Stories of Legacy

Melvin Boozer, you deserve far more recognition that you have ever received.

I recall your memorable speech before the Democratic National Convention in 1980, as you became the first African American and first gay man to be placed in nomination for the Vice Presidency of the United States from the floor of the convention.

We were both activists in Washington in the late 1970s.  Melvin was at my home to come to meetings of the DC Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, but he was mostly committed to other efforts, including the Langston Hughes-Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club.  I hosted a meeting at my home, between the Black lesbian and gay community and the then National Lesbian and Gay Task Force’s Executive Director, Virginia Apuzzo, after he was fired and replaced by Jeff Levy.

In April 1983, Melvin was among those present at my home, when I showed the Black gay men gathered there the CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” with information indicating that Black folks were identified as 20% of AIDS cases.  We were only 12% of the United States’ population. Most of the men gathered there that day, like Melvin, are no longer alive due to AIDS.

Melvin was simply brilliant, really good with words, a good speaker, with evident critical thinking ability.  There is far much more to be said about Melvin …

Somebody should.

Angie Xtravaganza was a Puerto Rican trans performer and the Mother of the House of Xtravaganza.

Her birth family was Catholic, had 13 children, and lived in the South Bronx. Beginning when she was 13 years old, Angie started taking care of other kids who had been rejected by their birth families.  Those kids lived and gathered in Times Square and on the Christopher Street Piers where Angie met Hector “Xtravaganza” Valle.

She started doing drag and performing at Harlem drag balls in 1980 when she was 16.  She and Hector Valle founded the House of Xtravaganza in 1982 when she was 18 years old. It was the first house in the New York ball scene that was primarily Latino and was formed in part because of discrimination against Latino performers in that era.

I am Dominique Jackson, and I played the role of Elektra Abundance in the award-winning television series “Pose” which chronicled the New York drag ball scene.

Timmy Dean Lee recalled, “I miss seeing Angie at the Garage. We took a liking to each other right away when we first met.  My friend Big Lou would introduce us because Angie had admired some of my hand-painted clothing.  It was because of that introduction that I was soon painting clothes for many of the Xtravaganzas, attending the Balls and, on occasion, honored to be asked to be a judge.  The kind, loving but tough Mother Angie.”

Angie, who was known for her keen sense of fashion, was featured in Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris is Burning about the drag balls and the houses that fiercely competed to win the trophies.  The film won its own trophies: the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, and awards at international film festivals in Berlin, Toronto, San Francisco and Seattle, along with Best Documentary Awards from film critics in New York, Los Angeles and from the National Film Critics Circle.

Angie was diagnosed with AIDS in 1991.  Despite her illness, she took care of her kids.

Frank Xtravaganza told Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham: “The last time she went out, it was St. Valentine’s Day. I’d had a date, but he stood me up, and I was bummed out about it. Angie was really sick by then, but she said, ‘Miss Thing, we’re going out.’ She put on make-up and her wig. She wore jeans and a top that showed her belly button, which was about the only place by then that didn’t have KS lesions. She teased up her wig, sprayed it, and we went to the Sound Factory Bar.”

After she died alone in the hospital in 1993, her ashes were sent back to her family in the South Bronx who buried her with her birth name, Angel Segarra, on the plaque.

In April 1993, Angie’s death and the deaths of others featured in the Paris is Burning documentary were written about in a New York Times article titled “Paris Has Burned” featuring Mother Angie on the front page of the Sunday Style section.

In 1995, Michael Cunningham published an article “The Slap of Love” about Angie and about drag performer and house mother Dorian Corey.

As Hector Xtravaganza said to Cunningham:  “She believed in me when I didn’t believe in me.  We all felt that way.  She believed in us.  She was my gay mother, my friend.  She put so much shit in my head, just the slap of love.  And it woke me up.”

My friend Michael Carmine (March 6, 1959 – October 14, 1989) was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn. His mother was the daughter of a Portuguese sales clerk at Tiffany’s on 5th Avenue and her mother was Jamaican. Michael’s father was a blond Northern Italian. He took on the stage name of Michael Carmine while he attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan

Being light skinned, Michael found himself being cast as Puerto Rican. He became involved with the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater company. His big break was a national Levi’s commercial and then guest starred in shows such as MASH, Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice. He also appeared on screen in films including Scarface, Turk 182, Batteries Not Included and Leviathan.

Michael’s last appearance was in the film Longtime Companion, where he played Alberto, a home-bound AIDS patient. The film was completed not long before he passed. The interesting part about that scene was that it was rewritten to reflect the argument Michael and I had only the day before.

Michael and I had met right after he had completed Band in the Hand. We were introduced by Keith Haring at Paradise Garage. We hit it off immediately. Although I was a struggling artist, he hired me as his personal assistant, so that I could create and paint with a bit more ease. He got me involved with La Familia Theater Company, where I directed him in two plays.

We did a great deal of work with the late poet/playwright Miguel Pinero. In fact, Michael would be playing the narrator (a part based on Pinero) in Reinaldo Povod’s play Cuba and His Teddy Bear and playing opposite actors including Robert De Niro, Burt Young and Ralph Macchio. It was at this time, Michael Mann approached him and I about an idea and he wanted me to shadow Pinero for six months to write a script for a film. The project never came to fruition because of Michael’s deteriorating health.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you, my creative brother from another mother. Peace. You went too soon but you left a legacy.

Keeston Lowery was an aide to Portland, Oregon City Commissioner Mike Lindberg in the ’80s and ’90s, at a time where very few LGBT people were out and open in politics. He helped start Right to Privacy PAC, the forerunner to today’s Basic Rights Oregon, one of the earliest political action committees dedicated to fighting for equality for LGBT people.

