Michael Kearns, 1950 – 2026

Actor, writer, and director Michael Kearns, 76, died on Oct. 5. Kearns came out as gay in the 1970s, and as HIV-positive in 1991, and was active in fund-raising and support for both groups (he wrote several books both on acting and dealing with HIV). In the theater, he appeared in (and sometimes wrote and directed) such shows as Tom Eyen's The Dirtiest Show in Town, Jerker, Intimacies, More Intimacies, The Truth Is Bad Enough, Attachments, Tell Tale Kisses, Myron, Mijo, Robert's Memorial, Who's Afraid of Edward Albee?, Blessings, and Barriers. He was active in films and TV from the 1970s through the 2010s, and was seen in The Waltons, Kentucky Fried Movie, Cheers, The Making of a Male Model, Murder She Wrote, Knots Landing, and And the Band Played On, among other vehicles. Kearns told BroadwayWorld, “I was truly a victim of homophobia, and it affected the course of my career and certainly my livelihood. But at the end of the day, I wouldn't change ‘the course of my career’ for anything. There is no one else's career I want. And I never went to bed hungry. I have pretty much what I need as an artist. It's all good, so the homophobia that was relentlessly hurled in my directed has faded. It certainly continues to motivate my activism, but I can no longer let it drench me in day-to-day pain.”