Elizabeth Taylor was one of the best known film stars in the world when she joined the fight against AIDS in 1985, the year her friend and Giant costar Rock Hudson announced he had the disease. In August 1985 she and Michael Gottlieb, the UCLA immunologist who led the CDC's First Reports, incorporated the National AIDS Research Foundation in California to fund research and drug development, launched with a $250,000 gift from Hudson shortly before his death.

In September 1985 their foundation merged with the AIDS Medical Foundation in New York, which researcher Mathilde Krim had founded in 1983 with physician Joseph Sonnabend, activist Michael Callen and others as the first private organization dedicated to raising money for AIDS research. The merged group became the American Foundation for AIDS Research, amfAR. Krim and Gottlieb served as founding chairmen and Taylor as founding national chairman, which made her the organization's principal spokesperson. When Krim called to ask how much she was willing to commit, Taylor…