Keeston acted as a mentor to me when I was a young guy interested in politics in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He encouraged me to be my best. He wrote the recommendation letter which got me the scholarship that helped me get to college, and he was always there with a sound piece of advice for me. He listened patiently to my boy problems and teenage drama, and never failed to calm me down after a break up — which I’m sure was pretty exhausting.

Keeston also went to bat for The City nightclub, an underage LGBT gathering place that was relentlessly persecuted by Portland’s then -homophobic political establishment and police force. He knew how important it was for LGBT kids to have a safe place where we could be ourselves.

He died in 1993 and everyone in politics attended his funeral – Governor Barbara Roberts, Mayor Vera Katz – the list went on and on.  I miss him all the time.  He was a father figure to me, and I wish he was around today, laughing his infectious laugh and giving me a shoulder to lean on.

One thing AIDS took from us was a generation of gay men with decades of collective wisdom and historic memory.  Sometimes, I think that’s the cruelest part of the epidemic — the loss of elders who could have acted as a steadying hand for our community.

Keeston would have relished that role.

My uncle Richard Dominguez was born in Los Angeles, California and resided in Las Vegas, Nevada with his partner Herbert (Burt) Earl Synder for eight years prior to his passing.

Uncle Richard was a graduate of the University of Southern California. He was in management at AT&T and retired after becoming disabled due to AIDS.  He was an animal lover and was dad to his beloved terriers, Cagney and Lacey.

I never really knew my Uncle Richard personally.  He was sort of the distant relative that I knew existed and seen a few times here and there but never really knew untill I turned 16 in 2003.  I came out to my Mom and Dad, and I was very fortunate because I was given love and acceptance.  My Dad (Uncle Richard’s brother) told me that he loved me for who I am.

I don’t remember how long after I told them that my Dad woke me up one weekend and said to get ready.  He didn’t tell me where we were going.  We drove for hours.  My Dad, who is a man of few words, still wouldn’t tell me where we were going after I inquired.  After hours of driving, we finally pulled up to a random house, and that’s when he told me we were visiting my Uncle Richard and Burt.

We sat around, talked, had dinner.  Then my Uncle Richard said he wanted to talk with me privately.  We went to his office and the first thing he said to me was: “Your Dad brought you here, because he loves you.”

I instantly broke down crying.  My Uncle told me that there was no shame in who I was, that yes, life will be hard but that it’s okay to be who I am.  To stand tall as a gay man.  He told me his life, much of which I have forgot after all these years.  He taught me the importance of safe sex.  He said when I get married, he wanted to be there.

Sadly, I never saw my Uncle Richard again after that day.  But we spoke on the phone a few times through the years.

When he died, I felt a certain heartbreak that I hadn’t felt before, or since.  How I wish he was here today; there’s so much I would love to talk with him about.  Funny though, to this day, he’s one of the greatest influences of my life.

I’m Marna Deitch. In 1980, I lost my parents and grandparents from different illnesses within two months.  I was a stage actor in New York City, and I relied on my friends to replace the roots that were just ripped out from me.

We were all young actor/dancer/singers, hanging out at the piano bar with each other and dreaming of accepting our Tony Awards.  One of my co-workers at the restaurant I worked at got very ill. I think it was 1981. At first, they didn’t know what it was that was making him waste away.  And then they attached a name to it: GRID.  Gay-Related Immune Deficiency.

They couldn’t help him.  He died.  It was a mystery.

The next year, they changed the diagnosis name to AIDS. More and more of my close friends were developing symptoms.  Some died quickly, within a few months of diagnosis, and some lingered in a long painful fight. It wiped out the theater community in New York in the early ‘80s, and I lost most of my closest friends.

My high school in Long Island had a big theater department, where a lot of students felt comfortable with coming out, but we stayed friends after graduation.  Paul and Steve were together in a monogamous relationship.  One night they decided explore opening up their relationship, and they did, only that one night.  I can’t remember who died first, but they both died within two years of that one night … and because of that one night.

Of all these losses, one of the most painful was that of Gene, one of my closest friends who disappeared for six weeks and was subsequently found floating in the Hudson River down by the World Trade Towers. George had been Gene’s lover of six years and our friendship went back to high school, where he was my date to prom.

Shortly after Gene’s death, George said to me, “You’re moving to California, aren’t you?” and he asked if he could come with me. I immediately said yes.

“How’d you like to go by motorcycle?” he asked.

I thought he was crazy.  Neither one of us had even been a passenger on a bike!  But I thought, what the hell, let’s do it. We were empty from all the losses.  We had to do something dangerous to bring life back into us.

We took a few lessons and somehow passed our motorcycle road tests. The next day, we bought bikes, packed up and left New York City six weeks later.  We left, even though George’s best friend from elementary school, Andy, was battling AIDS.  And once we were on the road, I noticed that George wasn’t doing well. He was always tired.

We had planned to camp out on the road, but now he wanted to stay in motels.  When we reached Texas, George decided he would head back to New York. I decided to go on to California by myself. And I got to California. By that summer, I turned around to ride back to New York. I wanted to see Andy before he passed, knowing that he was getting bad. But I didn’t make it, he died when I was in Colorado.

And then, soon after, I lost my very closest friend, Kenny.  The AIDS went to his brain, causing him to become paranoid. To this day, Kenny’s death was the hardest for me, even harder than the deaths of my parents.  It was Kenny who got me through my parents’ funerals and the grief that followed. And now he was gone.

At the March on Washington, D.C. in 1987, I was there for the unfurling of the Names Project and found the quilts for friends who I had lost touch with and were now dead.  I left California for a six-week motorcycle road trip and returned home to discover that I lost more friends from AIDS, men who weren’t even sick when I had left.

