People Who Died From AIDS in the 80s and 90s

The Kansas City PBS Affiliate has recently uploaded online a documentary entitled "AIDS in KC: The Early Days". Most documentaries about AIDS it seems only highlight what it was like in big coastal metropolises like NYC and SF. To see what was going in a medium size city in Middle America was interesting and of course very sad. I wish other PBS stations in mid-size markets would produce documentaries about how AIDS affected their areas too.

Rock Hudson’s death was the most important death from AIDS - because it sparked awareness across the US and the world that it was real and that gay men were people they knew.

It's sickens me that we lost an entire generation to HIV/AIDs. I happened to be in San Francisco when the Bay Area Reporter ran the headline "No Obits" and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

He didn't change the world, but my BEST friend from 7th grade on (Michael) died in 1991 from AIDS. I still miss him - and I'm 62. We became friends before we knew what "gay" was and eventually came out to each other.

Why didn't they have lockdowns or social distancing back then? They should - so the vulnerable would be protected. But the fat and ugly ones were spared from AIDS, anyway.

David Wojnarowicz deserves a mention.

I came out in 1990 but despite coming into the gay world almost a decade after the first known cases of AIDS I still lost a handful of friends.

A few in particular really break my heart to think they aren't here - beautiful souls, missed here on earth.

[quote]Why didn't they have lockdowns or social distancing back then?

HIV is not transmitted through the air.

Christopher Wilson from the B-52s died of AIDS.

Ricky Wilson is his name, R10.

R8 There was some local government interventions at the time - closures of places where gay men gathered to have sex.

The federal government pretended it didn't exist until Reagan was nearly out of office.

My condolences go out to everyone in this thread who lost a friend, lover or family member to AIDS. The world would be such a different place had that epidemic never happened.

Anthony Perkins’ death was quite shocking.

I lost so many friends. I liked Rock Hudson. It's unfortunate he gets a bad rap a lot of the time because he really was a great guy.

[quote] "People Who Died From AIDS in the 80s and 90s"

I wouldn't know.

I only lost one friend, that I know of. Bart Gorin. He was an assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

He said she was into witch doctors, and was on the verge of divorcing Lennon when he died. Suddenly she got all the money and got to play the grieving widow forever more.

^^ I just did a Google search on him and there’s an interview he did in the archives at Columbia University. I bet it’s juicy.

He was a sweetheart.

Visual AIDS, the organization that created the red ribbon, has an extensive register of people who were artist and died of AIDS or HIV. They are also the organization that does Day Without Art on December 1st for World AIDS Day.

One artist I like to highlight from the registry is Hugh Steers, a very gifted young artist who was on the verge of great recognition when he died in 1995 at the age of 32. Gore Vidal was his mother’s half brother and Hugh D. Auchincloss was his grandfather. His brother Burr made the movie Igby Goes Down. Many of his paintings of the last few years directly referenced AIDS, and he was working in a primarily figurative genre at a time most artists were not, and while they usually approached AIDS from a more abstract way in their art, his were more realist, raw and brutal.

Richard Amsel (December 4, 1947 – November 13, 1985). He was an American illustrator and graphic designer. His career was brief but prolific, including movie posters, album covers (including Bette Midler) and magazine covers. His portrait of comedian Lily Tomlin for the cover of Time is now part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution. He created covers for TV Guide for thirteen years. Many of his works of pop culture icons are instantly recognizable. His first film poster was for Hello Dolly and his last was Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. He died at age 37. A documentary about his life is currently under production. The intriguing trailer below. A shame he died so young.

Oh - I didn’t know about him. His images were everywhere in the 70s and 80s.

Amsel brought out the best in Harrison Ford for both the original and the1982 Raiders re-release poster. Spectacular.

Howard Ashman. He wrote the lyrics for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Amongst other stuff) Incredibly talented man and a sad loss.

Merritt Butrick, known for Square Pegs and Star Trek II and III. Dead at 29. Tragic.

The talented Michael Bennett. Director of A Chorus Line and Dreamgirls, choreographer of Promises Promises, Company and Follies.

Fuck the celebrities.

All the people I lost in my own life. People I grew up with, people I loved, people who meant everything to me. They just kept dying and dying and dying. Nobody cared but us, ourselves. They just let us die. It changed who I was forever. It changed who we all were forever, those of us who were young then. You gays today have no idea what it was like back then. It wasn't like the movies you've seen about it.

Still heartbroken and bitter about it? Yes, of course, always. I will never forget it, I will never forget them. Celebrities? Who cares?

Christopher H and Amnon Z in NYC, I remember your lives every day of my life.

Perhaps you didn't read OP's description:

"It’s horrible to think that all of those people would have been saved today. Who were the biggest losses in the gay community - I’m referring to people who were PUBLIC FIGURES. Of course it’s tragic that anyone died from AIDS, but whose death had the biggest impact on gay culture, left the biggest gap, would you say?"

I own the collected volumes of Variety obituaries from their inception until 1994.

During WWI and WWII they list obits of show business related people who served in the military who were casualties, dead or wounded.

Sometime in the 80s you start seeing a lot of obits of men in the industry dying from pneumonia or unspecified illness or cancer at young ages and realize many of these were probably AIDS related deaths before they knew what it was; then later you start seeing AIDS named specifically. Sobering and sad.

I've thought about this subject.

Imagine if all these famous lives had been spared from this disease.

How much more entertainment would we have today?

Movies/television/art...

R29 is a grief Nazi. I don't like you.

I'm not a Nazi of any kind and don't like you either, r33. I expect we'll survive disliking each other just fine.