Huxley, Laura Archera

Biography

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England; a disease of the eyes permanently weakened his vision at age 16, disrupting his plan to enter the medical profession; BA, Balliol College, Oxford, 1916; employed by the British government during World War I; schoolmaster at Eton College, 1917-19; staff member of Athenaeum and Westminster gazette, 1919-24; published his first novel, Chrome yellow, in 1921; went on to write Point counter point (1928), Brave new world (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and Island (1962), among others; was a prolific writer of essays, poetry, criticism, and screenplays; received D. Litt. from University of California in 1959; died on November 22, 1963 in California.

Laura Huxley was born on November 2, 1911 in Turin (Torino), Italy. Laura studied violin since the age of ten, and as a teenager, continued her studies of the instrument in Berlin, Paris, and Rome. She eventually toured Europe and the United States, performing at Carnegie Hall and further pursuing her music study at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia.

During World War II, Laura decided to remain in the United States and live with her close friend --- sister to Ernest Hemingway's second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway --- Virginia Pfeiffer. Laura Huxley's study in psychotherapy, health, and nutrition was prompted by Virginia Pfeiffer's diagnosis of cancer in 1949. Before her studies and career in well-being, psychology, and health, Laura Huxley worked in Hollywood. Aldous Huxley and his first wife, Maria, met Laura Archera in 1948 while living in Wrightwood, California. In 1955, Maria Huxley died of breast cancer. One year after Maria's death, Aldous and Laura were married in Yuma, California. Together, they moved into a home in Hollywood Hills on Deronda Drive. After their house and most of Aldous's personal manuscripts and library were burned in a fire on May 12, 1961, the couple moved in with Virginia Pfeiffer and her two adopted children.

In 1959, before the fire, Aldous Huxley presented a series of lectures at the University of California, Santa Barbara called "The Human Situation." In 1961, Huxley repeated a variation of "The Human Situation" in a lecture series he presented at M.I.T. when he was the Carnegie Visiting Professor in Humanities. Huxley also spoke on "Human Potentialities" at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. In 1960, Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. Aldous Huxley wrote and published his last novel, Island, in 1962. He died on November 22, 1963, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

In 1963, Laura published her book, You Are Not the Target . She also offered psychological health and well-being guidance in the form of workshops and seminars to various groups and individuals in Southern California. Laura went on to publish a personal account of her life with Aldous in a book titled This Timeless Moment in 1969. Her later publications include Between Heaven and Earth: Recipes for Living and Loving (1974), Oneaday Reason to be Happy (1986) and The Child of Your Dreams (1987), co-authored with her nephew, Piero Ferrucci. In 1977, she founded a non-profit organization called, "Our Ultimate Investment" (OUI) which later became "Children: Our Ultimate Investment." The organization sponsored conferences on the topic of "the nurturing of the possible human" in 1978 and 1994. Among the awards and acknowledgments given to Laura Huxley in her life are an Honorary Doctorate in Human Services from La Sierra University and the Thomas R. Verny Award from the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health in December of 2003. Laura Huxley died of cancer on December 13, 2007 in her Hollywood home.

From the guide to the Aldous and Laura Huxley papers, 1925-2007, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)