Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925 in Winnetka, Illinois. His father, an auto mechanic, left the family when Rock was eight years old. Rock’s mother, a telephone operator named Katherine Wood, was left to raise her son alone until she remarried Wallace Fitzgerald a few years later. Rock took his stepfather’s name when Fitzgerald adopted him, making his name Roy Fitzgerald. During his school years, Rock decided to become an actor, although he did not immediately pursue his goal.

After graduating high school, Rock worked for the United States Postal Service before entering the Navy to serve as an airplane mechanic during World War II. When he arrived back in America after the war, Rock moved to California, where he had various jobs including driving a truck and working for a moving company.

Rock began to pursue an acting career by sending his photo to various Hollywood film studios and taking acting, singing, fencing and riding lessons. He changed his name from Roy Fitzgerald to Rock Hudson so it would be shorter, easier to pronounce and sound more masculine. Despite having no acting experience, these steps landed him a bit part in the 1948 film, “Fighter Squadron.” This film marks the beginning of a career that lasted more than 30 years. Over the next few years, Rock scored parts in several films. His talent, stature and good looks made him an alluring box office draw.

In the early 1950s Rock began to win more major parts, acting opposite Yvonne De Carlo in “Scarlet Angel” and “Sea Devils,” and starring in movies such as “Magnificent Obsession,” with Jane Wyman, “The Lawless Breed” and “Seminole.” In 1956, Rock starred in “Giant” with James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor, a role for which he won a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. He also acted in a 1957 film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.” The next year, Look magazine named Rock “Star of the Year.”

Rock married his agent’s secretary, Phyllis Gates, in 1955. It was an instant attraction for both: Rock admired the way Phyllis didn’t treat him like a movie star, and Phyllis was swept away by his flawless charm. However, the union lasted three short years. Rock would travel constantly, shooting new films or visiting with friends, leaving Phyllis at home. Her best efforts to salvage the marriage were in vain, as Rock started to losing interest in the marriage while his burgeoning film career was taking off. Phyllis filed for divorce in 1958 and neither married again.

Rock starred opposite Doris Day in the 1959 film “Pillow Talk.” The pair was so successful in this first film that they worked together in two other romantic comedies of the early 1960s, “Lover Come Back” and “Send Me No Flowers.”

While his popularity as a handsome leading man in films continued, the 1970s brought Rock into a new medium: television. From 1971 to 1977, he starred opposite Susan St. James in the popular television series “McMillan and Wife.” Although he made fewer movies in the 1970s, Rock did star in “Showdown” with Dean Martin (1973) and “Avalanche” with Mia Farrow (1978), among others. Rock had a stint on the popular television series “Dynasty” from 1984 to 1985. His last Hollywood movie was the 1984 film, “The Ambassador.”

Rock began having health problems in the early 1980s. After years of heavy smoking, he underwent quintuple bypass heart surgery in 1981. His health continued to decline when, three years later, Rock announced that he was dying from AIDS. Because he was the first celebrity to publicly acknowledge his suffering from the disease, Rock’s illness changed the overwhelming perception of AIDS and brought new attention to the epidemic. Tragically, Rock died of the disease on October 2, 1985 in Beverly Hills, California. His remains were cremated and scattered at sea.

Rock completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that lasted over three decades. An incredible film icon, Rock’s timeless influence in Hollywood will live on for generations.

Cammermeyer was born in Oslo, Norway on March 24, 1943, while the country was under Nazi occupation. Both active in the resistance movement, her parents sheltered resistance fighters and smuggled weapons to the underground. She credits their actions, specifically that of her mother and other women, for laying the foundation of her later interest in defending democratic ideals as a woman in the military.

Cammermeyer’s parents also inspired her interest in medicine. Her father was a doctor who became a well-respected neuroanatomist and neuropathologist in Norway and later in the United States; her mother had worked as a Red Cross nurse prior to her marriage.

Soon after the end of World War II, Cammermeyer’s father received a Rockefeller Fellowship, which allowed him and his family to live for nine months in Boston. In 1951, the family immigrated to the United States in order for her father to take a position with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Nine years old at the time, Cammermeyer found the adjustments in language and culture difficult. This difficulty may have been exacerbated by the fact that she was very tall for her age and had already developed interests in science and sports, pursuits that were not considered “feminine.”

Although Cammermeyer was interested in pursuing her father’s profession, he refrained from encouraging or even supporting her in her academic pursuits, believing that women should be subservient to men. He placed much greater value on the goals and accomplishments of his three sons than he did on his daughter’s aspirations.

