Elizabeth Taylor and I share an optometrist.
So of course I asked him about her eyes. Are they REALLY violet??? How can that possibly be?
And he told me no, they aren’t. They are blue, but the red veins are very numerous and visible, so the red and blue combined make her eyes appear to be violet!
Ta. Da.
I coulda told you that fella.
My eyes are strikingly blue, because… well I’m blessed I guess with that ol’ Aryan gene.
So the secret is that she’s just hung-over all the time?
She married that whip Richard Burton, champion boozer.
I thought she had violent eyes.
If I had a signature, that’d be it.
Even for like… bank accounts and living wills.
Many Jews have blue eyes.
Why you bringing Jews into it AGAIN…
Huh. I always just thought she had blue eyes-- I’d have never thought they were violet to begin with. Gorgeous eyes on a gorgeous woman either way, though.
She’s obviously a relative of Black Zero, the alien villain who destroyed Krypton (in one of the most forgotten or ignored Superman stories of the 1960s). Black Zero had purple eyes and a forked tongue. I figure Liz – who is clearly an alien – had her tongue surgically fixed to look more human, since it would have been a fatal giveaway during the filming of National Velvet
I’ve also read she has double eyelashes so I’m surprised he didn’t comment on that too. I think those kinds of odd genetic quirks are interesting.
I realize that Elizabeth Taylor is an uber-famous celebrity, but am i the only person who thinks it was somewhat inappropriate for the optometrist to answer the OP’s question with anything but, “I’m sorry, i can’t discuss that with you”?
Yeah, that - and even acknowledging her as being a patient - sound like serious HIPAA violations to me.
It is not like she had surgery to get her eyes to be violet in color - the doctor was merely stating how Elizabeth Taylor - or ANYONE - can have that eye color. Hardly a secret - and a simple biological fact that probably any eye doctor could have told you.
Well, the fact that she has or has not had surgery is, i think, irrelevant.
As for the rest, you’d have something of a point if the OP had, in fact, asked a general question about how someone’s eyes might appear violet without artifical alterations. But the OP tells us specifically that her optometrist is also Liz Taylor’s optometrist, and that she asked the doctor specifically about the eyes of that one individual.
Here’s a hypothetical that, i think, might put the issue in clearer perspective by removing the celebrity factor.
Say, for the sake of argument, that i am also a patient of this particular optometrist. And say that i had an appointment today, right before the OP. As i was leaving the office and the OP was going in, she sees that my eyes are an unusual violet color. When she gets into the surgery, she says to the doctor, “The last guy who was in here had the most unusual colored eyes. Are they really that color naturally, or did he have something done to them?”
Would it be appropriate, in that case, for the doctor to discuss my situation with the other patient?
Yes, but he gave that answer to a direct question about Taylor personally. Having worked in a hospital for years, though IANAL, I can tell you that a comment like that would have gotten someone on our staff fired.
No, it wouldn’t. But a doctor could say something along the lines of, “I can’t say anything about my other patients’ conditions. I can tell you there are several factors which may affect eye color, including…” The answer must be couched in terms which doesn’t identify an individual with a condition.
There’s another provision of HIPPA about not discussing such matters except as a matter of professional need, so if there is no way that patient’s condition is related to yours, the conversation really shouldn’t take place at all. That’s a pretty blurry line at times, because part of a doctor’s role is as an educator too.
Regardless of whether the OP asked spedifically, or saw a photo of Elizabeth Taylor hanging on the wall in the waiting room, the question of “how can someone’s eyes be violet in color” is hardly a HIPAA violation. It is a biological fact - pure and simple.
Under what law could Ms. Taylor sue him? For stating the obvious?!
If I happened to have the same doctor as Magic Johnson, am I going to be sued if I ask why he is so tall and the doctor teaches me about genetics?
The OP asked why Taylor’s eyes are violet. It sounds from the description that he said something like “well, from looking in her eyes at appointments, I’ve seen that her eyes are blue with lots of veins showing through.” A more appropriate way would be to say, “Well, I couldn’t say anything either way about her eyes, but typically the way violet eyes happen are…” Most medical professionals cannot even acknowledge to others what patients they see (famous or not), even if it is somehow known to the other patients that “this is so-and-so’s doctor.”
Of course, this is slightly different if the care of the patient is promoted to the public (“we’re the official team doctors for X,” for instance), but even then they can’t talk about a particular patient’s care except under approved circumstances.
It’d be like asking a dermatologist about a starlet/patient’s beauty mark and being told something like, “It’s fake” or describing her exact mole and the likelihood of progressing to something nasty. Describing a mole like that and saying what it could be - and how you should always get a mole looked at if it changes shape/size/color - is another matter.
Besides, someone as image-conscious as Taylor (at least, she certainly was at one time) would probably not be thrilled with one of her healthcare professionals telling the world that her irises aren’t violet, but are merely so veiny that it makes her blue eyes look violet. 
So it’s OK for my doctor to hang autographed photos from celebrity athletes in his office (“Thanks, Doctor____, for taking such great care of me!! Your grateful patient, Tiny Johnson”) but if I ask, “Say, Doctor ____, is Tiny Johnson one of your patients?” he is prohibited from answering me one way or another?