(Editor’s Note: Dame Elizabeth Taylor appeared on Larry King’s CNN Show on May 31 to clear up tabloid rumors that she was in extremely poor health and to promote her new jewelry line. During the interview, her first in three years, the reclusive star talked about her friend Rock Hudson and her long effort to help people with AIDS. Taylor said she knew Hudson, her co-star in “Giant,” was gay and they discussed how difficult it was for him being in the closet. She also noted how she secured a mobile unit with a doctor, nurse, and receptionist for people in New Orleans who were totally stranded and for people who couldn’t afford to go around the different states trying to find a doctor after Hurricane Katrina.)

People sat around the dinner party, discussing it [AIDS] and saying, “It’s just awful. Nobody’s doing anything. And the government isn’t doing anything. And I just don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just going to have to -- Maybe it’s God’s way of punishing those people.”

And I heard things like this and got more and more and more furious until I felt -- wait a minute: Here I am, furious, and what am I doing? Nothing. So I called a doctor friend of mine -- Michael Gottlieb -- and I said, what can I do? Is there anything I can do to take some of the stigma off this disease? And he was Rock’s doctor -- I didn’t know about Rock up until then -- and then I went to see Rock and we reminisced about Giant and jokey things like making chocolate martinis and fun things past. We didn’t’ talk about his having AIDS except I asked him once if it hurt. And he was like in another land. He seemed very peaceful. And he kind of went to sleep.

[Larry King: So you’ve kind of lead a movement now, right?]

Well, because nobody was doing anything. I thought, well what the hell am I doing -- nothing! So I moved -- and co-founded the first AIDS foundation -- amFAR [American Foundation for AIDS Research] -- in America, in the world. And with amFAR, of which I’m co-chairman, founding, and with my foundation -- ETAF [Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation]. We’ve raised ... something like ... $270 million dollars.