Dead Celebrity Alert

Former Mayor James E. West, who opposed gay-rights bills but was recalled from office over an Internet gay sex scandal, died Saturday of complications from recent cancer surgery. He was 55.

The conservative former Republican state senate majority leader was diagnosed in early 2003 with colon cancer that later spread to his liver. A statement issued by University of Washington Medical Center said his family and pastor were at his side at the Seattle hospital. …

Seven months after The Spokesman-Review newspaper began publishing results of a computer “sting” it conducted to track the mayor’s online activities in a gay chat room, West was ousted from office on Dec. 6, 2005, on a single charge that he used his office for personal benefit.

West was the first Spokane city official to be recalled from office, ending a 27-year career in city and state politics.

The former Spokane city councilman, Boy Scout leader and sheriff’s deputy had frequently opposed gay-rights bills during his 20 years in the state House and Senate. … Read full obituary

See also:
Jim West at Conservative Babylon

Pioneering psychotherapist and writer Betty Berzon died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 78 years old.

Berzon had been sick with cancer, but still continued to see patients and write while undergoing chemotherapy.

Her desire to continue work while sick seemed like classic Berzon persistence. She was known for turning one of the lowest points of her life into her life’s direction. During her early adult years, she had been hospitalized after trying to kill herself, in part because she struggled with her sexual orientation. During her recovery, doctors encouraged her to become a psychotherapist. She went on to become one of our community’s best-known, with a gift for helping gay people come to terms with their true selves and with each other. …

She was one of the founding board members for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in 1971. …

[Terry] DeCrescenzo, the president of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, and Berzon became a couple in 1973. They married in 1993 during a mass wedding ceremony at the March on Washington. … Read full obituary

(Cocoa, Florida) Jack Nichols, one of the pioneers of gay liberation and a prolific writer, died early Monday in hospital after a long illness. He was 67.

In 1961, Nichols along with Frank Kameny, founded the Mattachine Society of Washington — one of the earliest groups to fight for gay rights in America. …

Nichols particularly was responsible for challenging the then prevalent psychiatric model of homosexuality as mental illness.

In 1965 he was instrumental in organizing some of the first public gay demonstrations in the United States — including the first protest at White House. … Read full obituary

An appointee of Mayor Anthony A. Williams who headed the city’s office of gay and lesbian issues was found slain late yesterday in her Northeast Washington home, police said, stunning city officials, activists and friends.

The body of Wanda R. Alston was found inside her home in the 3800 block of East Capitol Street, police said. Authorities said she apparently had been stabbed, but they were awaiting the medical examiner’s ruling on the cause of death.

Alston, 45, was found by her partner face down near the front door of the two-story brick rowhouse just before 6 p.m., officials said. No weapon was found. Police said her silver 2000 Nissan Sentra, with D.C. tags AZ9597, was missing. …

Williams named Alston his special assistant for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs in 2001. In September 2004, Williams turned her post into a Cabinet-level position, saying he wanted to raise the profile of the office. … Read full obituary

Author Susan Sontag, widely regarded as one of America’s leading intellectuals, has died aged 71.

The writer, who had suffered from leukaemia, died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Calling herself an “obsessed moralist”, Sontag was the author of 17 books and a lifelong human rights activist.

She wrote best-selling historical novel The Volcano Lover and in 2000 won the National Book Award for another historical novel, In America.

Her greatest literary impact was as an essayist, however, with her 1964 study of homosexual aesthetics Notes on Camp establishing her as a major new writer. …

Sontag, who described herself as a “zealot of seriousness”, was also a human rights activist and an outspoken opponent of US foreign policy. … Read full obituary

Barry “J.T.” Rogers, known as Johnny Rahm in scores of gay sex movies, committed suicide in Atlanta on Nov. 7. He was 39.

Rogers hung himself with a wire on the fence line of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, according to the Atlanta Police Department. …

Rogers was born June 11, 1965, in Milledgeville, Ga. He was buried there next to his grandmother on Nov. 10, said Jamey Rousey, Rogers’ cousin.

Rogers, who was HIV-positive, is survived by his parents, two sisters and a brother, according to Rousey.

Rousey said he and Rogers were raised fundamental Baptists and attended a Christian high school in Macon and also attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. … Read full obituary

California state senator William J. “Pete” Knight, who sponsored the state’s same-sex marriage ban and took it directly to voters after twice failing to get it through the legislature, has died of leukemia. He was 74.

Knight died of an acute form of the cancer Friday night at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, his communications director, David Orosco, said Saturday. Knight, a Republican from Palmdale, had been absent from his seat since April 12 because of his illness. “The worst thing about this is, he wanted to keep working, going, contributing,” said Knight’s wife, Gail. “He wanted to live. He wanted to try. God had a different plan.” …

Knight was best known as author of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, which says that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized as valid in California. After failing to get similar legislation through the Democrat-controlled legislature, Knight took it to voters; the measure passed with 61% approval in 2000. He later used the courts to keep state agencies from granting spousal rights to same-sex couples. His nonprofit group is at the center of the legal challenges to San Francisco’s same-sex wedding spree.