What I didn’t know on first that cross-country motorcycle trip from New York to California was that George was HIV positive.  He had only two or three more years to live.  I still have that motorcycle and I had George’s initials painted onto the tank.

But I feel like that motorcycle was their last gift to me. My parents, George, Gene, Kenny, Steve, Paul — it’s like they all said that they weren’t going to be here with me to share my life, so they were going to give me this incredible life to live.

Because of their gift, I have now traveled cross country five times by motorcycle, twice up to the Arctic circle and back, and flew to Hawaii where I rented a bike and road around the Big Island, in order to finally say I have rode my bike through all 50 states.

I have gotten so much recognition because of the motorcycle, which only came into my life because of this pain and loss.  I miss them all greatly.  But I also know this life I live is because of them and a tribute to them.

Elizabeth Taylor was one of the preeminent film actresses of all time: the winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actress, a five-time Oscar nominee, as well as the recipient of the French Legion of Honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal and the 1993 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

Married eight times, including twice to Welsh actor and frequent co-star Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor was the first actress to be paid $1 million for a movie role, assembled one of the world’s most valuable private collections of jewelry, and amassed a fortune in the fragrance business.

Some of her best-known films include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Butterfield 8, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, National Velvet, A Place in the Sun and Suddenly Last Summer (both with friend Montgomery Clift), and Giant, in which she formed a lasting friendship with co-star Ruck Hudson. Both Clift and Hudson were gay but had never publicly acknowledged their homosexuality.

In 1985, Elizabeth leveraged her super-stardom to raise money for and garner attention to the cause of AIDS research, education and advocacy.  1985 was the year in which Rock Hudson died of AIDS and her former daughter-in-law, Aileen Getty, was diagnosed with HIV.  In that same year, Elizabeth served as Chair of AIDS Project Los Angeles’ Commitment to Life fundraiser, which raised over $1 million.  But the fundraising didn’t come easy and lots of her friends refused to lend support.

Recalling that effort, she said: “I realized … that this town — of all towns — was basically homophobic, even though without homosexuals there would be no Hollywood, no show business!  Yet the industry was turning its back on what it considered a gay disease.”

In the same year, she and Hudson’s doctor, Michael Gottlieb, formed the National AIDS Research Foundation with $250,000 in initial funding from Rock Hudson’s estate. Later that year, it merged with Dr. Mathilde Krim’s AIDS organization to form the American Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR. She served as its Founding National Chairman and leading spokesperson, bringing worldwide attention to the fight against AIDS, expanding its reach from American to international efforts, and raising huge sums of money for the cause.

Appearing in the American capital to advocate for expanded federal funding for research about HIV and AIDS, the famously outspoken Elizabeth pulled no punches: “I’m not here in Washington to make people like me.  I’m here to speak about a national scandal, a scandal of neglect, indifference and abandonment.”

In 1991, the same year her personal secretary took his own life after receiving an AIDS diagnosis, she created The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to fund direct AIDS services.

I’m Sharon Stone.  When Elizabeth was unable to attend an event in 1995 for amfAR, little did I know that it would be the start of a decades-long commitment to follow in her footsteps and carry on the fight for education, treatments and a cure to HIV and AIDS.

She famously quipped, “It’s bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.”

My friend Elizabeth died in 2011.  Former President Bill Clinton observed: “Elizabeth’s legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired.”

I’m Torie Osborn, telling the story of the “No on 64” campaign against the heinous 1986 proposition to quarantine people with AIDS, put on the California ballot by right-winger Lyndon LaRouche.

Remember, that was during the dark time when AIDS was still new, all the urban gay and bi-men were at risk, there was zero treatment, and the general population still thought it was transmitted in the air, if not by mosquitos.  Early polling showed a potential big win for Prop 64 – largely due to the fear and misinformation out there.  Seventy percent of the electorate was undecided.  But our community rallied, and in four short months, we won the day.

Our campaign consultant was David Mixner – the best in the biz in our world.  He’d headed up the “No on 6” campaign in 1978 against the Briggs Initiative to fire gay teachers.  I was Southern California Campaign Coordinator for “No on 64,” and Dick Pabich (R.I.P) was my counterpart up north. Co-chairs of the campaign were Harry Britt and Diane Abbitt.  So many who are now gone were key spokespeople, such as Rob Eichberg, Randy Klose, Duke Comegys, Bruce Decker, Peter Scott, Jean O’Leary.

We’d learned from Prop 6 that to win, we needed both the volunteer-driven, grassroots mobilization arm and the paid professional campaign, so “Stop LaRouche” worked alongside “No on 64” campaign — we were tightly coordinated.  It was run by Ivy Bottini, Lee Werbel, Phill Wilson, and others.

AIDS phobia was so widespread that at the start of the campaign, no mainstream liberal groups – except the docs and nurses — were with us, except the Southern California ACLU chapter, and a few random Hollywood straight types, like Paul Newman. But we mobilized like crazy.

In four short months, we raised over $2 million, 90% of which came from our own community, and mounted a professional, bi-partisan campaign that ended up winning 71% of the vote in November.

We had hundreds of House Parties and a thousand volunteers who spoke at every civic club and community group and Dem Club around the state. By the last month, every single slate card, every labor union, everyone was with us.  And every voter in California – including every Republican! – received a strong “NO on 64” mailer.

That 71% victory belonged to our entire LGBTQ+ community that rose up en masse to forge a victory out of the agony of AIDS, and, in the course of it, firmly established ourselves, alongside medical experts, as trusted spokespeople on the issue of HIV and AIDS.

Pedro Zamora’s bravery and commitment to AIDS advocacy engaged and educated TV audiences around the world.  Pedro was a cast member on Real World: San Francisco from 1993 to 1994.  I’m Wilson Cruz, and hardly a day goes by that I don’t remember Pedro’s courage and dedication.

