Happy 76th Birthday, Elizabeth Taylor...

...the legendary actress and activist is still going strong and that is a good thing for us all. With HIV-AIDS still a major problem here and everywhere despite advances in treatment, Dame Elizabeth continues to fight the good fight and raise millions for research and care as she has done for 25 years. The photo at right is from mid-December when Elizabeth took to the stage for the first time since the early 80s for a benefit performance of "Love Letters" with James Earl Jones.

She's had an epic life with seven husbands (including Richard Burton twice), four children, many grandchildren, two best actress Oscars, a humanitarian Oscar, and has been named a Dame of the British Empire, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honors and the AFI Award.

Then there are those 50-plus movies including such classics as "Giant," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "A Place in the Sun," "Raintree County," "National Velvet," "Father of the Bride," "Suddenly Last Summer," and my fave "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (that's her with gorgeous leading man Paul Newman, above).

And she's always been a friend of gays dating back to her youth and her close friendship with Montgomery Clift as well as with her "Giant" co-stars Rock Hudson and James Dean. She also had a life-long friendship with Roddy McDowell who she met on one of her first films, "Lassie Coime Home."

There really ain't nothing like this Dame...