Consequently, even though Cammermeyer entered the University of Maryland in the fall of 1959 in hopes of becoming a doctor, she was unable to follow through on this dream. The pressures of taking pre-med courses, the strain of working to support herself, and the difficulty of adjusting to the freedoms that college life afforded her all took their toll. After her first semester, she was placed on academic probation. She dropped out of the pre-med curriculum and decided to pursue a nursing career.

In 1960, Cammermeyer became an American citizen. In 1961, to help pay for her education, she joined the U.S. Army and signed up for the Army Student Nurse Program. She received her B. S. in Nursing from the University of Maryland in 1963.

After college, Cammermeyer reported for active duty and completed basic training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, following which she spent an additional six months at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia. Once trained, she was stationed in Nuremburg, Germany.

Throughout college and her early years in the military, Cammermeyer often felt different and out of place. As a high school student, she had ascribed these feelings to her height and to her status as an immigrant. In college, she experienced serious bouts of depression, confusion, and self-alienation. Her responses ranged from cutting herself and drinking heavily to refocusing her energy on her courses or career and further repressing these difficult emotions.

Cammermeyer also felt very little interest in dating or having sexual relationships with men. Although she went on blind dates that her friends set up, she never felt inclined to pursue these liaisons.

In August 1964, however, while she was stationed in Germany, friends of hers set her up with a serviceman, Harvey Hawken, a Second Lieutenant in an armor battalion in the United States Army. Not only did he match her in height, but he also shared many other values with her. The two soon became a couple, and in spite of her ambivalence and subtle sense of losing her independence, Cammermeyer agreed to marry him.

In August 1965, the soldiers were married. In 1966, they requested transfers to Fort Lee, Virginia, a request that the Army approved.

The couple returned to the United States just as its involvement in Vietnam was escalating. They both decided to volunteer to serve in the conflict. Even though the Army canceled Hawken’s orders at the last minute, Cammermeyer decided to complete her tour of duty, hoping he would soon join her.

Cammermeyer spent fourteen months in Vietnam working at the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. During her tour of duty, she served as head nurse of a medical unit and then as head nurse of the neurosurgical intensive care unit. Eventually her husband arrived in Vietnam and after a few months of being stationed far apart, the couple secured housing together.

After their service in Vietnam, the couple moved to a small rural community south of Seattle. Cammermeyer had become pregnant in Vietnam, which according to military regulations at the time meant that she had to leave the military. Both she and her husband settled into civilian life. They built a home and farm on their property in Washington and began a family. They had four children in all: Matt, David, Andy, and Tom.

Yet life for Cammermeyer was not ideal. Although she enjoyed her role as mother, she felt compelled to return to her profession. In 1969 she began working part-time as a night-duty nurse, and in 1971, she took a similar position with more responsibilities at the veterans hospital in Seattle.

For the past eight years, the legacy of this remarkable young man’s life has challenged and inspired millions of individuals to erase hate in all forms. Although his life was short, it continues to have a great impact on both young and old alike.The story of Matthew Shepard begins on December 1, 1976 when he was born prematurely to Judy and Dennis Shepard in the small city of Casper, Wyoming. Matthew attended school in Casper until his junior year of high school when he finished his primary education at The American School in Switzerland. His experience abroad fueled his love for travel. He took the opportunity to explore Europe and learn multiple languages including German and Italian.

Matthew in Marocco Matthew at Window Matthew was an optimistic and accepting young man. He always put his family and friends first and had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person that was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people’s differences. Throughout his life he expressed his love for acting by becoming very active in community theater both on and off stage.

Matthew’s college career took him to a number of different universities and later ended up studying political science, foreign relations and languages at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He was extremely interested in politics and was chosen as the student representative for the Wyoming Environmental Council.

The horrific events that took place shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998 went against everything that Matthew embodied. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, lead him to a remote area east of Laramie where they demonstrated unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tied to a split-rail fence where he was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later he was found by a cyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow.

Matthew died on October 12 at 12:53 am at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. His entire family was by his side for the last few days of his life. His funeral was attended by friends and family from around the world and gained the appropriate media attention that brought Matthew’s story to the forefront of the fight against hate.

This tragedy helped the nation wake up to the fact that hate and discrimination still lives in our communities, our schools and our families. Although his life was cut short, the impact of his spirit is great.