On Real World: San Francisco, Pedro was one of the first openly gay people with AIDS that many people ever saw on TV.  Simultaneously, on My So Called Life, I was the first openly gay actor playing an openly gay character in a series regular role on American TV.  And to this day, Pedro still inspires me as an actor, as a man, and as an activist.

Pedro Zamora was the youngest of eight children living in Havana, Cuba when his parents decided to emigrate to Florida as part of the highly-publicized Mariel Boat Lift in 1980.  Pedro was an honor student, captain of the cross-country team and President of the Science Club at his high school where he was voted Best All Around and Most Intellectual.  But at 17 years old, Pedro learned he was HIV positive after donating blood at a blood drive.

His HIV-positive diagnosis propelled him to become a full-time AIDS educator, so that other young people could learn what he was never taught.  This led to hundreds of speaking engagements; a front page article about him in the Wall Street Journal; appearances on major talk shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and Phil Donahue; and testimony before the U.S. Congress on AIDS education.

Producers of the Real World wanted to cast an HIV-positive person.  Being cast on the series gave Pedro his biggest platform for AIDS education and won him fans all over the world.  Audiences watched how his HIV status affected his relationships with housemates and his health.  They celebrated his commitment ceremony with partner Sean Sasser, which was the first such ceremony in the history of television.

But about midway through the taping of the series, Pedro’s health began to decline, but he told producers that he wanted them to tell his story until the end.  When the stress from his conflict with a homophobic housemate, Puck Rainey, led Pedro to want to move out of the Real World house, his other housemates instead voted to evict Rainey.  Time magazine ranked that episode #7 of the top 32 most epic episodes in reality TV history.

In late June 1994, the Real World: San Francisco began to air on MTV.  At a cast reunion party only two months later in August, Pedro’s progressing illness was evident.  He was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a disease that causes brain lesions, and also a rare and often fatal virus that causes inflammation of the brain.  Doctors estimated that he had 3-4 months to live.

In September 1994, he was transferred to a hospital in Miami near his family.  With the help of the U.S. government, the remainder of his family was allowed to move to the U.S., so that they could be with Pedro before he died.  MTV paid for his medical costs, because Pedro was unable to get health insurance due to having a pre-existing condition.

Pedro Zamora died of AIDS at age 22, the morning after the final episode of the show was broadcast.

A memorial fund, youth clinic, a public policy fellowship, a youth scholarship fund and a street in Miami are named in Pedro’s honor.  He was one of the 50 people first included on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor as part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument in the U.S. dedicated to LGBTQ history.

Reflecting on Pedro’s death, President Clinton reminded us, “We must remember what Pedro taught us:  One person can change the world — and whether or not we are living with HIV or know someone who is, we all have a responsibility as global citizens to do whatever we can.  Life is short enough as it is.  No one should die from a disease that is both preventable and treatable.”

Paul Monette was my mentor. We met in 1990 when I first moved to Los Angeles.  It was the height of the AIDS epidemic and PauI was one of the era’s most insightful and accomplished voices. I was just beginning my academic career.  Mutual friends in the arts and AIDS activist communities introduced us.  While we were a generation apart we were kindred spirits and forged a quick and easy friendship that lasted until his death in 1995.

I was the first scholar to take his work seriously, something that came easy to me given the beauty and power of Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog and Borrowed Time: an AIDS Memoir, his late 1980s masterpieces, books I would teach in my undergraduate courses and write about in academic journals.

Here’s an excerpt from his memoir Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, which he wrote during the AIDS years.  It gives you a sense of his passion and purpose:

“But the fevers are on me now, the virus mad to ravage my last 50 T-cells.
It’s hard to keep the memory at full dazzle with so much loss to mock it.
Roger gone, Craig gone, Cesar gone, Stevie gone.
And this feeling that I’m the last one left in a world where only the ghosts still laugh.
But at least they’re the ghosts of full-grown men,
proof that all of us got that far, free of the traps and the lies.
And at that moment on the brink of summer’s end,
no one would ever tell me again that men like me couldn’t love.”

Paul was full of passion and immensely loyal to those he befriended.  He was drawn to my commitment to his legacy and to AIDS awareness in general, and grateful for my efforts to make his work accessible to a younger queer generation.  He was funny, smart, gossipy, flirtatious, curious, fully present in the moment — which is to say that he was fully alive except, of course, that he was living with AIDS.  He looked out for me, affirming my life choices in ways I very much needed at the time.  I saw him as a tribal elder, some full of wisdom, experience and generosity.

His triumphant moment, when his memoir Becoming a Man won the 1992 National Book Award, remains a milestone in LGBTQ history. I will always remember the joy the recognition offered him and the pride he felt for the various communities he was honored to represent.

We had a very tender inter-generational dynamic, made all the more immediate given his health challenges.

Were we friends? I wasn’t inner-circle by any means, but we spent time together during his final years.  He single-handedly took it upon himself to help me get hired at Yale University, his alma mater, for the first-ever LGBT studies position through The Larry Kramer Initiative.  He advocated for me with letters and phone calls that almost certainly were the reasons I got the job. I owe him everything for that alone.

He died the first year I was teaching at Yale.  Along with David Groff, his editor and friend, I organized his New York City memorial, which we hosted at the Public Theater.  It was essential for us to gather together and celebrate Paul’s life and legacy.

My name is David Roman. Paul Monette was an important figure in my life and the lives of so many others. I loved him for his passion and authenticity and I remember him for his deep love for queer people everywhere, especially those living with HIV.

Sylvester, sometimes known as the Queen of Disco, was famous for an androgynous look and a fierce falsetto voice.  Born in the Watts section of Los Angeles on September 6, 1947, he grew up singing in a Pentecostal church but left the church at age 13 and soon after left home after being shunned by the congregation and his mother for being gay.

