Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
It has been my privilege over the last 40 years to cover the daytime drama industry. For many of those years, soap creators and head writers used the medium not just to entertain but to deal with important social issues—in other words to encourage viewers to think.
In the late ’80s, the AIDS epidemic hit the soap scene hard. Many members of the community, on both sides of the camara, succumbed to the disease and passed away at an early age.
In August 1992 “One Life to Live” executive producer Linda Gottlieb (she was new to soaps after producing “Dancing Dancing”) staged a real coup by creating a sequence centered on the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt which came that hot summer day to Llanview. It was scripted by “OLTL’s” head writer, Michael Malone, who was also a novelist and a literature professor. He passed away two years ago.
ABC publicist Rodi Rosensweig gave me the exclusive on the story, which I covered for USA Today. The story was syndicated nationwide and appeared in The Los Angeles Times.
When I arrived that day in New Vernon, N.J., where that historic scene was to be shot, I saw the quilt spread out in an open grassy field. Each square was sewn by hand by the survivors of a person who had passed away from the disease. It was a moving memorial to so many loved ones.
The shoot proceeded as planned, but with a special aura of sensitivity. In that era of controversy, it was the first time the quilt had been displayed in a dramatic context. The writing and acting of this sequence were filled with emotion.
I personally believe this was soap opera at its best and most meaningful. Whether or not you were an “OLTL” fan, I recommend that you check out this sequence on YouTube.
I was deeply moved and honored to be invited to cover this event. I would like to share my story here, as it appeared in The Los Angeles Times in 1992.
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Strong Dose of Reality for ABC’s ‘One Life to Live’
The soap shows eight sections of the Names Project AIDS quilt to conclude a summer-long plot examining homophobia and a gay teen character.
By Connie Passalacqua
Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 1992
One of TV’s daytime soap operas, which daily feature characters having romances amid a backdrop of froth and fantasy, today injects a taste of bitter reality.
Today and Monday, ABC’s “One Life to Live” (which airs weekdays at 1 p.m.) rolls out eight sections of the Names Project AIDS Quilt as a conclusion to a summer-long plot examining homophobia and a teen character’s public declaration that he is gay. The AIDS quilt has never been displayed before in any kind of commercial or entertainment genre.
“I wanted a highly dramatic end for the homophobia story we’ve been doing all summer,” says “One Life to Live” executive producer Linda Gottlieb, who conceived the idea of featuring the quilt. “The quilt is a strong powerful image. It’s a visual; it’s powerful; it’s easily dramatized. It’s an abstraction against hatred.”
But the Names Project, the San Franciso-based organization that owns the quilt, didn’t exactly jump at the opportunity.
Andy Ives, director of community relations for the Names Project, said that the group does not believe the quilt should be used commercially. There also was concern because the quilt is perishable, and Gottlieb wanted to shoot it outdoors, in the yard of the Church of Christ the King in New Vernon, N.J. “I thought it would lose visual impact if it was done indoors,” she explained.
The quilt is made up of 20,000 individual cloth memorials that have been sewn together, each panel made by friends to commemorate a loved one who has died from AIDS. The whole quilt has only been displayed four times, in Washington, since the project was started in 1987. Small sections are sent throughout the country for community display, but only on request and only indoors, according to Ives.
Negotiations between ABC and the Names Project finally produced agreement. ABC made what a network spokesman calls “a substantial contribution” to the Names Project and promised on-air plugs for the year’s display of the quilt in Washington from Oct. 9-11. ABC also used 130 volunteers from the New Jersey chapter of the Names Project as extras during the taping.
“But what really persuaded us was when ‘One Life to Live’ offered us the opportunity to work with them on the story,” Ives said. “We didn’t want (the quilt) to be used as a backdrop of some story that would be AIDS-phobic. And we’re quite happy with what they’ve come up with.”
Earlier this summer on the soap, 17-year-old Billy Douglas (Ryan Phillippe) confessed to minister Andrew Carpenter (Wortham Krimmer) that he was gay. Billy’s parents and the angry townspeople of Llanview, where the soap is set, charged Andrew with having an affair with the teenager. Stubbornly insisting on the right to privacy, Andrew has refused to disclose his sexual preference. Andrew has been beaten up and called disparaging names, and there have been several attempts to defrock him. Simultaneously, Andrew’s father, Sloan (Roy Thinnes), has been refusing to believe that Andrew’s brother, William, who died a year ago, was a victim of AIDS.
Two weeks ago, William’s former lover came to Llanview to enlist Andrew and Sloan’s help in adding a panel in William’s memory to the AIDS quilt. Sloan angrily refused at first. Now, in the two-day sequence beginning today, the quilt becomes “the means by which Andrew and his father are reunited and the town confronts its fears about gays,” Gottlieb said.
Although homosexual characters have been featured previously on “All My Children” and “As the World Turns,” neither story was given as serious a spotlight as the story of young Billy (and the interlocking story of the minister) on “One Life to Live.”
“I think this is a breakthrough because it shows from the inside to my satisfaction what it’s like to be gay in a hostile world,” said Freeman Gunther, managing editor of Soap Opera Weekly and a 20-year-veteran of the gay press. Gunther said homosexuality is hardly ever dealt with in the soap world because “it’s strictly a boy-girl world. Daytime sells romantic fantasies to women … The networks are very uncomfortable with anything that upsets that audience in the slightest.”
Thus, Billy has come out, but he’s yet to take a lover. His suspected “lover,” the Rev. Andrew, has really been having a passionate affair all along with a female character, Cassie Callison (Laura Bonarrigo). William, the brother who is being memorialized, was never an on-screen soap character.
Gottlieb said the story presented this summer is focused specifically on homophobia, not homosexuality. “The soap world isn’t ready for ‘Longtime Companion’ yet,” she said, referring to the standard gay-themed feature film. “Our story is really about the reaction one has when you find out someone you know is gay.”
Yet even with the limitations of this story, Ives of the Names Project feels that displaying the quilt on a soap opera signals a significant stride in AIDS awareness.
“I think the fact that the recognition has come around now reflects how America is finally dealing with the AIDS epidemic” he said. “Sure, it’s a decade after the epidemic started. But whether it’s Magic Johnson announcing he is HIV-positive or the quilt being on a soap opera in 1992, at least Americans are taking this disease seriously.”
Postscript, by Moose: I’m proud to add that my wife won a GLAAD Award for this story in 1992.
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