He emerged as a figurehead for San Francisco’s large gay community, and was known as the “Mayor of Castro Street”, a title which he himself coined. With each campaign, he garnered a larger number of supporters. Milk was successful in reaching out and making alliances among the city’s ethnic populations and among labor union leaders, but not among the rank and file members. Milk’s opponent in the 1976 race for the California State Assembly was Art Agnos, who would win the seat by 3,600 votes out of 33,000 ballots cast.In 1976 San Francisco voters voted to replace city-wide elections with district elections, effective in the 1977 city elections. This switch to district elections ushered in the most diverse Board of Supervisors the city had ever seen. Milk was the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the United States, and only the third openly gay elected official in all of the US, after Kathy Kozachenko and Elaine Noble. Milk represented District 5, which included the Castro.

The diverse board included the former police officer and firefighter Dan White as well as the gay and liberal Milk. White had to resign from being a firefighter as San Francisco charter barred people from holding two city jobs at the same time so he took up a second job to supplement the pay downgrade, running a restaurant business, which failed. White, a Roman Catholic[2] and outspoken anti-gay conservative, who was elected with strong support from the city’s police union in part to fight “official tolerance of crime and of overt homosexuality” was counterpoint to Milk, an outspoken liberal who “frequently opposed him on the board.”

Milk became highly visible in the media debating California Senator John Briggs throughout the state on Proposition 6, The Briggs Initiative, to “prohibit homosexuals from teaching in California public schools,” a topic on which White and Milk “were sharply divided” because it would have empowered California school boards to fire teachers that “practiced, advocated, or indicated an acceptance of homosexuality.”

The wealthiest man in the entertainment industry, Geffen has displayed an uncanny assessment of musical talent and sharp business maneuvers. Though his list of money-making projects includes comedy films and real estate, Geffen remains best known for his work in the music industry. He has proven pivotal in the careers of a diverse group of artists, from folk artists to album-oriented rock acts to modern metal groups.

Geffen became a precocious wunderkind in the late 1960s, when he earned his first million dollars at the age of 25. He became successful because he could identify, advise, and guide potential superstar musicians. In later years he has retained his hold on an industry that caters to young people by delegating the responsibility for signing new talent to a small group of younger subordinates. Vanity Fair contributor Annie Leibovitz suggested that the difference between Geffen and traditional recording industry executives is that Geffen understands the artistic as well as the financial aspects of the business. “He really is friends with the talent that made him his fortune,” Leibovitz wrote. “He can talk music and movies and theater with creative artists, and he understands their process.”

Geffen has fondly called himself “just a boy from Brooklyn who wishes he were six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes,” as quoted in Vanity Fair. Fantasizing was certainly important to the son of Russian immigrants who grew up in a three-room apartment. Geffen was born on February 21, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York. His father, a pattern maker, was often unemployed; his mother, Batya, supported the family by making corsets and brassieres and selling them from her home. Batya was so successful that she was eventually able to buy a building big enough for her store and several other tenants as well. “My mother in her own tiny, little way was entrepreneurial,” Geffen stated in the New York Times Magazine. “Everything that I’ve ever applied in my life I learned hanging around her store…. I grew up learning my mother’s ideas about integrity and business and negotiating. It never occurred to me I’d be anything but a businessman.”

Another world lured Geffen, however. He haunted the Brooklyn movie theaters, drawing inspiration from the lavish lifestyles of the stars, especially studio bosses like Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner. In a Forbes profile, Geffen said, “I looked at these moguls and the world they created and figured it would be a fun way to make a living.”

His ambitions notwithstanding, Geffen was an indifferent student who graduated from Brooklyn’s New Utrecht High School in 1960 in the bottom ten percent of his class. The same day he earned his diploma, Geffen ventured west where he hoped to enter the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was denied admission on the basis of poor grades, but was able to enroll at the University of Texas at Austin; he lasted only a semester before flunking out. He returned home to New York for an equally short stint at Brooklyn College.

Early jobs as an usher at the CBS television studios and as a receptionist for a television production company also ended disastrously–Geffen was fired both times. In 1964 he landed a job in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. In order to be considered for the position he had to lie about his college background. He told personnel at William Morris that he had graduated from UCLA. When he discovered that the agency planned to contact UCLA to corroborate his story, the resourceful Geffen kept watch in the mailroom for four months, until he was able to retrieve the college’s reply. He steamed the letter open, took it to a printer, had the letterhead forged, and created his own academic credentials. Geffen told a New York Times reporter that, “It was either give William Morris what they wanted or give up my dreams…. I just don’t believe in taking no for an answer.”

