While I think it's indecorous to argue about which celebrity was the first to fundraise for HIV and AIDS, Joan is not incorrect about the benefits for AIDS Project Los Angeles in the the awful, shell-shocked years of 1984 and 1985.
But first let it be said that no single person had a greater positive impact on the international recognition of the pandemic than did Elizabeth Taylor: no scientist, no politician and no other performer.
That said, Elizabeth's journey with confronting AIDS publicly began in January 1985, when APLA asked her to chair their first big Hollywood fundraise: a dinner called "Commitment to Life" to take place that September 1985. Up until that point, the Hollywood film and television communities were so petrified that very few people mentioned what was going on. It was different in San Francisco and New York, where groups like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and loudmouths like Larry Kramer had made speaking out and raising money for treatment much more public.
In that atmosphere of industry-enforced silence in Los Angeles, Joan chaired the first benefit for APLA in March 1984, 18 months before the gala Elizabeth chaired in September 1985, and Joan's event raised a very-much-needed $45,000 for APLA.
But the real pioneers in the entertainment industry (outside of New York, of course, where Broadway stepped up IMMEDIATELY) were Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds, with events in San Francisco in 1982 and 1983.
Shirley has often said that she first became aware of AIDS in 1982, when she was working on songs for her act with lyricist Christopher Adler (the son of Pajama Game composer Richard Adler): "I used to bounce Christopher on my knee when he was a kid. He started to cough, and get strangely sick. He stayed with me for a long time out here while we wrote these lyrics together. Then he went to the hospital and neither of us knew what was wrong. Couldn't figure it out. Nobody knew what it was! And then within a year he was dead."
Shirley hosted a dog event with the Sisters in the summer of 1982 to benefit the Kaposi's Sarcoma Foundation. Then she had a conversation with Debbie Reynolds, who was freaked out because several of the male dancers in her Las Vegas show were ill. Several dancers Shirley knew had also gotten sick, and others people, not just dancers, all gay men.
Debbie put together a larger-scale benefit called "An Evening with Debbie Reynolds and Friends" in early 1983. Then Shirley and Debbie did another benefit, together, in June 1983.
My friend Reed Jones, who originated the role of Skimbleshanks in the Broadway production of Cats before he died, had danced in both Debbie's and Shirley's shows--as well as Sandy Duncan's--before coming to Broadway in Sandy's Peter Pan. He knew the boys who died, although he did not yet know that he too was HIV-positive. His gratitude toward the generosity of Debbie and Shirley was enormous.
But let's get back to Los Angeles in March 1984, where speaking of AIDS was strictly verboten. Joan worked very hard getting industry people to participate in that benefit, and she got a lot of no's. A year later, Elizabeth asked those same people, and the answer was yes. Elizabeth was a bigger star, and let's face it, a year later those people were losing friends themselves at a rapid rate--and some of them were sick and dying themselves.
In January 1985, the board of AIDS Project Los Angeles asked Elizabeth to be the chair of the September fundraiser. Shortly after that, Elizabeth's daughter-in-law Aileen Getty told her that she had contracted AIDS through a transfusion. Years later, she admitted that she had contacted the virus in an extramarital affair, and her marriage to Elizabeth's son disintegrated. But Elizabeth never abandoned her.
Back to 1985, an annus horribilis for a lot of us. Elizabeth always spoke about 1985 as being the year of her horrific realization that she "had to do something about AIDS because no one was doing anything about it." As Elizabeth was working on the Commitment for Life dinner, involving every name in Hollywood because no one could say no to her--and all of them had already lost friends.
Rock Hudson, an old friend of Elizabeth and Shirley and Debbie in bought $10,000 worth of tickets to the dinner. He was already in the an advanced state of the disease, although he had not yet had it diagnosed. But they all knew something was wrong and they had all seen friends deteriorate and die quickly. Nevertheless, Rock vowed to Elizabeth he would be there.
On June 5th, Rock was diagnosed, but he told no one. On July 16th, he appeared at a press conference with Doris Day to promote her TV show about rescuing animals. His appearance and incoherence was shocking to the world--but not to those of us who were already attending memorial services regularly.
On July 21st, he collapsed in his room in Paris, where had gone for treatments because there was nowhere to go in the United States. His spokesman said Rock was being treated for "liver cancer," and on July 25th, the spokesman said it was AIDS. Rock later said he contracted it from a blood transfusion during a heart-bypass operation.
The Commitment for Life dinner happened on September 19th, and it raised $1.3 million. Over 2,500 people attended but Rock wasn't there. Two weeks later, he was dead.
But the event was a landmark event that signaled the real beginning of the worldwide fight against the HIV pandemic and the founding of AMFAR and other organizations.
So there needn't be Team Joan or Team Liz, but if there must be teams, put me on Team Shirley and Debbie.
Updated On: 9/10/14 at 11:21 AM
