Dec 16, 12:50 AM EST
Author wife of Aldous Huxley dies at 96By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Laura Archera Huxley, the widow of "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley, who worked to preserve his legacy for nearly half a century after his death while authoring her own books, has died. She was 96.
Huxley died of cancer Thursday night at her Hollywood Hills home, said Karen Pfeiffer, her legal ward, who helps direct Huxley's nonprofit foundation, Children: Our Ultimate Investment.
"She said she was ready (to go) and she was happy about the life she'd lived. She felt complete," Pfeiffer said.
During the seven years of her marriage and for the decades after Aldous Huxley died of cancer in 1963, Huxley explored the vistas of psychotherapy, New Age spirituality, consciousness-raising and natural health regimens.
She and her husband experimented with LSD, Huxley wrote in her memoirs, and well into her 90s she was doing yoga and other exercises.
"She never watched TV without being on the treadmill," Pfeiffer said.
Childless herself, Huxley created her foundation in the 1970s, dedicating it to "the nurturing of the possible human."
The foundation has conducted school seminars in the U.S. and Britain for at-risk teenagers on issues such as anger management and pregnancy prevention.
"Our mission is that every child is loved, respected and prepared for before conception," according to its mission statement.
Born in Turin, Italy, in 1911, Huxley was a violin prodigy who performed at Carnegie Hall as a teenager in the 1940s. She later became a film editor, meeting Huxley and his wife, Maria, in 1948 while trying to interest him in writing a film she wanted to make. The movie never happened, but she became friends with the Huxleys. After Maria died in 1955, Huxley proposed, and they were married the next year.
After Aldous Huxley died, she devoted herself to preserving his writings and legacy.
"It was tremendously important to her," Pfeiffer said.
Huxley wrote several books herself, including a 1963 best-selling self-help guide, "You Are Not the Target," and a memoir of her life with Huxley called "This Timeless Moment."