Taking advice from the head of the William Morris music office, Geffen began scouting talent among his own age group–especially musicians. He proved to have a good ear, and the agency promoted him to junior agent after 18 months. In 1968 Geffen moved to the less staid Ashley Famous Agency, where he worked with such powerhouse groups as the Doors and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Leibovitz noted that Geffen quickly became a “Talent Scout Extraordinaire” with “the best instincts about people.”

Those instincts blossomed in the early 1970s, when Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts formed a record label, Asylum Records, supported by their own management company. They produced records with such artists as Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Linda Ronstadt, all of whom enjoyed great success with the label. In 1971 Geffen sold Asylum to Warner Communications for $7 million but kept his position as director of the company. Two years later, Warner asked him to head the struggling Elektra subsidiary. Geffen dropped two-thirds of Elektra’s artists and signed new talent. Soon both Asylum and Elektra were thriving.

A brief and less-than-successful stint as vice-chair of Warner Brothers Pictures convinced Geffen that he was not suited for the standard bureaucracy of Hollywood filmmaking. His career came to an abrupt halt in 1976 when he was misdiagnosed with bladder cancer. Convinced he was fatally ill, he left the business for the less taxing work of teaching at Yale University and UCLA. Four years passed before doctors in New York City reversed the prognosis on his illness. Relieved, Geffen resumed working in the recording industry.

Geffen subsequently founded Geffen Records, an independent label promoted and distributed by Warner Communications. Artists on the starting roster at the company’s founding in 1980 included Donna Summer, Elton John, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. An album by the latter couple, Double Fantasy, went triple platinum and won a Grammy Award for album of the year. Geffen was back in the game.

Always keen to good business, Geffen made a decision. “At the age of thirty-three I stopped signing acts,” he disclosed in Vanity Fair. “I don’t hold myself out to be a talent scout any longer. I’m too old.” Despite Geffen’s personal doubts, younger Geffen employees with somewhat radical tastes helped their leader stay at the forefront in pop music, signing acts like Guns N’ Roses, Whitesnake, and Aerosmith. In the meantime, Geffen branched into musical theater, producing some major Broadway hits, including Cats, Little Shop of Horrors, Dreamgirls, and M. Butterfly.

By March of 1990 Geffen was responsible for 50 gold and 31 platinum albums. In a surprise move, he sold his label to MCA, Inc., for 10 million shares of stock. The decision proved momentous. Eight months later, MCA was sold to a Japanese company, Matsushita, for $6.1 billion. Geffen reaped a $170 million profit on the deal.

Vanity Fair’s Leibovitz referred to David Geffen as, “The man who can fix things, who can smooth things over. The man who can get people placed and replaced. The man whose phone call has the effect of a corporation.” An equally fitting tribute comes from the lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s hit “A Free Man in Paris,” written about Geffen. According to Mitchell’s song, the tempestuous Geffen spends his days “stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song.”

Turning his Midas touch toward the movie industry in 1994, Geffen along with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg founded a new motion picture studio, called DreamWorks. By January 1995 the studio had sealed a $100 million deal with the American Broadcasting Company, and that year Microsoft executive Paul Allen purchased an 18.5 percent stake in the studio. Also in 1995, an animation studio was launched as a joint venture with Silicon Graphics.

DreamWorks by 1998 had released Saving Private Ryan, the first in what would become a progression of high grossing films. The animation studio released Antz and The Prince of Egypt. The studio merged with PDI computer animation in 2000, forming PDI/DreamWorks and producing Shrek, which in 2001 became the first film to win an Oscar for best animated feature. DreamWorks Animation SKG launched a $650 million public stock offering in 2004. Geffen, with a net worth estimated at $4.4 billion, was listed on Forbes’s list of the wealthiest Americans in 2004 and ranked as the wealthiest person in the entertainment industry.

by Anne Janette Johnson

Born Joe Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey on February 3, 1956, Lane took his stage name from Nathan Detroit, the character he played to great acclaim in the 1992 Broadway version of Guys and Dolls.Lane made his film debut in 1987’s Ironweed, and he spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s playing secondary roles in films like Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), and Addams Family Values (1993). During this time, his stage career was thriving; in addition to his celebrated turn in Guys and Dolls (for which he won a Tony nomination, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), he frequently collaborated with playwright Terrence McNally, who cast him in a number of his plays, including -The Lisbon Traviata, in which Lane played an opera queen, and -Love! Valour! Compassion!, in which he starred as Buzz, an HIV-positive musical aficionado who provides much of the play’s comic relief and genuine anger. The actor won particular acclaim for his portrayal of the latter character, taking home Obie and Drama Desk Awards, as well as other honors, for his work.

