Michael Kearns

Acting

Michael Kearns

Born

1950-01-08 (76)

Place of birth

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

19 titles

Michael Kearns (born January 8, 1950, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American actor, writer, director, teacher, producer, and activist. He is noted for being one of the first openly gay actors, and after an announcement on Entertainment Tonight in 1991, the first openly HIV-positive actor in Hollywood.

Known for

Film credits

1990s · 6 titles

And the Band Played On poster
6.4

The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.

And the Band Played On

1993

It's My Party poster
6.3

Nick, a gay, HIV-positive architect, begins to display severe symptoms of AIDS and makes preparations to kill himself before he is unable to function normally. He arranges a party to reconnect and say goodbye to his closest friends and his confused parents. But when his ex-partner, Brandon, a television director who left Nick when he was diagnosed with HIV, shows up, what was supposed to be a celebratory event becomes much more difficult for everyone.

It's My Party

1996

River Made to Drown In poster
5.4

Thaddeus Mackenzie, a wealthy lawyer, learns that he is dying and decides to sell all of his property and visit his old friend Allen Hayden. Allen is a struggling artist with a passion for life who once survived by working the streets, but now is romantically involved with Eva, a wealthy European gallery owner living in L.A. Thaddeus implores Allen to find Jamie, a young street hustler that Thaddeus had once tried to rescue. Allen returns to the streets to face the dark corners of his past where he must choose between what he left behind and the uncertainty that lies ahead.

River Made to Drown In

1997

A Mother's Prayer poster
8.6

Rosemary Holmstrom is struggling to bring up her son following the death of her husband. When she is diagnosed with AIDS, at first she refuses to believe it, but soon turns her attentions to the problem of what will happen to her son when she dies.

A Mother's Prayer

1995

Street Asylum poster
5.1

In the bleak near future Los Angeles has become a dangerous war zone with cops pitted against assorted law-breaking lowlifes. Sergeant Arliss Ryder (well played with customary wired intensity by the always great Wings Hauser) has an electronic device put into his back that turns him into an out-of-control psychotic killer and put on the Strike S.Q.U.A.D. (an acronym for Scum Quelling Assault Urban Devision), which is a unit of crazed cops assigned by Captain Bill Quinton (a typically gruff Alex Cord) to rid the City of Angels of criminals by using any means necessary. The only problem is that Arliss discovers what's going down and decides to put a stop to all this madness.

Street Asylum

1990

Dream Man poster
3.0

The Dream Man is a successful gay phone sex host who, with his vivid powers of imaginative impersonation, tempts and delights his ardent callers. In his fantasy role, he flips between the young innocent through to the S & M master but this performance belies a life that is lonely, loveless, and filled with emotional confusion.

Dream Man

1991

1980s · 4 titles

Series credits