Lecture Date: March 19, 2024
The Jubilation by Silver Companies Lecture
No celebrity rivals Elizabeth Taylor’s glamour and guts or her level of fame. She was the last major star to come out of the old Hollywood studio system, and she is a legend known for her beauty and her magnetic screen presence in a career that spanned most of the twentieth century and nearly sixty films.
But her private life was even more compelling than her Oscar-winning on-screen performances. During her seventy-nine years of rapid-fire love and loss she was married eight times to seven different men. Above all, she was a survivor—by the time she was twenty-six she was twice divorced and once widowed. Her life was a soap opera that ended in a deeply meaningful way when she became the first major celebrity activist to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS. A co-founder of amfAR, she raised more than $100 million for research and patient care. She was also a shrewd businesswoman who made a fortune as the first celebrity performer who always demanded to be paid what she was worth.
In the first-ever authorized biography of the Hollywood icon, Kate Andersen Brower reveals the world through Elizabeth’s eyes. Brower uses Elizabeth’s unpublished letters, diary entries, and off-the-record interview transcripts as well as interviews with 250 of her closest friends and family to tell the full, unvarnished story of her remarkable career and her explosive private life that made headlines worldwide.
Speaker: Kate A. Brower
Kate Andersen Brower is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Residence and First Women, also a New York Times bestseller, as well as Team Of Five, First In Line, the children’s book Exploring the White House, and Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon which is the first authorized biography of the star and includes never-before-seen letters and diary entries written by Elizabeth, who was the most famous actress of the 20th century. The Residence is being made into a television series produced by Shonda Rhimes for Netflix and it is currently in production. Kate covered the Obama administration for Bloomberg News. She is also a former CBS News staffer and Fox News producer. Kate has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. She lives outside of Washington, D.C., with her husband, their three young children, and their wheaten terrier.