Los Angeles, Dec 5 (IANS) Actress Elizabeth Taylor’s close friend, model and actress Kathy Ireland, claims that the late icon and AIDS activist ran an AIDS pharmaceuticals ring out of her Bel-Air mansion during the 1980s.
Before her death in 2011 at the age of 79, Taylor founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to fund prevention and education and to direct care and services to people living with AIDS.
According to Ireland, Taylor developed a secret underground network to give experimental HIV drugs to patients similar to the true story in the movie, “Dallas Buyers Club”, reports etonline.com.
“Talk about fearless in her home in Bel-Air. It was a safe house. A lot of the work that she did, it was illegal, but she was saving lives. It was in a time when it was not something to do,” Ireland said.
“Business associates pleaded with her, ‘Leave this thing alone.’ She received death threats. Friends hung up on her when she asked for help, but something that I love about Elizabeth is her courage,” she added.
Since its founding, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of organisations in more than 30 countries.
Taylor got involved with the cause after her friend and actor Rock Hudson died from the disease in 1985.