Refusing to bow to pressure to conform, for his high school graduation photo Sylvester wore a blue chiffon prom dress and his hair in a beehive.  He moved to San Francisco in 1970, where he performed for a couple of years with the infamous group of drag performers “The Cockettes.”

He released in a solo album in 1977, performed regularly in gay bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, and was cast in a cameo singing role in the Bette Midler film, The Rose.  It wasn’t until his third album in 1978 that Sylvester found success including his best-known hit “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”.  That album, with background vocals from the Two Tons of Fun, Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes, went gold, topped the dance charts in the U.S., and led to major talk show performances and promo tours in the US.

On March 11, 1979, while Sylvester recorded his Living Proof live album in a sold-out show at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein awarded him the key to the City and proclaimed it “Sylvester Day.”

Never forgetting his community roots, Sylvester performed at gay pride festivals that year in San Francisco and London.  Another dance hit, “Do You Wanna Funk,” released in 1982, was co-written with Sylvester’s frequent collaborator, writer-producer Patrick Cowley, who died of AIDS that year when the disease was still known as GRID.

Sylvester, along with Joan Rivers and Charles Nelson Reilly, did the first-ever AIDS fundraiser at Los Angeles’ Studio One nightclub in 1982.  He called his 1983 song “Trouble in Paradise,” an AIDS message to San Francisco, and performed benefit concerts to raise awareness and money about the epidemic.

Sylvester’s boyfriend at the time died of AIDS in 1987, and Sylvester’s own health began to decline later that year.  In the spring of 1988, Sylvester was hospitalized with pneumonia but managed to attend the Gay Freedom Parade in June in a wheelchair.

The Castro Street Fair in October of that year was dubbed “A Tribute to Sylvester.”  Although he was too ill to attend, he heard crowds schanting his name from his bedroom and continued to give press interviews, openly stating that he was dying of AIDS and trying to highlight the impact of the disease on African-Americans.

Sylvester James, Jr., died on December 16, 1988 at age 41.  At his direction, his body was dressed in a red kimono in an open casket.  In his will, he bequeathed all future royalties to two AIDS charities.

In 2005, Sylvester was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame and in 2019 the Library of Congress chose “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” to be preserved in the National Recording Registry.

It’s fair to say that Paul Jabara wrote some major chapters of the Gay American Songbook.  Paul was the songwriter for mega-hits.

“Last dance, last chance …” — that’s Donna Summer.  He also wrote “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls — two girls who were in my weight class — and with his co-writer Bruce Roberts, “No More Tears,” (singing) “Enough is enough is enough); a duet by, yes, Donna Summer and uh, Barbra Streisand — that’s the woman.  Paul and Bruce Roberts also co-wrote “The Main Event” from the movie The Main Event starring Ryan O’Neal and uh, Barbra Streisand — yes, that’s the woman.

I am Bruce Vilanch.  Paul was a dear friend of mine for 25 years.  I met him … actually, I didn’t meet him the first time I met him.  The first time I met him was at the Billboard Theatre in New York.   He was in the original cast of Hair, and as part of the opening number “Aquarius,” he crawled from the stage over the seats.  He crawled the entire length of the orchestra, going – stepping on seats as he went, and people ducking and all of that, you know.  And he passed right over me, and he was wearing bell bottoms and no underwear.  And I was immediately interested in him as a performer … [lecherous laugh] … of course.

And some years later, he did a musical called Rachael Lily Rosenbloom and Don’t You Ever Forget It, and it was written for Bette Midler, who was a creative collaborator of mine of long-standing.  And she didn’t do it; Ellen Greene did it.   And it came to Broadway, but it never actually opened.  It was a way over-the-top disco musical.  It was insane.

Ellen was in it with André De Shields and Paul and a bunch of other people.  The producer was Robert Stigwood.  As it got closer and closer to opening night and previews, Stigwood decided it was never really going to happen.  And the word got out that he was going to close it on Saturday night.  So it was the must-see event of the season.

I was in New York with Bette and her piano player Barry Manilow — music director, I should say — and we went.  We got tickets and it was like going to the Academy Awards.  It was spectacular.  And the show was insane, ridiculous and awful — and Paul was brilliant.  And that was the second time.

And years later, a few years later, we were both in Hollywood, and we collaborated on a couple of musical projects that never happened, but we became very close friends.  And I remember having dinner at his house.  In the living room, he had a huge picture of himself.  It was a replica of Barbra Streisand’s first album, called My Name is Barbra, and her picture on the cover.  And instead of her, it was Paul, who had been photo-shopped in.  And above it, in the same font, it said My Name is Jbara — and he had removed the first a from his last name, as she had removed the middle a from her name — so it was My Name is Jbara.

And at the time, I said, “You know, Paul, you have proven my theory about every gay man in Hollywood: They either want to be Barbra Streisand or have dinner with Barbra Streisand.  And you have managed to do both.”

So for “The Last Dance,” the Donna Summer tune, Paul won a Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues song, and an Academy Award — yes, he won the Oscar — and a Golden Globe — which, of course, is much more valuable — from the film Thank God It’s Friday.  You remember that one; it was set in a disco.  He wrote songs for other major artists, including Bette Midler, and Diana Ross, Billy Preston, Julio Iglesias — even Raquel Welch sang one of Paul’s songs.  Of course, no one heard her — they were too busy watching her lungs.

Paul was also an accomplished actor and singer.  He was one of the original cast members of Hair, as I mentioned, and Jesus Christ Superstar — two Tom O’Horgan shows.  He replaced Tim Curry in the role of Doctor Frank-N-Furter in the Los Angeles stage production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Roxy when Tim went to England to do the movie.

