Elizabeth Taylor Privately Visited AIDS Patients: Report

It turns out Elizabeth Taylor was a queen on the screen and behind the scenes.

According to a new report published by People magazine, Taylor frequently visited AIDS patients in private as well as pursuing her public activism around the disease.

During visits with patients, the actor was reportedly determined to connect with them on a personal level and made her visits all about the patients, which was discovered in the upcoming "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes" on HBO.

Barbara Berkowitz, Taylor's lawyer and co-trustee, told People that the Oscar winner's archive has revealed a number of previously unknown advocacy about her, including these visits.

"With AIDS, she did some of [her advocacy], obviously, public-facing," said Berkowitz. "But one of the things we're finding now as we put together her archive is that she used to visit patients."

She added, "I used to volunteer at Cedar-Sinai in the pooch program with my big golden retriever, and I was assigned to the AIDS unit ... The patients love to hear that I was associated with Elizabeth. And I would call her afterwards to tell her, just [about their] admiration. They were so grateful to her."

Taylor died at age 79 in 2011 from congestive heart failure, but she has left a long and decorated career and legacy as a humanitarian in the LGBTQ community.

"She was happy to be anonymous," said Tim Mendelson, a co-trustee of Taylor's estate and her executive assistant from 1990 onward. "If she showed up for events, obviously that wasn't private. But AIDS was specific because AIDS wasn't sympathetic, and so it needed her face to get people to turn around."

Berkowitz added, "There was always something that she was doing for the better good ... her own path."

To be an early AIDS activist in Hollywood was "very inspiring," she explained about Taylor. "There was no glass ceiling for her. That is her legacy in a lot of ways."

"Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes" hits HBO on Aug. 3.