AIDS is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. Since its expansion, AIDS has affected tens of millions of people around the world.
1. Denholm Elliott
In 1922, Denholm Elliott was born in London, England. During World War II, Elliott joined the Royal Air Force and trained as a sergeant radio operator and gunner. He served with the No. 76 Squadron RAF. In late September 1942, Elliott’s bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany. Elliott and two other crew members survived the crash and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia.
After making his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949), Denholm Elliott went on to play a wide range of roles. He is one of the most prominent character actors of the 20th century. Elliott has over 120 film and television credits to his name. In the 1980s, he won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for Best Supporting Actor in Trading Places as Dan Aykroyd’s kindly butler, A Private Function, and Defence of the Realm, as well as an Academy Award nomination for A Room with a View. Elliott is most recognized as Dr. Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
2. Stewart McKinney
In 1931, Stewart McKinney was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of 35, McKinney was elected to the Connecticut State House of Representatives as a Republican. In 1970, he ran for the U.S. House and won. McKinney served in the House as a moderate Republican until his death. He is remembered for the Homeless Assistance Act of 1986, which provided U.S. federal money for shelter programs. McKinney is credited with coining the phrase “too big to fail” in connection with large banks.
In 1979, Stewart became ill and had heart surgery. A few years later he was diagnosed with HIV. His health concerns were not made public until shortly before his death. On May 7, 1987, Stewart McKinney died from AIDS-related disease. His physician claimed that McKinney became infected with HIV from a blood transfusion during his heart surgery. It remains unclear exactly how Stewart McKinney contracted HIV. He was actively bisexual and it is possible that McKinney got AIDS from unsafe sex.
3. Dan Hartman
In 1950, Dan Hartman was born in Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg. He joined his first band, The Legends, at the age of 13. After leaving the group, Hartman spent a period of time backing the Johnny Winter Band and then joined the Edgar Winter Group where he played bass on three of their albums. He wrote the band’s second biggest pop hit Free Ride in 1972. Dan Hartman began his solo career in 1976. In late 1978, he reached #1 on the Dance Charts with the disco single Instant Replay, which crossed over to #29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 1984, Hartman reached the Top 10 again with the single I Can Dream About You. During the next decade he worked as a songwriter and producer, and collaborated with such artists as Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Tyler, Paul Young, James Brown, the Plasmatics and Steve Winwood. Hartman produced and co-wrote the song Living in America, a #4 hit for James Brown which appeared on the soundtrack of 1985′s Rocky IV. The song was the last of Brown’s 44 hit recordings to appear on the Billboard Top 40 charts.
4. Gia Carangi
In 1960, Gia Carangi was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While in high school, Carangi bonded with “the Bowie kids,” a group of obsessed David Bowie fans. She emulated Bowie’s high-glam style. Gia was drawn to Bowie not only due to his fashion preferences, but also his gender play and outspoken bisexuality. A friend of Carangi said “she was beginning to settle into a lesbian identity, but did not want to take up the accepted lesbian style.” After Gia was featured in a collection of Philadelphia newspaper ads, she moved to New York City at the age of 17 and quickly rose to prominence in the world of modeling.
By the end of 1978, Gia was a well-established model. She was featured on the cover of many different fashion magazines. In October 1978, Carangi did her first major shoot with fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim. Wangenheim had her pose nude behind a chain-link fence. While in New York City, Carangi became a regular at Studio 54 and the Mudd Club. She used cocaine in clubs, but later developed a heroin addiction. By 1980, Carangi began to display a violent temper. She walked out of photo shoots and even fell asleep in front of the camera.
5. Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was born between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi, Soviet Russia (near the modern border with Belarus). When he was 3-years-old, Asimov’s family immigrated to the United States. As he grew older, Asimov was interested in science-fiction and creative writing. He became one of the most prolific science-fiction writers of all time, having published or edited more than 500 books and over 9,000 letters. Isaac Asimov is widely considered a master of hard science-fiction and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the “Big Three” science-fiction writers during his lifetime.
Asimov’s most famous work is the Foundation series. He also published the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series. Asimov wrote many short stories, including Nightfall (1941), which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as the best short science fiction story of all time. He is credited with coining the term “robotics.” Asimov was also a prolific mystery author and a frequent contributor to magazines. In 1977, he suffered a heart attack and had triple bypass surgery in December 1983. When he died in New York City on April 6, 1992, at the age of 72, Asimov’s brother Stanley reported the cause of death as heart and kidney failure.
6. Ondrej Nepela
In 1951, Ondrej Nepela was born in Bratislava, Slovakia. He began skating at the age of 7 and was coached by Hilda Múdra. Nepela’s first major international competition, at the age 13, was the 1964 Winter Olympics, where he finished 22nd. As Nepela grew stronger, he went on to win the European Figure Skating Championships five times between the years of 1969-1973. He captured the World Figure Skating Championships in 1971, 1972, and 1973, and the 1972 Olympic gold. Ondrej Nepela retired after the 1973 season. Some felt he left skating early, as Nepela was only 22-years-old when he quit active competition.