In 1994, the same year that he starred in the stage version of -Love! Valour! Compassion! (his role was played in the film version by Jason Alexander), Lane gained fame of a different sort, lending his voice to Timon, a hyperactive meerkat in Disney’s animated The Lion King. He reprised the role for the extremely successful movie’s 1998 sequel. Two years after playing a meerkat, Lane finally became widely visible to screen audiences as Robin Williams’ flamboyantly limp-wristed lover in The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ remake of La Cage aux Folles. The film helped to establish Lane–who was at the time starring on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum–as a comic actor worthy of big-screen exposure, and in 1997 he was given his own vehicle to display his talents, Mouse Hunt. Unfortunately, the film was a relative disappointment, as was Encore! Encore!, a 1998 sitcom that cast the actor as a Pavorotti-like opera singer alongside Glenne Headly and Joan Plowright. However, Lane continued to work steadily, appearing both on stage and in film. In 1999, he could be seen in At First Sight and Get Bruce, a documentary about comic writer Bruce Vilanch. The same year, he could also be heard in Stuart Little, a live action/animated adaptation of E.B White’s celebrated children’s book.

Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

After this grounding she had a more formal training at the Berklee College Of Music before playing the club circuit around Boston.However, her career took off after relocating to Los Angeles, where Island Records chief Chris Blackwell discovered her. Signed in 1986, her first break was writing the music for the movie Weeds. She had recruited one band to work with her but when this did not work out, she settled for a simple trio with Kevin McCormick on bass and Craig Krampf on drums. The first album was recorded live in the studio and spawned the single “Bring Me Some Water.” A turntable hit, it took some time to pick up sales but ended up a Grammy nominee. Former Iggy Pop sideman Scott Thurston made a guest appearance on the first album and returned for the second, along with U2’s Bono. Krampf did not play on the album, as he had been replaced by Maurigio Fritz Lewak.

Etheridge won a Grammy in the best female rock vocal performance in 1992 and 1994, and scored several mainstream hits, such as “Come to My Window,” “I’m the Only One” and “I Wanna Come Over.” She also announced herself as a lesbian by jumping onstage to kiss Elvira at the gay and lesbian Triangle Ball during the inaugural celebrations of President Clinton’s victory. She won the 1996 ASCAP songwriter of the year award, but took a lengthy break from the music business to concentrate on her domestic arrangements.

She returned in 1999 with the intimate, low-key Breakdown, followed by Skin in 2001. Far more high-profile was the media’s obsessive interest in unearthing the biological father of her and then-partner Julie Cypher’s two children. The sperm donor turned out to be David Crosby. After splitting with Cypher, Etheridge married actress Tammy Lynn Michaels in 2003. That same year, she appeared on a tribute album to Dolly Parton and shared the stage with her on CMT Crossroads. Etheridge offered the studio album Lucky in 2004.

“I guess I’m interested in sociopathic people,” he has stated, “in life and in my movies”. With art school training in painting as well as film, Van Sant worked in commercials before entering the film industry by making small personal films that played the festival circuit, notably in highbrow gay and lesbian venues. Openly gay, he has dealt unflinchingly with homosexual and other marginalized subcultures without being particularly concerned about providing positive role models. Van Sant’s first feature was “Mala Noche” (1986), a dreamy black-and-white rumination on the doomed relationship between a teen Mexican migrant worker and a liquor-store clerk. Made for about $25,000, the film won a Los Angeles Film Critics Award as the best independent/experimental film of 1987. “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989) chronicled the exploits of a rootless druggie (Matt Dillon) and his “crew” who survive by robbing West Coast pharmacies. Lyrically shot, and boasting superb performances from Dillon and co-star Kelly Lynch, the film marked Van Sant as a director of considerable promise.

Van Sant’s 1991 feature, “My Own Private Idaho”, based on his first original screenplay, starred River Phoenix as a narcoleptic male prostitute whose search for home and family takes him from Portland, OR, to such disparate locales as Idaho and Italy. Keanu Reeves plays his well-heeled companion of the streets and son of the local mayor who, like Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, goes slumming amongst the low-lifes before reclaiming his place in society. Unified by poetic visual imagery, the film combines a less than entirely successful contemporary retelling of the Bard’s “Henry IV” with a harsh, unsentimental and nonjudgmental look at the lives of hustlers.

