Amfar
amfAR to Host First-Ever Star-Studded Virtual Gala.
February 18, 2021
On Thursday, March 4, 2021, amfAR will be live-streaming its first ever virtual fundraising gala, A Gala for Our Time.
During the fast-paced, celebrity-packed event, amfAR will honor Dr. Anthony Fauci and Glenn Close for their significant contributions to the fight against AIDS.
Presnters will include Julia Roberts, Billy Porter and Bette Midler. The virtual Gala will feature must-see performances by Kelly Clarkson, Ava Max and Rita Ora. This free event will benefit the amfAR Fund to Fight COVID-19.
More information can be found here.
On Thursday, March 4, 2021, 8 p.m. EST amfAR will be livestreaming its first ever virtual fundraising gala, A Gala for Our Time. During the fast-paced, celebrity-packed event, amfAR will honor Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. and Glenn Close for their significant contributions to the fight against AIDS. The virtual Gala will feature must-see performances by Kelly Clarkson, Ava Max, and Rita Ora.
This free event will be available to view here at www.amfarvirtualgala.org and will benefit the
amfAR Fund to Fight COVID-19.
HONOREES
We are honoring Glenn Close and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. with the amfAR Award of Courage
for their exceptional contributions to improving and enriching our lives.
Glenn Close, a longtime philanthropist, and seven-time Academy Award nominee made her feature film debut in The World According to Garp, earning her first Oscar nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs—for which she was also co-screenwriter, producer, and lyricist on the Golden Globe-nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down”—and most recently for The Wife. For her performance in The Wife she won Golden Globe, SAG, Independent Spirit, and Critics’ Choice Awards as Best Actress. In 2020 she gave an unforgettable performance in amfAR’s virtual production of The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angles in America. She can currently be seen in Hillbilly Elegy, directed by Ron Howard. For her performance she has been nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG Award as Best Supporting Actress.
Close made her theater, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince’s revival of Love for Love. Her theater credits include The Crucifer of Blood, Tony Award-nominated Barnum, and Tony Award-winning performances in The Real Thing, Death and the Maiden, and Sunset Boulevard. She reprised her role in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway in 2017 in a special production and starred in The Mother of the Maid at the Public Theater in 2018. For World AIDS Day 2020 Close participated in a reading from The Inheritance, a Broadway play about gay life in the early 21st century in the wake of the AIDS crisis, envisioned by playwright Matthew López as a video version of an AIDS quilt.
Starting in 2007, Close headlined the legal thriller Damages for five seasons, winning two consecutive Best Actress Emmys. Her 14 Golden Globe nominations include a Best Actress Award for The Lion in Winter. Among her 14 Emmy nominations is also a Best Actress Award for Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which also earned her a Peabody Award as executive producer.
Close has long supported issues affecting the LGBTQ community and mental health. In 2010, she co-founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity dedicated to ending the systemic stigma and discrimination around mental illness. The organization’s top priority is the establishment of stigma-free Bring Change to Mind High School clubs around the nation, with 400 clubs currently active. Close also has sponsored dogs for Puppies Behind Bars. She is a trustee emeritus of the Sundance Institute, having served as a board member for 16 years
.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio focused on infectious and immune-mediated diseases. As the long-time chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, Dr. Fauci has made many seminal contributions in basic and clinical research and is one of the world’s most-cited biomedical scientists. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.
Presenters
Bette Midler 
Julia Roberts
