The movie industry wasn’t always a friendly place LGBTQ+ person. in most of the 20th In this century, being out, or being outed, was usually career-destroying. But there was a bright light for the community in Hollywood: Elizabeth Taylor, one of the world’s most famous movie stars and one of its most famous women.
“She was the best friend I ever had,” says Tim Mendelsohn, a gay man who worked for Taylor from 1990 until her death in 2011 and is now her co-trustee. her property and its officers Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. In preparation for National Coming Out Day, he says: defender How Taylor created a safe space to go out and her involvement in the fight against HIV and AIDS at a time when few celebrities were involved.
After a brief stint in the film industry as a production assistant, Mendelsohn began working for Taylor at the recommendation of a friend. Although his position with Taylor was unnamed, “I was her right-hand man, I was by her side,” he says.
“Her life was like living in a movie every day,” he says.th The birthday party that took Disneyland by storm. It was also a good situation for gay men who were bullied when they were young.
Related: elizabeth taylor passion
“At some point, I realized I was gay, but the kids on the playground realized I was gay before I did,” he says. He moved from North Carolina to Los Angeles as a child, but found that the kids in Los Angeles were meaner. “I was bullied and made fun of so much… it traumatized me,” he says.
Things got better in high school and college, where I learned that being friends with cute and popular girls gave me some protection. “So I decided to work for the cutest and most popular girl in the world,” he says.
When he started working for Taylor, he had come out to his parents and a few close friends, but he felt fully able to come out to her. “Once you entered Elizabeth’s world, it was a completely safe place,” he says. “Unlike in other worlds, in her world it didn’t matter.”
Taylor is known for her friendships with gay and bisexual men, something Mendelson also noted. She was friends with Roddy McDowall from the time they made the film in 1943. Lassie, welcome home “Montgomery Clift was like her soulmate,” he says.
She also appeared in films based on the works of gay playwrights such as Tennessee Williams. Last summer, suddenly and cat on hot tin roof and edward albee’s Aren’t you afraid of Virginia Woolf? Taylor won his second Academy Award for this film.
And while she was my friend, giant She didn’t become involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS because of co-star Rock Hudson. She was involved for a while, Mendelsohn said, until Hudson’s AIDS diagnosis became public in July 1985. “This community just needed her help,” he said.
For example, when AIDS Project Los Angeles (now APLA Health) was planning its first Commitment to Life fundraising dinner that year, executive director Bill Misenhimer asked Taylor if he wanted to participate, and Taylor said he would not only attend but also help organize the event, Mendelsohn says. “We didn’t get Hollywood on board until it became public that Rock had AIDS,” he points out. Hollywood then joined in, with many celebrities flocking to the event, where Taylor gave an impassioned speech. She was also a frequent visitor to AIDS hospice, Mendelsohn recalled.
Related: 1985: The year the AIDS crisis finally broke its silence
Also in 1985, Taylor co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), focuses on medical research. She also wanted to do something in the field of direct service and advocacy, and founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991 to that end.
Taylor started the foundation with the $1 million she earned from selling her wedding photos to Larry Fortensky. people She wanted the foundation to survive her death, so she left her name and 25 percent of her license fees to the foundation. Mendelsohn said the organization has an “amazing executive director” in Katherine Brown.
Although advances in treatment have enabled many people with HIV to live normal, healthy lives without developing AIDS, Mendelsohn emphasizes that this fight must continue globally. Not everyone has access to or can afford drugs to fight HIV. The same is true for HIV prevention drugs used in pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). “The bottom line is there is no cure,” he points out. And laws that criminalize people with HIV still exist in more than 30 states, and the Taylor Foundation is trying to change that through its HIV Is Not a Crime project.
Although the Trump administration has made deep cuts to HIV and AIDS programs, Mendelsohn declines to speculate on what Taylor might think about current politics. She was willing to work with both Republicans and Democrats to fund the fight, and her husband, the late Sen. John Warner, was also a Republican, but there is now a shortage of moderate talent. She even urged President Ronald Reagan to address the AIDS crisis and speak at an amfAR event. “Elizabeth was just a very down-to-earth woman,” Mendelsohn says.
A new generation is beginning to know Taylor through her work on another Taylor, the song “Elizabeth Taylor,” which appears on Swift’s new album. life of a showgirl, Will love be forever? Mendelsohn points out that Elizabeth Taylor thought each of her eight marriages would last forever.
But while her love life made headlines in the gossip columns and her acting in movies won her praise, he primarily remembers her as a friend and defender. He recalled her speech when she accepted GLAAD’s Vanguard Award in 2000, saying, “There is no gay agenda. It’s a human agenda.”
“We are all human,” he muses. “Elizabeth was a human being too. She always had a childlike sense of wonder. She never got bored. She had a big heart.” He describes her as “spiritually evolved, loving and tough as nails.”
“It was magical,” he says of his time with Taylor. “I had to pinch myself sometimes. Yes, I worked for her, but she was also my best friend and I belonged to her.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
