An early advocate for AIDS research, Krim is the founding chairman of the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Born in Italy and raised in Switzerland, Krim moved to the U.S. in the 1950s when she married her second husband Arthur B. Krim, the head of United Artists and later Orion Pictures. Krim spent several years working in research labs at Cornell and Memorial Sloan-Kettering, where she witnessed some of the first cases of AIDS. In 1983, she leveraged her connections to found the AIDS Medical Foundation, which merged with another organization two years later to become the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR). Krim served as the chairman of the foundation until 2004. She's now an adjunct professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.

Krim remains a legendary figure in the battle against AIDS and continues to campaign for simpler, faster testing for the virus. She's also still waging the fundraising battle, noting that million-dollar-plus donations are scarcer now that AIDS has become a treatable, if not curable, disease. Krim is also credited with luring a lost list of notables to the board of the organization, including Kenneth Cole, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sharon Stone. [Image via Getty]