The trades buzzed that Van Sant would make his Hollywood studio debut as the helmer of “The Mayor of Castro Street”, based on Randy Shilts’ book about San Francisco’s assassinated, openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk. Oliver Stone was set to produce and Robin Williams reportedly wanted the lead. The project eventually fell apart due to the creative differences between Van Sant and Stone over the screenplay.

Van Sant returned to familiar territory–another indie road picture centering on an outsider (budgeted at $7.5 million), “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” (1994). Adapted from Tom Robbins’ 1976 cult novel about a young woman whose outsized thumbs make her a formidable hitchhiker, “Cowgirls” was highly anticipated after the attention-getting success of the writer-director’s preceding two features. The film was reportedly rushed through editing to be ready for the international film festivals. After “underwhelming” audience response at the 1994 Toronto Film Festival opening night screening, “Cowgirls” was returned to the editing room for extensive recutting. (Van Sant has denied the rumors that reshooting was required.) Nonetheless, the final product was deemed a tedious bore, top heavy with would-be quirky characters. It fizzled with both critics and audiences.

The debacle of “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” could have derailed Van Sant’s career had he not already committed to helming “To Die For” (1995), his first major studio project, before the release of “Cowgirls”. The medium budget satire also marked the first time Van Sant directed a film without receiving a screenplay credit. Scripted by Hollywood veteran Buck Henry, “To Die For” was inspired by the true story of a high-school teacher who seduced her teenage lover into murdering her husband. A modest commercial success, the film was a critical hit for everyone involved, particularly its star Nicole Kidman who portrayed the media-obsessed careerist who romances Joaquin Phoenix into murdering Matt Dillon. Some demurred from the consensus, dismissing the critique of American media as facile and Kidman’s characterization as misogynistic. However, most were impressed by Van Sant’s empathetic handling of the alienated teen characters.

That same year, Van Sant served as executive producer on one of the more controversial films of 1995–Larry Clark’s “Kids”, a ‘verite’-styled drama about the sex and drug habits of a group of middle-class Manhattan teens. Some found the work profound, while others found it profoundly troubling for its “exploitive” use of young actors (though the filmmakers maintain that all actors shown simulating drug-taking and copulation were at least 18). Van Sant’s favored cinematographer Eric Edwards (”Mala Noche”, “Drugstore Cowboy”, “My Own Private Idaho”) lensed the visually striking feature.

As a follow-up, Van Sant returned to the director’s chair to guide “Good Will Hunting” (1997), about an underachiever (Matt Damon) on the road to self-destruction who finds unlikely aid from several people, including a therapist (Robin Williams) and his best friend (Ben Affleck). Written by Damon and Affleck, the film is well-crafted, but somewhat predictable. Van Sant’s sure-handed direction and authentic sense of place (it is set in Cambridge, MA) overcome whatever deficiencies and he elicited strong performances from the cast. While “Good Will Hunting” might seem an unlikely choice for the director, its themes of outsiders struggling to connect to the mainstream place it squarely in his oeuvre. The feature’s success moved Van Sant toward mainstream Hollywood.

Since 1984, Van Sant has been making an annual, autobiographical short film that he ultimately plans to assemble into a cinematic diary; Van Sant also paints, plays guitar and writes for his own Portland rock band, “Destroy All Blondes.”

Many Barker fans had already guessed this from some of the themes that reoccur in his work.

He writes:

“As a gay writer/filmmaker, I think it’s inevitable that some of my characters and situations echo my orientation. It is, however, a problem to push these elements as far as I would like. By and large, the horror audience is curiously conservative when it comes to erotic matters.”

Naturally, however, Barker is a little too complex to be so easily defined. He also writes:

“I define myself as a gay man who’s had relationships with women. [...] I am bound, by political reasons much than anything else, [to] say, well, I’m a gay author. And, I’m very happy to be identified that way. Proud to be identified that way. Is it a simplification? Yes. Is it a politically useful simplification right now? I suspect it is. I suspect it’s important to say that right now. Not because I have a boyfriend and he’d be really pissed off if I didn’t… but, I also think it’s important to say, get over it.”