Knight’s son, David Knight, married Joseph Lazzaro, his partner of 10 years, at San Francisco’s City Hall earlier this year, just two days before the California supreme court halted the weddings. … Read full obituary

Key West, Florida — Key West commissioner Jeremy Anthony has died after a lengthy battle with AIDS. The body of the 51 year old Anthony was discovered Monday at his home.

Anthony was nearing the end of his first term on Key West’s council and had announced plans to run for mayor. …

Anthony was diagnosed with HIV 18 years ago. A vegetarian, he used natural, non-pharmaceutical treatment methods. …

In his 21 years in Key West, Anthony served as president of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Alliance and as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of the Keys. … Read full obituary

Hong Kong, April 1 — Leslie Cheung, a pop singer and actor who won international acclaim for his portrayal of an opera star in the 1993 movie “Farewell, My Concubine,” fell to his death today from a hotel here, local news organizations reported. He was 46.

A police spokeswoman refused to identify the dead man fully, saying only that a 46-year-old with the surname Cheung had died in hospital after falling from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Hotel.

Cable Television reported that Mr. Cheung had left a note saying he was suffering from emotional problems.

Mr. Cheung was one of Hong Kong’s most popular performers, notable for being one of only a few Asian stars to play openly gay characters. … Read full obituary

Bill Blass, a major designer in the world of fashion for more than 50 years who also helped raise funds and consciousness in the fight against AIDS, died from cancer on Wednesday at his home in New Preston, Conn. He was 79 years old.

During his long fashion career, Blass’ creations were favored by Gloria Vanderbilt, Nancy Reagan, Jessye Norman and Brook Astor. His designs were rarely considered cutting-edge, but they were praised for their crisp elegance, quality and simplicity. …

In New York, Blass is also remembered as a generous and influential supporter of AIDS treatment services since the late 1980s. … Read full obituary

Frank Moore, a painter and AIDS activist who helped create the red ribbon design that became an international symbol for AIDS awareness, died of complications from AIDS on Sunday, April 21, at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 48 years old.

Moore was one of the first members of Visual AIDS, and he was instrumental in forming the group’s Red Ribbon Project in 1990, according to the New York Times. The project launched the overlapping red ribbon, which was worn on lapels and has become recognizable worldwide as a representation of the struggle against AIDS.

Moore’s paintings, several of which were featured in New York’s Whitney Biennial in 1995, reportedly mix art and politics, and many focus on themes of bioethics or environmental decay. … Read full obituary

Bill Beardemphl, founder of one of San Francisco’s earliest gay rights organizations, has died at the age of 75.

He passed away on Feb. 13, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, after suffering for more than a year from prostate cancer.

Beardemphl trained as a chef in New York before moving to San Francisco in 1962 with his longtime partner, John DeLeon, a professional dancer. Dismayed by the then-repressive nature of the city’s laws, he formed the Society for Individual Rights in 1964 with friend Bob Ross, publisher of the gay Bay Area Reporter newspaper. The group enlisted more than 1,000 members nationally.

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His activism continued through the 1970s, when he wrote a regular column, “From the Left,” for the Bay Area Reporter and started another local gay newspaper, The Sentinel. … Read full obituary

Actor George Nader, whose muscular good looks made him a beefcake star in more than 50 films, died of pneumonia on Monday at the age of 80.

Nader, who was an heir of his friend Rock Hudson’s estate, died at the Motion Picture Country Home near Woodland Hills, Calif.

In 1954, Nader won a Golden Globe award as the most promising new actor. He starred in “Six Bridges to Cross” with Tony Curtis, “Lady Godiva” with Maureen O’Hara and “Sins of Jezebel” with Paulette Goddard.

He also appeared in such cult science-fiction films as “Robot Monster” and “The Human Duplicators.”

In the 1960s, Hollywood gossip swirled about Nader and Rock Hudson being romantically involved. Nader was in fact involved with Hudson’s secretary, Mark Miller, who became Nader’s longtime partner. … Read full obituary

Lance Loud, the beguiling eldest son in a family whose conflicts were laid bare in a landmark 1973 public television documentary series, has died. He was 50.

Loud, a freelance journalist who had been living in Echo Park, died Saturday morning at a hospice in Los Angeles of complications from hepatitis C, his sister, Delilah, said Monday. With him at the time of his death, in addition to Delilah, were his mother, Pat, and sister Michele.

Loud emerged as a protagonist in “An American Family,” the controversial PBS series that was a progenitor of today’s unscripted programming. A real-life soap opera, it was the television sensation of 1973. The series examined the Louds of Santa Barbara, who had allowed documentarians to trail them in their daily lives for seven months in 1971.

The result was a prime-time, 12-part series that drew record audiences for public television stations with its revelations: from father Bill’s philandering and wife Pat kicking him out of the house, to then-20-year-old Lance declaring himself gay in a rundown New York hotel.

His public avowal, quite bold for the times, made him a hero in the gay community. But in other quarters he and the rest of the family were ridiculed for participating in what has been called the most expensive home movie in history.

“In 1970, television ate my family,” Lance Loud wrote many years later. “The Andy Warhol prophecy of 15 minutes of fame for any and everyone blew up on our doorstep.” … Read full obituary