Laura Archera Huxley, 96; Self-help Author

In 2003, Mrs. Huxley received an honor from the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health for outstanding contributions to the field.

Laura Archera Huxley, whose father was a stockbroker, was born Nov. 2, 1911, in Turin, Italy. She developed a talent for violin at age 10 and said she used her skills "as a way for me to leave home."

She studied music in Berlin and Paris and spent a dozen years as a concert violinist, including a 1937 performance of a Mozart concerto at Carnegie Hall.

She also attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in the late 1930s and remained in the United States during World War II, eventually settling in Southern California.

Her interest in psychotherapy, parapsychology and other forms of mind-opening techniques came about by accidental necessity, she said. She began to read up on alternative medicines after orthodox methods failed a good friend suffering from cancer.

"What was there to know, I found myself wondering, about constitutional differences?" she wrote in the reference book "Contemporary Authors." "How much does the mind influence the body -- and the body the mind? What about suggestion -- and autosuggestion -- and animal magnetism?"

In Hollywood, she found work as a film editor at RKO studios and also tried to pursue a career as a documentary film producer in the late 1940s. One project was about the Palio horse race in Siena, Italy, and she sought guidance from writer-director John Huston, who advised her to call Aldous Huxley, who had spent time in Italy and was living in the desert near Los Angeles.

She said Huxley welcomed her friendship, and they married a year after his first wife's death from cancer, in 1955. She said he proposed to her twice in obscure fashion, first asking, "Have you ever been tempted by marriage?" and then "Do you think it might be amusing to travel to Yuma and get married at the drive-in?"

She wrote a tender memoir of her life with Huxley called "This Timeless Moment" (1968) that tried to dispel the perception of him as a "cynical intellectual" from his "Brave New World" days.

Her other books included a self-help sequel, "Between Heaven and Earth" (1975), and "The Child of Your Dreams," (1987), about the formative moments of a young life. The second was co-authored with her nephew, Piero Ferrucci, a psychologist.

Survivors include Karen Pfeiffer, whom she raised, of Van Nuys, Calif.; and a granddaughter.

Laura Huxley was a devotee of yoga, the trampoline and natural foods. She wrote a book, scheduled for online publication, called "Let's Die Healthy."