Clive Barker was born near Penny Lanes, Liverpool in 1952. After attending junior school in that city, he entered Liverpool University to study English Literature and Philosophy. At twenty-one, Clive moved to London. There he formed a theater company to perform the plays that he was writing and worked in that medium throughout his twenties as a writer, director, and actor. Many of these early plays contained the fantastical, erotic and horrific elements that would later become part of his literary work. They include: History of the Devil, Frankenstein in Love, Subtle Bodies, The Secret Life of Cartoons, and a play about his favorite painter, Goya, entitled Colossus. HarperPrism has put together The History of the Devil, Frankenstein In Love, and Colossus in a collection entitled Incarnations.

The imaginative qualities that were such a fundamental part of Clive’s theatrical work found their first literary outlet in the short fiction to which he turned in his late twenties. The first published examples of these tales are Book of Blood, Volumes 1-3. They saw only modest success in the U.K., but with the publication of the book in the United States and the appearance of his first novel, The Damnation Game, he began to find favor with readers and critics alike.

Three more volumes followed, published in the U.K. as the Book of Blood, Volumes 4-6, and retitled in America as The Inhuman Condition, In the Flesh, and Cabal. By this point many of his books were finding their ways into translation, and now appear in over a dozen language.

In 1987, following the adaptation of two of his stories for the movies (Rawhead Rex and Transmutations, both of which he disliked), he decided to direct something himself. The result was Hellraiser, based on a novella called The Hellbound Heart. The film developed a cult following and has since spawned several lines of comic books as well as three movies sequels: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (directed by Tony Randal), Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (directed by Tony Hickox) and Hellraiser: Bloodline. Subsequently, Clive adapted his short story Cabal into Nightbreed, which he also directed.

After the publication of the novels Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show, several Barker-related publications appeared: graphic art adaptations of his short story called “Tapping the Vein” and two large format covering his art work called Clive Barker: Illustrator, Volume I and II.

The epic fantasy novel Imajica followed, then an illustrated children’s fable called The Thief of Always, a line of superhero comics for Marvel called “Razorline”, and a one-man art show at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York where his work is still being displayed.

Clive has served as Executive Producer on the film Candyman (directed by Bernard Rose) which was based on his short story, “The Forbidden” and on Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (directed by Bill Condon).

Most recent, Clive published Galilee, Everville, the sequel novel to The Great and Secret Show, Second Book of the Art, and Sacrament, a dark fantasy for all ages. His most recent film project was Lord of Illusions, which he wrote, directed and co-produced. Projects currently in development are: an animated feature based on The Thief of Always, a mini-series Weaveworld, and an interactive computer game called Extosphere.

Though Clive has moved to Los Angeles and is now involved with several projects for both the large and small screen, his first love remains books. He number amongst his literary influences the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, Herman Meville, William Blake, Will Burroughs, Arthur Machen and both the old and new testaments.

About himself, Clive writes: “My enthusiasm as an artist is rooted not in any particular medium, but in the act of imagig. My books, films, drawings and plays, thought they may seem to be very disparate in content, are still mapping out different parts of the same landscape: that is to say, the world between my ears, I am motivated to write or paint by the images and scenes which arise from my subconscious, without invitation, which seems on closer inspection to dramatize elements of my deeper self.

I am a Jungian, not a Freudian. I believe that a collective unconscious–a pool of shared images and stories which all humanity is heir to–exist, and the artist dealing in the fantastique is uniquely placed, in that he or she can create stories or paintings which dramatize the eruption of the unconscious into our day to day lives.

I’ve pointed out many times that we spend one-third of our lives asleep. During the adventure of dreaming, we are making both a private investigations into our hopes and fears and also swimming in the dream pool, which we share with the rest of our species.

I hope that the fiction I write will empower us to both comprehend our secret dream selves and understand the profound intimacy we share with every other human being.”

