One of the biggest stars in Hollywood history, Elizabeth Taylor, died today at the age of 79. Taylor won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, once for Butterfield 8 and later for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Her exceptional beauty and her turbulent private life made her one of the most publicized stars of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. She put her fame to good use as the first major celebrity to stand up for AIDS awareness and research, after having lost her friend Rock Hudson to the disease. She devoted much of the last years of her life to raising funds for AIDS research, and deserves a lot of credit for that. RIP.
