer Mike Todd. She also married actor Michael Wilding, hotel heir Nicky Hilton, singer Eddie Fisher, Sen. John Warner. she gave up on the instituion after divorcing her last husband, Larry Fortensky, 12 years ago.
When AIDS began killing so many gay men, including her close friend and "Giant" co-star Rock Hudson, Taylor organized the first benefits for the disease and helped to found AMFAR. Always respectful of gay rights, she's been relentless in her advocacy and fundraising. I admire and appreciate Elizabeth Taylor greatly.
So in this current world of no-talent celebutantes featured on gossip mags week after week (yawn), how wonderful it is to have Interview magazine turn over virtually its entire February issue as a tribute to this wonderful actress and humanitarian.There are essays, many photos, words of love from fans and friends. Best of all, the issue includes a lengthy interview with Taylor conducted by the magazine's editor Ingrid Sischy. I wanted to share with you some of what she had to say about gay people and about her devotion to fighting AIDS in her own words:
"I didn't know what was going on with Rock, but I knew what was going on in the rest of the world. The artistic world seemed to be more devastatingly hit than other worlds, pehaps because there were more gay people there."
"If it weren't for homosexuals there would be no culture. We can trace that back thousands of years. So many of the great musisians, the great painters were homosexuals. Without their input it would be an entirely different, flat world. To see their heritage, what they had given to the world, desecrated with people saying, 'Oh, AIDS is probably what they deserve" or "It's probably God's way of weeding the dreadful people out," made me so irate. The idea that God would 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. I felt the unjustness of it, that nobody was doing anything, right here in the so-called center of our culture of motion pictures. It is pretty sad."
""The industry knew homosexuals were being hit hard, but instead of extending a loving hand and saying, 'You helped me get to where I am today, without you I wouldn't have made it," they turned their backs....I said, 'Who gives a goddamn about careers when the people, without whom we wouldn't have a career, are dying? People are suffering! "
"We wanted to make it known that you couldn't get it by touching someone, that it was alright to embrace, to kiss someone's face. It was not only okay, it was necessary - it was necessary for their lives. And for us, as human beings, it was necessary because we were becoming a race of animals with no hearts, no feelings."
She spoke up and used her clout when no one else of her fame would. And she keeps doing it, because people are still being infected by HIV every day, right here in L.A.