Michael Kearns, the actor, playwright, director and AIDS activist whose career spanned more than five decades, has died. He was 76.
Kearns died Monday night, Oct. 5, longtime friend and journalist Karen Ocamb reported in the Los Angeles Blade. A cause of death has not been announced.
Filmmaker and professor Roland Palencia also confirmed the news, saying Kearns had visited emergency rooms more than five times during the previous three months, according to Entertainment Weekly.
His colleagues at Celebration Theatre had been preparing to welcome him back for a program connecting the company’s early work with a younger generation of queer artists.
Celebration Theatre Had Planned a ‘Jerker’ Reunion
Kearns was scheduled to perform selections from Robert Chesley’s Jerker with longtime collaborator Joe Gill on Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day.
The appearance was part of “Art in the Revolution: Queer Theatre in 1982 and Today,” a Celebration Theatre event at One Gallery in West Hollywood for One Institute’s Circa: Queer Histories Festival.
The program would have paired Kearns with writer and performer Brandon Kyle Goodman for a discussion of theater and social change, moderated by Celebration’s producing artistic director, Christopher Maikish.
In its tribute, Celebration Theatre remembered Kearns as one of its earliest artistic directors, serving from 1986 to 1987, and a recipient of its Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award. One Institute now lists the event as canceled.
‘Jerker’ Became Part of a Broadcast Censorship Dispute
Kearns directed the play’s world premiere at Celebration in 1986. Its story follows two gay men whose relationship develops through telephone conversations during the AIDS crisis.
After Los Angeles station KPFK aired excerpts, the Federal Communications Commission declared the broadcast indecent in 1987. The dispute became part of a broader legal challenge to the agency’s broadcast restrictions.
Kearns also explored the epidemic through his own solo works, including Intimacies and More Intimacies, portraying multiple characters affected by AIDS. His performances addressed illness, sexuality, loneliness and grief.
He Made His HIV Status Public in 1991
Already openly gay since the 1970s, Kearns disclosed that he was HIV positive on NBC’s A Closer Look in September 1991, following actor Brad Davis’ death from AIDS.
His official account describes the appearance as a challenge to Hollywood’s silence and stigma. Entertainment Tonight made his disclosure a lead story the following night. “HIV is nothing to be ashamed of,” Kearns told Ocamb at the time. “For me to remain silent indicates shame or fear on some level.”
In 1992, he played an HIV-positive character on Life Goes On. His screen credits also included Cheers, The Waltons, Knots Landing, Murder, She Wrote, Beverly Hills, 90210, Body Double and HBO’s And the Band Played On.
He Built Organizations Alongside His Own Career
Kearns co-founded Artists Confronting AIDS with artistic collaborator James Carroll Pickett and served as its artistic director for ten years. The organization’s AIDS/US productions brought people living with the disease onstage to tell their own stories.
He later founded QueerWise, a Los Angeles spoken-word collective, and taught writing workshops. His work included roles as an artistic associate at Skylight Theatre and artist-in-residence at Housing Works.
His performance in Charles Ludlam’s Camille in 1993 earned a Drama-Logue Award, while his books included T-Cells & Sympathy and Acting = Life.
His Daughter Spoke About Growing Up With an Activist Father
Kearns and Philip Juwig held a wedding ceremony in 1992, Juwig died later that year. His daughter, Tia Katherine, came into his care in 1995, the adoption took nearly three years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Katherine, who survives him, spoke about growing up with an activist father in a 2017 Honeysuckle interview conducted by Kearns himself. “Your openness and courage forced me to be honest with myself and the world I live in,” she told him.