Elizabeth Taylor and actor Rock Hudson at the 1985 Golden Globes Awards ceremony.
Excerpted from the book Queers In History, via Google Books:
When Rock Hudson died on October 2, 1985, his close friend Elizabeth Taylor expressed the feelings of many when she said, “I love him. He is tragically gone. Please God, he has not died in vain.” Hudson, a major star of film and television for over thirty years, was the most popular public figure to die of AIDS-related illness at the time.
Taylor would go on to found the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or AMFAR.