Paul and John Schlesinger were good pals, and he appeared in some hilarious roles in a few of John’s movies, including his Oscar-winning 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, in which Paul played a hippie handing out pills and asking partygoers if they wanted to go “up or down” — [laughs] an elevator operator!

In Schlesinger’s movie The Day of the Locust, Paul appeared in drag singing a cover of the Marlene Dietrich song “Hot Voo-Doo,” which you’ll remember is the one she sang dressed as a gorilla.  In 1981, Paul starred in another John Schlesinger film, the comedy Honky-Tonk Freeway, as a songwriter named T. J. Tupus whose day job was as a truck driver hauling lions and a rhino.  In the 1978 film Thank God It’s Friday, which featured “Last Dance,” he played Carl, the near-sighted disco patron blindly looking for love.  Paul also sang two tracks on the original soundtrack album. 

If you had to choose one of Paul’s songs to define his life, it might be his duet with Donna Summer, which is aptly entitled “Never Lose Your Sense of Humor.”  Paul may have lost his battle with AIDS in 1992 at age 44, but he left us with a treasure trove of hits that you still cannot help but hear at your local dance club or bar, especially if you stay until closing and shake your money-maker to “Last Dance” — which has become the anthem of closing time at every disco in the world.

If you look up one night and see a flash of light across the sky, no doubt it’s a reflection from Paul’s disco ball, up there in gay heaven.

Richard Lawrence Reed (February 28, 1956 – November 11, 1995) was a beautiful soul, a kind man and my first partner. We met serendipitously. It was August 1984 and I was supposed to be meeting a co-worker, but the plans fell through and I decided to go to another local bar.

As my favorite song of the moment — “My Heartʼs Divided” by Shannon — started playing, I boldly walked up to a man near the dance floor and asked him if he would dance. He agreed, and we became inseparable from that moment on for over 11 years.

I had just turned 19 and was smitten with this lovely man 9 years my senior. Iʼd never had anyone look at me the way Rick did. His blue eyes pierced my very soul. He was gentle, caring, selfless, humorous and had a way of making me feel as if I were floating on a cloud. He loved life, friends, family, the beach, plants, animals and the experiences that went with them all.

Like most relationships ours evolved and deepened after the initial stages of attraction, sex and lust. We become true lovers and friends and began to build a life for ourselves. Neither of us were rich or highly educated, but we were employed and did alright.

Rick always made me feel adored, loved and supported. He never let me down. We had fun learning each others’ idiosyncrasies, going out dancing, and nesting together.

Within a short period of time, Rick started saying he didnʼt feel quite right. It was never anything serious, a cold or a flu, and he would recuperate quickly. At the same time, we were just beginning to hear about the new mysterious “gay illness,” and he decided he wanted to get tested. We tested together sometime in mid-1985. Rick tested positive and I tested negative.

Our relationship was still in its infancy and there seemed no way it could be true, but it was. Rick learned what information was available and soon had a specialist doctor, the only one in the area.

There was never any question in my mind about leaving the man I loved because of a test result or its ramifications. At that moment, Rick was healthy and we were happy. Love doesnʼt end based on a test result.

For a while Rick’s health was fine and he was simply monitored. We proceeded with life as normal, with the exception of keeping his status a secret. Times were different then; there was so much misunderstanding, stigma and ignorance.

Slowly, Rick’s health deteriorated but not in the usual manner associated with AIDS. He never contracted pneumonia or sarcoma. It began with thrush and a gradual decline in his T-cell counts.

There was only one medication available — AZT — and Rick was put on it. Its side effects only made him feel worse. He began to have back problems, neuropathy and a general weakness. As his health got progressively worse, he was forced to stop working and go on disability.

Rick also decided to tell his parents about his status and illness. He was close to them and things were becoming more evident. I told no one, not my family, co-workers, supervisors or friends.

Gradually, due to the stigma surrounding the disease and our own fear, we withdrew from friends we knew would never understand or accept it. Outside of a few close friends, we were isolated but we made our life as pleasant and normal as we could.

Any benefits from AZT quickly stopped and Rick’s viral load kept increasing. We lived in a populated area of South Florida, and as the crisis was finally being acknowledged and funded, opportunities were presented for him to be a test subject for trial medications. I donʼt remember any of their names, but there were many. Rick tried whatever was available over the years, suffering their side effects and reaping little benefit.

Rick deteriorated both physically and mentally. It was gradual, painful and unstoppable. We did as much as we could together, whether it was household things or taking short trips to Disney, historical places, the mountains or visiting family.

In early 1995 on what was to be our last trip together, Rick became rapidly disoriented and argumentative. There had been signs of dementia prior to this, but this was a sudden onslaught. I cut the vacation short and headed home.

Rick was hospitalized upon our return and given what treatments were available. They helped very little. He had exhausted every available HIV medication and nothing could stop the degeneration of his body and mind. His spirit was depleted and he was tired of fighting. We returned home and hospice took over.

It was time to tell my employer about our situation, as I would be requesting time off and juggling caregiving with work. They were very supportive, and between that support and the help of hospice, our last month or so together was a little easier.

We remained deeply in love over the years through this ordeal and that love never wavered, not once — not even as Rick lay dying in a hospital bed in our guest room. He gave up on living, but never on us.
In fact, I think his love for me somehow gave him the courage to face death.

I had no encouraging words and no way to save Rick.  All I could do was love him, touch him, and make him comfortable. At this stage, when someone you love is dying before your eyes, there are no words that can properly convey the experience.

Rick died in my arms around 5:00 a.m. on November 11, 1995.

Later, I would find notes Rick wrote to me when he knew the dementia was taking hold and he might not be able to say what he wanted to say. He made a scrapbook of memories of us filled with love notes, cards, an odd memento or just a written account of special moments of our life and love. He left me a book of writings, drawings, stories and poems he had worked on over the years.

