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Liza Minnelli recalls the birth of Elizabeth Taylor’s AIDS activism: “She was a doer. … She was always helping somebody.
At 65, Liza Minnelli is in terrific form and seems to be in a good place personally and professionally.In a new interview with the UK’s Daily Mail, it’s no surprise that she doesn’t want to talk about creepy ex-husband David Gest but I am a little surprised that she’s tired of being asked about her mother, the late Judy Garland.
But she speaks lovingly of the late Elizabeth Taylor who died in March at the age of 79 saying she lives her life based on a philosophy she learned in part from Miss Taylor: ‘What I try to do now is live today in a way that won’t give me regrets tomorrow.’“Daddy [Vincente Minnelli] directed her in Father Of The Bride in 1950, when I was four, and she was great to me. Elizabeth was just a regular girl. The reality was that she was part of an era when movie stars were working actors. They didn’t parade around town all day with two wolfhounds on the end of a leash. She went to the studio. She went to work. She did her job.”
“Elizabeth had so much energy, and she was always doing something for somebody. I’ll give you an example. Rock Hudson came with me to a dinner in her honor. She drew me aside at one point and said: “Oh my God! What’s wrong with Rock? He looks awful.” I explained that there was this new disease. Nobody knew what it was exactly, but I had friends in New York who were suffering from it and there was no cure. The next day, she called me. “What did you say this disease was?” And so her AIDS charity, amfAR, was born. That was Elizabeth for you.
“Elizabeth had so much energy, and she was always doing something for somebody. I’ll give you an example. Rock Hudson came with me to a dinner in her honor. She drew me aside at one point and said: “Oh my God! What’s wrong with Rock? He looks awful.” I explained that there was this new disease. Nobody knew what it was exactly, but I had friends in New York who were suffering from it and there was no cure. The next day, she called me. “What did you say this disease was?” And so her AIDS charity, amfAR, was born. That was Elizabeth for you.“She was a doer, with such a vibrant personality, and such a love for life. She had a face she presented to the public but another in private for her friends. When she stopped working, she had a life. It’s an example I’ve always followed.”
Liza saw Elizabeth a few months before she died in March.
“Elizabeth was one of those people who you were sure would survive anything, for the very good reason that she always had. It never crossed my mind that this would be her final illness. So I thought: “Oh, she’s going to be fine.” Except that she wasn’t.”
Added Liza: ‘What a life! I smile now as I think of her. She was the last of an era, the end of a tradition that died with her. And look what she did for people. She was always helping somebody. You won’t ever get depressed if you’re helping somebody else. Elizabeth taught me that. And that’s the side of her I hope people will come to know better.”
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