With music that is as catchy as it is controversial, Ari Gold has not only been out from the beginning of his career, he has also never shied away from creating songs that come from his unique perspective as an openly gay man–something that is unprecedented in R&B/Pop music. Ari has been featured on VH-1, MTV Europe, Radio 1, IFC, Top Of The Pops, HBO Zone, Here!TV, BBC and is the first out artist to debut at #1 on MTV Networks LOGO’s Top 10 Video Countdown. He has received acclaim from trade papers, Billboard and HITS, style features in VIBE, W, V, critical attention in national lifestyle magazines The Advocate, OUT, Genre and Instinct and has graced countless regional magazine covers around the world. Ari has toured Europe (France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Belgium), Canada, and in over 35 cities in the U.S, has opened for Cyndi Lauper, RuPaul and Chaka Khan. In his native NYC he has headlined music venues Lincoln Center, BAM (Brooklyn Academy Of Music) and Joe’s Pub as well as dance clubs Avalon, Pacha, and Crowbar. Both his first two self released studio albums are Outmusic Award winners for the 2002 Outstanding Debut and the 2005 Album of The Year. With his coffee table book and remix CD, released in over 25 countries, the press has coined him an international sex symbol and gay icon.With the release of his third studio album, Transport Systems, Ari is about to embark on the most exciting chapter of his career to date. Assembling a stellar cast of collaborators such as Steve Skinner (Akon, Jewel, Diana Ross), Grammy Award Winning Producer Joe Hogue and 2x Grammy Winning mixer/producer Bob Rosa, as well as guest appearances by Sasha Allen (VH-1’s Born To Diva), hip-hop artist Mr. Man and multi-platinum selling Grammy nominated Capitol Records Artist Dave Koz, Transport Systems is funky, sexy, smart and soulful–with topics ranging from the down low phenomenon, gay relationships, crystal meth addiction, gender identity and spirituality–all set behind infectious grooves, thick harmonies, and melodic hooks.

Born and raised in an orthodox Jewish household in the Bronx, Ari Gold was discovered while singing at his brother’s bar-mitzvah at the tender age of five. It was then that Ari landed his earliest job as a professional singer, performing the lead role on the CBS Children’s recording Pot Belly Bear: Songs and Stories. The album went platinum and led to his successful career as a child vocalist singing on over 400 jingles, providing various voices for Cabbage Patch Kids, cult-favorite Jem and the Holograms, and singing with Diana Ross on her Swept Away album. Ari recorded his first demo at age 12 and began writing his own songs at age 14. After graduating yeshiva high school in Manhattan, Ari studied at Yale University and got his Bachelor or Arts from New York University.

Ari’s video single “Wave Of You,” premiered during the launch of MTV’s new network LOGO, was named one of the “Best Videos of 2005″ was voted by the fans as the #3 “Ultimate Sexiest Videos” in a list that included superstars Madonna, Mariah, Janet and Christina Aguilera and in June 2007 was again recognized as the #2 Ultimate Queer Video.” In 2005 Ari released Ari Gold: The Photobook along with The Remixes with contributions by Boy George, Rupaul, Duane Cramer and illustrator Joe Phillips. The Remixes was named the #2 Best Indie Release of 2005 by the Advocate and spawned the Billboard Top 40 Dance/Club hit, “Love Will Take Over” which became an iTunes Pride Essential, received heavy airplay on Sirius Radio, and on the nationally syndicated radio show, Radio With a Twist which is licensed to over 6 U.S mainstream markets along with AOL radio. The song has also appeared on various compilations including Global Groove and Gay Games IV where Ari performed at Wrigley Field in Chicago for 30,000 at the closing ceremonies. The accompanying video debuted at #1 on LOGO’s “The Click List,” bumping Madonna out of the top spot and remaining in the top 10 for over 21 weeks.

Ari co-wrote and performed his first single, “I’m All About You” (released on Island Universal) with DJ Luck and MC Neat and hitmaker Desmond Child. The video was a mainstay on MTV Europe and Ari performed the song on virtually every major UK music outlet like Radio 1’s Big Sunday and the legendary Top Of The Pops. Ari has contributed his songwriting and production skills to various artists including Kevin Aviance’s “You Got The Groove” produced by Grammy nominated producer Tony Moran and “I’ll Be Here” for Nashom remixed by Grammy Award winning producer David Morales (Mariah Carey). Ari’s music can also be heard in hit independent films Boy Culture, Boys Shorts 4 (the “Wave Of You video is a DVD extra), Slutty Summer and John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus which premiered at Cannes. Ari served as music supervisor for the IFC’s documentary Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema and also on Latin Boys Go To Hell in which he performs his song, “See Through Me.”

Ari makes substantial use of his high profile by remaining at the forefront of the fight for human rights. His song “Home” can be heard on the Human Rights Campaign’s benefit album Love Rocks along with music by Melissa Etheridge, Christina Aguilera, Dolly Parton, and Carole King. He contributed “Bashert (Meant To Be)” to the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) benefit CD Marry Me, released in an effort to secure the rights of same sex couples. Ari offers his own charity package through his website that donates proceeds to The Ali Forney Center for LGBT homeless youth and serves on the board of Bailey House.