Born in 1911, Laura Archera lived and moved in the universe of the violin from the age of ten.  She was a child prodigy, leaving school at the age of fourteen to study the violin and even performed for the Queen of Italy at that young age.  She studied in Berlin, Paris and Rome, where she earned a Professor of Music degree at the age of 21.

Laura made her American debut at Carnegie Hall, playing Mozart’s violin concerto n.5 and continued her music education at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia

While studying in America, World War II broke out and Italy joined the Axis Powers.  With the Nazi bombings of civilian ships, Laura was stranded in the United States as an “enemy alien,” and lived with Virginia Pfeiffer, the sister-in-law of Hemingway.  They remained friends until Virginia’s death in 1973.  Laura later stated that she felt she had “never been treated so well” in her life as during that time.  She played in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1944 until 1947, at which time she left the world of music and worked as a film editor for RKO.  She met her future husband, Aldous Huxley, when she asked him to write a film based on the Palio, a historic Italian Horse Race in Siena, Italy.  The film was never made but they became great friends.

In 1949 the multi-talented Laura turned her attention to the field of psychology.

During the fifties Laura worked as a psychotherapist, a lecturer, and a seminarist of the Human Potential Movement, in which she remained involved until the day she died.

In 1956, a year after his first wife Maria’s death, Laura became both Aldous’ wife and his muse.  Aldous’ eclectic circle of friends embraced the newlyweds and the Huxley home became the center for the artistic and intellectual avante garde of 1950’s Hollywood.  Their tradition of Saturday lunches included many famous expatriates like Christopher Isherwood, George Cukor, Yehudi Menuhin, Igor Stravinsky, Gerald Heard, and Ernest Hemingway’s sister-in-law, Ginny Pfeiffer.

Together Laura and Aldous explored ways of opening the mind to new levels of consciousness and became prominent pioneers of the Psychedelic Movement, always advocating the use of psychedelics in a controlled environment for personal enrichment and always warning against the dangers of the mindless and indiscriminate use of drugs.

While married, Aldous wrote Island and Laura wrote You Are Not The Target, both of which became national bestsellers. Throughout her life and out of her dedication to the Human Potential Movement she wrote a number of other books including, Between Heaven and Earth, One A Day Reason To Be Happy, and The Child of Your Dreams.

Laura Huxley passed away in 2007.