Rick was not a famous actor or designer, but he was a loving example of all those whose lives were taken too soon. He made an impact and touched many lives, none more so than mine. He was my world. Although my world was forever changed and my heart ripped apart, the most important thing he left me was a feeling of love, never-ending love.

Rick was special and one of the most giving and loving men I have ever known. All these years later, I still I keep that love safe in a place in my heart for when we someday meet again.

Ryan White (December 6, 1971 – April 8, 1990) was a teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who was expelled from his school due to his HIV status. He died when he was 18 years old.

White is buried in Cicero, close to the former home of his mother. In 1991, his grave was vandalized on four occasions.

White, a hemophiliac, contracted HIV through a blood transfusion. He was diagnosed in December 1984 and told that he had only 6 months left to live.

Doctors said that White posed no risk to other pupils. However, when he attempted to return to school, parents and teachers protested against his attendance, scared that he could transmit HIV through casual contact.

The dispute made news headlines around the world and turned White into an advocate for AIDS research and education. Although he lived 5 years longer than predicted, he sadly died just one month before his high school graduation.

Over 1,500 people attended White’s funeral on April 11, 1990 at the Second Presbyterian Church on Meridian Street, Indianapolis. His pallbearers included Sir Elton John AIDS Fundation and Phil Donahue. His funeral was also attended by @MichaelJackson.

Sir @EltonJohn performed a song he wrote in 1969, Skyline Pigeon, at the funeral. White also inspired him to create @ejaf.

On the day of the funeral, former President Ronald Reagan wrote a tribute to White that appeared in The Washington Post. This was seen as an indication of how White had helped change the public’s view of HIV AIDS, especially when considering Reagan’s indifference to the virus. By the time he finally addressed the epidemic in 1987, nearly 23,000 Americans had already perished.

Steve Rubell was the guy you had to impress with your looks, your style, or your celebrity if you wanted to get through the door at Studio 54, the most famous nightclub of the disco era.  I’m Matt Tyrnauer and I directed the documentary film Studio 54.

In April 1977, Rubell and his longtime friend Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in a former opera house turned CBS studio on 54th Street in Manhattan where TV shows such as What’s My Line?, The $64,000 Question, and Captain Kangaroo had been produced.  

Studio 54 was a theatrical extravaganza, using its theater and TV studio roots to create movable sets and lighting. The furniture was modular, for maximum flexibility in creating the mood for the moment.

The club was a who’s-who pageant and a playpen of debauchery, where the biggest stars of film, TV, stage, music, fashion, art, politics, and sports would dance, do drugs, and even have sex in the shadows.  Studio 54 defined the emerging age of celebrity.  But signs of trouble emerged early.  Only one month after opening, the club was temporarily closed by the state liquor authority, because the owners only had only daily catering permits. 

Rubell’s flair for self-promotion became his downfall when he bragged in print about the $7 million the club had made in its first year. Studio 54’s tax returns told a different story.  Rubell and Schrager were convicted for tax evasion following an IRS raid in which a second set of books were found hidden in the ceiling tiles of their office. 

A final party in February of 1980 included Diana Ross and Liza Minelli singing a tribute to Rubell and Schrager, while guests such as Jack Nicholson, Richard Gere, Farrah Fawcett, Bianca Jagger, and Mariel Hemingway looked on.  Rubell and Schrager went to prison and suddenly, it seemed, the glory days of disco were over. 

After serving most of the 3½ year sentence and living in a halfway house for a few months, Rubell and Schrager next moved into the hotel business, and again, had spectacular success, opening Morgans on Madison Avenue, the Royalton on West 44th Street, and the Paramount near Times Square. They also opened a new club, Palladium, where the art of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf adorned the walls.

Rubell — whose sexuality was an open secret but who never publicly came out as gay — tested positive for HIV in 1985.  He died in 1989 at the age of 45.

The great male ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev arrived in this world with a grand cinematic gesture on a train speeding across the Soviet Union, and departed having changed what it is to be a man in a female-dominated art form.

His onstage presence personified a marriage of masculinity and femininity combined. A panther and an exotic rose, magnetic and indisputably singular.  In 1961 and already an established young star in Russia, Nureyev risked his life in a stand off with the KGB and French authorities at Paris’ Orly Airport. This defection to the West from the USSR made him a subject of world television news, and perhaps the first internationally-renowned name in ballet. His subsequent relationship with London’s Royal Ballet and his famed partnership with Margot Fonteyn, who was remarkably 20 years his senior, further cemented Nureyev as an almost godlike figure on the international stages of the ballet world. 

Rudolf Nureyev’s life and career were wrapped in a blanket of excess and luxury, often reflected in his unique stagings of classical ballets, largely for the Paris Opera, where he served as Artistic Director until his death in 1993. 

His voracious sexual appetite for young men was renowned, and tightly woven through the more permanent romantic relationships of his life.  Ex-lovers putting up with short-lived dalliances with men understanding that even this fueled his artistic creativity and translated into the stage creature that his audiences adored. 

When I was a young ballet student at The Royal Ballet School, Nureyev was at the top of my list of influences. Never feeling particularly unique as a dancer myself, I marveled at his ability to transcend technique and exist onstage in a cloud of sensual perfume.

It was 1989, I was 16 and at lunch break, I was passing the company canteen. I glanced in and to my surprise there sat Rudolf Nureyev alone.  He signaled for me to come in.  I got closer and he spoke to me in an accent still rich with his homeland. 

“Carry me to studio, boy.”  That’s all he said. 

