Barbara Walters had been speaking to Elizabeth Taylor right up to her death Wednesday, she says.
“We were in touch. I thought that she might make it,” Walters told Robin Roberts on Good Morning America.
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Even though Taylor starred in 50 movies, she wanted to be remembered for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Walters added. The movie earned Taylor one of her two Oscars.
Another friend of Taylor’s, New York gossip columnist Liz Smith, says Taylor was “upbeat no matter what” and that she should be remembered for her work against AIDS. Indeed, the family has asked for donations to be made to her AIDS foundation in lieu of flowers.
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Taylor succumbed to congestive heart failure early Wednesday morning at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where she had been undergoing treatment for over a month.
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“She was surrounded by her children: Michael Wilding, Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton,” Taylor’s publicist, Sally Morrison, said in a statement.
“My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love,” her son, Michael, said in a statement to ABC News. “Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts.”