Following his amateur skating career, Nepela toured for 13 years as a soloist with Holiday on Ice. He then established himself as a coach in Germany. Ondrej Nepela died of AIDS-related complications on February 2, 1989, at the age of 38. It is unclear how he acquired HIV, but Nepela was a homosexual man. In his second autobiography, Toller Cranston, who was a Canadian figure skater, detailed a sexual tryst between himself and Nepela at the 1973 World Championships. Cranston said he was distracted during the competition by the affair and placed 5th, while Nepela won the event. In December 2000, the Slovak Republic named Ondrej Nepela the Slovakian athlete of the century.
7. Ösel Tendzin
Ösel Tendzin was born Thomas Rich, on June 28, 1943, in Passaic, New Jersey. He first met Chögyam Trungpa in February 1971, in Boulder, Colorado. Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master and one of the first Tibetan Buddhist lamas to visit the West. He is recognized as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Trungpa was a major and controversial figure in the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to North America.
According to Ösel Tendzin, Trungpa revealed his intention to make him a successor not long after their initial meeting. Starting in 1973, Tendzin began to hold duties in the management of Vajradhatu, which is an umbrella organization that Trungpa developed. It serves as the vehicle for the spread of Buddhist teachings. In April 1976, it was announced for the first time that Ösel Tendzin would replace Chögyam Trungpa after his death. It was a controversial decision to appoint a U.S. citizen to this role. Tendzin assumed leadership of the organization in 1987, with the death of Trungpa.
8. Emerson John Moore
In 1938, Emerson Moore was born in the Harlem section of New York City. He converted to Catholicism at the age of 15. On May 30, 1964, Moore was ordained a priest by Cardinal Francis Spellman at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In 1979, he welcomed Pope John Paul II to Harlem, where the Pope gave an address to African Americans at St. Charles Borromeo. Shortly after the Pope’s appearance, Moore was elevated to the rank of monsignor, becoming the first African American to receive that honor. On July 3, 1982, Moore was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York by John Paul II. He was the sixth African American to serve as a Catholic bishop in the United States, and the first to serve in the state of New York.
Emerson Moore was diagnosed with HIV in the late 1980s. It is not clear how he contracted the disease. In 1994, Moore entered a drug and alcohol treatment center in Center City, Minnesota. On September 14, 1995, Emerson Moore died due to complications with AIDS. He was 57-years-old. The Archdiocese of New York made an official announcement following his death saying Moore had died of “natural causes of unknown origin.” At his funeral Cardinal O’Connor spoke of the hardships that Moore faced as an African-American bishop in the Catholic Church.
9. John Holmes
In 1944, John Holmes was born in Ashville, Ohio. As a teenager, John was discovered in a public bathroom by a photographer who noticed his large penis size. The man encouraged John to join the adult film industry. By 1978, Holmes was earning as much as $3,000 a day as a pornographic actor. He developed the personality of Johnny Wadd and became one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time. Holmes has appeared in over 2,500 adult loops, stag films and feature movies. In 1981, he claimed to have had intercourse with 14,000 separate women. In February 1986, Holmes was diagnosed as HIV positive.
John Holmes died from AIDS-related complications on March 13, 1988, at the age of 43. After his death, John was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Adult film industry. Cinematographer Bob Vosse said “John Holmes was to the adult film industry what Elvis Presley was to rock ‘n’ roll. He simply was The King.” Since his death, Holmes has been the subject of several books, a lengthy essay in Rolling Stone magazine, two feature length documentaries, and was the inspiration for two Hollywood movies, Boogie Nights and Wonderland.
10. Eazy-E
Eric Lynn Wright, better known by his stage name Eazy-E, was an American rapper who performed solo and in the group N.W.A. In 1963, Wright was born in Compton, California. After dropping out of high school in the tenth grade, Eric supported himself primarily by selling drugs. In 1986, at the age of 23, Wright allegedly earned as much as USD $250,000 from dealing drugs. At this time in his life, Eric decided to move to Los Angeles and enter the hip-hop scene. In 1987, Eazy-E used his money to co-found Ruthless Records.
Eazy-E’s debut album Eazy-Duz-It was released on September 16, 1988, and featured twelve tracks. To date it has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States. After Ruthless Records artists Dr. Dre and Ice Cube wrote the song Boyz-n-the-Hood. Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, MC Ren and the Arabian Prince formed the group N.W.A. In 1988, N.W.A. released their most controversial album, Straight Outta Compton. The album has been viewed as a pioneering record in the genre of gangsta rap and has sold over three million copies.
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