In the early 1980s, AIDS was literally a laughing matter for the Reagan administration, as evidenced by chilling audio of White House press conferences unearthed in the new short film When AIDS Was Funny. So when Elizabeth Taylor decided to use her fame in the early 1990s to advocate for AIDS victims—famously calling out President George H.W. Bush for ignoring the pandemic (“In fact, I’m not even sure if he knows how to spell ‘AIDS’”)—her task seemed downright daunting and her courage immense. So it shouldn’t particularly surprise us that the powerhouse activist, Oscar-winning actress, and enduring beauty might have taken some business into her own hands while lawmakers stalled on taking the disease seriously.

On World AIDS Day, Taylor’s protégé Kathy Ireland told Entertainment Tonight that she personally witnessed some of Taylor’s most charitable acts of kindness towards the AIDS community. One such generosity: opening up her Bel Air home and, according to Ireland, developing an underground network to procure experimental H.I.V. drugs for patients, much like the one anchoring last year’s awards drama Dallas Buyers Club.

“Talk about fearless in her home in Bel Air,” Ireland said. “It was a safe house. A lot of the work that she did, it was illegal, but she was saving lives. She said her 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.”

Taylor took up the cause for AIDS in 1985—the same year that her friend Rock Hudson died from the disease—personally making phone calls to raise money for research. She remembered that initial outreach during a 1992 interview with Vanity Fair.

“I have never had so many ‘no’s said to me,” she told Nancy Collins. “They didn’t want to come to the evening, didn’t want to be associated. Some very big names [said no].” Some friends told her, “‘Oh, Elizabeth, this is one of your lame-duck causes. Back away from it. It’s going to hurt you.’

“I realized . . . that this town—of all towns—was basically homophobic, even though without homosexuals there would be no Hollywood, no show business! Yet the industry was turning its back on what it considered a gay disease.”

Later in the piece, Taylor considered her importance in the crusade. “I have to show up because it galvanizes people,” she told Vanity Fair. “[They] know . . . I’m not there to sell or gain anything. I’m there for the same reason they are: to get something done.”

To read the complete piece, “Liz’s AIDS Odyssey,” click here.