ELIZABETH TAYLOR OPENS NEW HIV CLINIC AT UCLA

Legendary Actress Cuts Red Ribbon at Opening Ceremony

Dr. Arnold Klein heads campaign to create a fund to support the UCLA AIDS Institute's Clinical AIDS Research and Education Center

Ronald Mitsuyasu and Judith Currier, the directors of the CARE Center at the UCLA AIDS Institute, have long dreamed of opening an off-campus clinic where they and their colleagues could do what they have been doing since the earliest days of the HIV epidemic, which is provide patients with the best possible care—and do so free of concerns about how to cover the cost of that care.

The first step in realizing this dream involved moving to a new, off-campus site, one that is more comfortable, more convenient, and more private than its predecessor. The second step involves raising a $5-million endowment, to ensure that Drs. Mitsuyasu and Currier and their dedicated staff can focus on delivering exceptional care to their many patients, without worrying about covering their overhead costs.

Now, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of their longtime friend and colleague Dr. Arnold Klein, they are on their way to realizing the second part of that dream. Dr. Klein, an internationally respected dermatologist and co-founder of amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, has launched a campaign to raise that $5-million endowment for the CARE Center.

Klein, whose affiliation with UCLA spans several decades, is the prime mover behind the endowment. It was he who put together the endowment’s honorary committee, which is a Who’s Who of famous names in philanthropy, the arts, and industry—a list that includes Wallis Annenberg, Carole Bayer Sager and her husband, Bob Daly, Carrie Fisher, David Geffen, Ambassador James Hormel and his partner, Tim Wu, Sir Elton John, Quincy Jones, Bruce Karatz, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Sherry Lansing and William Friedkin, Shirley MacLaine, Barry Manilow, Holly Pallance, and Mrs. Lew Wasserman. And, perhaps more importantly, Klein has persuaded his old friend Elizabeth Taylor to lend her name to what will henceforth be called the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund for the UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education Center.

Arnold Klein and Dame Elizabeth were good friends long before they helped to bring amfAR into existence, twenty years ago, in the living room of Klein’s Hancock Park home. Taylor agreed to serve as the national chair and official spokesperson for the then-new organization, and she played a very public—and very important—role in calling the nation’s attention to the threat posed by what was, in 1985, a baffing and frightening new virus.

As is his style, Dr. Klein has once again given Elizabeth Taylor the starring role: the endowment that Klein is putting together on behalf of the UCLA CARE Center will bear her name, not his. And, as he did twenty years ago with amfAR, Klein is orchestrating the effort from behind the scenes. He insists he wants no credit; he merely wants to get the job done, and the money raised.

The objective of the $5 million campaign—which was officially launched on November 4, 2005, when Elizabeth Taylor attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new, off-campus quarters of the CARE Center (see photograph)—is to ensure the financial stability if the Center in perpetuity. As Dame Elizabeth noted on that occasion, the patients at the CARE Center receive the best care available anywhere.

The purpose of the Endowment is to allow the staff of the CARE Center to focus on what they do best—which is developing more potent, less toxic treatments for HIV infection even as they provide optimal care to those living with the virus. The UCLA CARE Center still has a way to go to reach our goal of $5 million, but we have made an impressive start through the generosity of members of the honorary committee. For information on how you can contribute to the Endowment, see How to Make a Donation.