I recall thinking at the time that I wasn’t the strongest of young men, a bit of a late developer, but there was no way I wasn’t going to oblige him. Wrapped around my shoulders, cradled like a baby and weak with the AIDS virus that was draining away the life force from this indisputable poet of movement, I carried the great Nureyev up to the Covent Garden Studio. Three flights of stairs, praying that my knees wouldn’t buckle.

At this very moment in time, I was struggling to come to terms with my own sexuality. So afraid to come out to my parents who would fear my contracting the very illness that was already raging through this great man’s body. I left him in a chair at the front of the studio and said goodbye.

Three or four days later, he performed the role of Mercutio in a gala performance celebrating the 70th birthday of his most famous onstage partner Dame Margot Fonteyn.  His performance somewhat diminished, but still there were Tartarian flashes of the fire that had ignited the world stages.

Four years later, he would be carried once again. This time out onto the stage of The Palais Garnier in Paris to receive rapturous applause on the opening of his sumptuous production of La Bayadere and to receive France’s highest cultural honor, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.  This was his final curtain call. 

Every young man in ballet for future generations will be indebted to the mark that Rudolf Nureyev made on the art form. He has shaped the way we will craft our art forever.

Hi, this is Matt Bomer, and I’m honored to celebrate the life of Rock Hudson.

On July 25, 1985, movie star Rock Hudson, one of the biggest celebrities in the world from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, was the most famous person ever to publicly announce he had AIDS.  Just over a week before, he had appeared with frequent co-star Doris Day at a news conference promoting her new cable TV show.  He looked gaunt and frail.  He couldn’t eat a meal that Day had prepared for him.  Ten weeks later, on October 2, 1985, Rock Hudson was dead at 59 years old.

An Oscar nominee and a four-time Golden Globe award winner, Rock Hudson never came out publicly as gay.  The perceived risks to his career were apparently too great for him to do so.  Rumors of Rock’s homosexuality led to a planned exposé in Confidential magazine in 1955, the same year Life magazine named him “Hollywood’s Most Handsome Bachelor.”  But his agent Henry Willson (the one portrayed by Jim Parsons in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series Hollywood) managed to convince them to bury the story in exchange for giving information on two other clients, Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter.

Soon thereafter, Hudson married Willson’s secretary.  The marriage lasted three years.  It has been reported that Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Susan Saint James, Carol Burnett, Angie Dickinson, Robert Stack, Julie Andrews, and others knew of his homosexuality, but he was such a friendly guy that even John Wayne is said to have remarked, “Who cares if he’s queer?  He plays great chess.”

Rock’s first major hit, alongside co-star James Dean, was the 1956 George Stevens western Giant, which also starred Elizabeth Taylor, who would become a lifelong friend.  Other hits include romantic comedy Pillow Talk with Doris Day; Come September with Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin; and the long-running TV series McMillan and Wife with Susan Saint James.

Rock’s last significant role was a five-month recurring role on the television series Dynasty from December 1984 to April 1985.  Hudson was diagnosed with HIV on June 5, 1984, after a dermatologist did a biopsy of a mole on his neck at the suggestion of friend Nancy Reagan, who thought Rock looked too thin.  But Rock kept the results a secret for over a year.

Despite their friendship, the Reagans refused to provide him with preferential treatment at a U.S. military hospital, ignoring the pleas of Rock’s publicist.  Two days after his press conference with Doris Day, Rock traveled to Paris for treatments that were not approved in the United States, and collapsed at his hotel room at The Ritz.  His American publicist announced that Hudson had inoperable liver cancer, but four days later his French publicist admitted that Hudson had AIDS.

Rock flew back to the United States, spent a month in the hospital at UCLA, but was then released to go into hospice care at home.

His AIDS diagnosis was front-page news for almost every major U.S. newspaper in the summer of 1985.  Rock sent a telegram to an AIDS Project Los Angeles fundraising event in September 1985, saying, “I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth.”

People magazine reported that more than twice the amount of money was donated in support of AIDS research in the few months following Hudson’s death than had been donated in the entire year of 1984.  Rock left $250,000 in his will in support of an AIDS research foundation created by friend Elizabeth Taylor and his physician, Dr. Michael Gottlieb.  That foundation later merged with another AIDS organization to become the American Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR.

President Reagan had never spoken publicly about AIDS until September 1985 following a month of widespread publicity about Hudson’s illness. A few days after Hudson’s death, Congress allocated $221 million toward finding a cure to AIDS.

Lou Graydon Sullivan (June 16, 1951 – March 2, 1991) was an author and activist who became the first transman to die of AIDS. He was 39 years old.

Sullivan was the first transgender man to be publicly known to identify as gay. His activism is considered to be one of the primary reasons for our current understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as separate, unrelated concepts.

In 1986, Sullivan had reconstruction surgery but was diagnosed with HIV afterwards and informed that he had 10 months to live. It is speculated that he contacted HIV in 1980 just after his chest surgery.

He wrote, “I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinic that even though their program told me I could not live as a gay man, it looks like I’m going to die like one.”

In 1973, Sullivan grew up in Milwaukee, born into a Catholic family, and identified as a “female transvestite.” By 1975, he identified as a “FTM transsexual.” Later that same year, he relocated to San Francisco where began working as a woman but cross-dressed as a man.

Sullivan founded female-to-male (FTM) International, one of the first organizations specifically for FTM individuals, helping them obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics.

Although Sullivan lived as an out gay man, he was repeatedly denied sex reassignment surgery because of his sexual orientation and the view held by the medical establishment that transgender people should adopt “stereotypical heterosexual opposite-sex gender roles.”

Sullivan campaigned to remove homosexuality from the list of conditions that served as a reason to withhold SRS from prospective patients. In 1979, he was finally able to find doctors and therapists who would accept his sexuality, began taking testosterone and underwent a double mastectomy.