In Do the Right Thing, Rosie Perez kicks ass as a hysterical, foul-mouthed mother given to emotional eruptions. | In 1994, at an emotional ACT UP disruption outside New York’s City Hall, bad mutha Rosie did the right thing by shouting at Mayor Rudy Giuliani to “Get up off your ass!” |
Apocalypse Now star Martin Sheen appeared in the movie Wall Street, which demonstrated the greed of the coke-addled corporate ’80s. | In 1987, Sheen attended the founding meeting of the apocalyptic ACT UP, which demonstrated against Wall Street’s AIDS-drug-inspired greed. |
Anti-diva Susan Sarandon, who fell silently to her death in Thelma and Louise, surrendered her virginity to a transvestite from another planet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. | In 1994, Sarandon, who once wore a Silence=Death button on Good Morning America, showed her incredulity during a demo against Rudy Giuliani, the mayor from another planet. |
Terminally cute all-American Patty Duke made her grown-up debut in Valley of the Dolls, a camp classic about the impact of recreational drugs on the Hollywood system. | In 1988, Duke attended a demo for ACT UP, at which terminally ill all-Americans warned about the impact of toxic drugs on the circulatory system. |
CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, living in the shadow of Walter Cronkite, lost credibility after a week of his eccentric signing-off with the word “courage.” | In 1987, eccentric ACT UP demonstrators, living in the shadow of the epidemic, were given credibility by Rather, who showed “courage” as the first anchor to air an ACT UP demo. |
For a “terrifying year and a half” in the mid-1960s, ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings followed civil-rights activists in their personal crusades across the South. | During ACT UP’s 1991 Day of Desperation, activists passed over World News Tonight in their on-air protests because Jennings had made AIDS a “personal crusade.” |
Frasier’s Dan Butler plays sportscaster Bulldog, a whistle-blowing, loudmouthed, skirt-chaser. | In 1987, Butler was the chair of logistics for ACT UP, a group of whistle-blowing, loudmouthed, skirt-wearers. |
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