Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994 TAG: 9402180275
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
Shilts, who tested positive for HIV in 1985 and announced in 1993 that he had AIDS, died at his home in the Sonoma County community of Guerneville late Wednesday or early Thursday.
The San Francisco Chronicle, where Shilts worked for 13 years before his death, said he died of AIDS.
"He single-handedly probably did more to educate the world about AIDS than any single person," said playwright Larry Kramer, a founder of the militant AIDS-activist group ACT UP and the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York.
"He demonstrated that you could be gay and still write one hell of a story and play it down the middle and be balanced," said LeRoy Aarons, former editor of The Oakland Tribune and founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
Shilts' 1987 best-seller, "And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic," was an exhaustive history of the disease, chronicling the neglect of governments and the medical establishment in the epidemic's early years. It was made into an HBO movie, which aired last year.
While critical of the Reagan administration, the book did not spare his own community, angering some gay rights activists by accusing them of endangering lives to protect sexual freedom.
"He was disliked in some quarters of the gay community for his politics and some of the reporting he did. But I think the key thing about him was that he was a reporter from start to finish," said Dave Ford of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
Shilts' "Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military," published last year, described the turmoil of gay soldiers who were targets of investigation under the U.S. military's ban on homosexuality. It also was a best-seller.
He also wrote "Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk." The 1982 book told the story of the openly gay San Francisco city supervisor who was murdered in 1978 along with Mayor George Moscone.
When Shilts disclosed he had AIDS last year, he said he had kept it secret for years for fear it would detract from his role as a reporter on AIDS issues.
"Every gay writer who tests positive ends up being an AIDS activist, and I didn't want to end up being an activist," he said. "I wanted to keep on being a reporter."
Shilts had a difficult time finding work in the mainstream media because he was unwilling to hide the fact that he was gay.
In a 1990 report to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on coming out in the newsroom, Shilts wrote:
"It's impossible to describe the intense frustration of knowing you're utterly qualified for a job, but unable to get it because of a factor that has nothing to do with your competence.
"It was like at the age of 30, I was supposed to put all my journalist training aside and become a florist because I'm gay."
Shilts finally was hired by the Chronicle in 1981 for a two-month vacation replacement stint, Editor Bill German said. His editors were told not to give him gay stories to cover.
"It took two weeks until I said, `Randy, you're hired.' We changed the rule of making gay issues off limits. We had complete trust in Randy," he said.
Not long after he was hired, word of strange outbreaks of unusual types of pneumonia and skin cancer among gay patients began to surface.
"Almost from the outset, Randy concerned himself with that issue. He did all the pioneer investigation into how all this was spreading. I think the whole world has reason to honor Randy for his absolutely relentless investigation that made us all aware of what was becoming a global epidemic," German said.
In 1993, Shilts was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
The Aurora, Ill., native moved to California in 1976.
by CNB