Laura Archera

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Laura Huxley (née Archera) (November 2, 1911 – December 13, 2007) was a musician, author, psychological counselor and lecturer. Contents [hide]

   * 1 Life and work

   * 2 Film

   * 3 Bibliography

   * 4 Notes

   * 5 References

   * 6 External links

[edit] Life and work

Born in Turin, Italy, Laura Archera began playing the violin at the age of ten, studying in Berlin, Paris and Rome, where she earned a Professor of Music degree. She also studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, played in a major symphony orchestra, played before the Queen of Italy at the age of 14 [1], and performed at Carnegie Hall in her teens.

In 1949, she was working as a freelance documentary filmmaker. According to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Archera called philosopher and author Aldous Huxley at home, saying that John Huston had promised to finance her proposed documentary film on the Palio di Siena if she could get Huxley to agree to write a screenplay. Archera then became close friends with Huxley and his first wife Maria, who died in 1955. In 1956, Archera married Huxley. After his death in 1963, she wrote This Timeless Moment: a personal view of Aldous Huxley (1968), a book describing life with her husband. She wrote several self-help books concerning human relations, including You Are Not the Target (1963) with a foreword written by Aldous Huxley.

In 1977 she founded Our Ultimate Investment (OUI), a non-profit organization dedicated to the nurturing of the possible human, which sponsored a four-day conference entitled Children: Our Ultimate Investment (now also the name of the organization). Huxley has received widespread recognition for her humanistic achievements, including an Honorary Doctorate of Human Services from La Sierra University, Honoree of the United Nations Fellow of the International Academy of Medical Preventics, and Honoree of the World Health Foundation for Development, from which she received the Peace Prize in 1990.

In December 2003, the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health honored her as the 6th recipient of the Thomas R. Verny Award, chosen for outstanding contributions to the field of prenatal and perinatal psychology.[2]

Laura Huxley died of cancer, aged 96, at her Hollywood Hills home.

Film

She was a producer of documentary films, and an assistant film editor at RKO. Huxley appeared in Hofmann's Potion: The Early Years of LSD, a documentary from the National Film Board of Canada.