Know Your LGBT History - Stephen Stucker

Those of us who remember the classic manic comedy Airplane! (1980) remember actor Stephen Stucker who literally walked away with the movie with funny lines like such:



According to Wikipedia:

Stucker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 2, 1947. His family moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he distinguished himself in school as a pianist and class clown, and graduated from high school in 1965. Stucker made his screen debut co-starring in the 1975 comedic sexploitation film Carnal Madness as Bruce Wilson, a gay fashion designer who escapes an insane asylum with two fellow inmates, fleeing to an all-girls school.

He went on to perform in the 1977 earthquake-in-Los-Angeles comedy Cracking Up, alongside Fred Willard, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Stucker was a scene-stealing member of the cast of the Madison, Wisconsin Kentucky Fried Theater sketch comedy troupe founded by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker.[1] In 1977 he appeared in the film based on it, directed by John Landis. This led to his memorable supporting role in the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy Airplane!, which he reprised in Airplane II: The Sequel. For the initial film, the writers gave Stucker the straight lines for his scenes and let him write his character's off-the-wall responses.

In 1982 he had a guest role in a three-episode sequence in the TV series Mork and Mindy and, in 1983, he had a small featured role in Landis' Trading Places. In 1984, Stucker had a co-starring role as the sex-obsessed psychiatrist, Dr. Bender in the teen comedy film Bad Manners (aka: Growing Pains).

However, there is another reason why the lgbt community should remember Stucker. He was one of the first celebrities to go public with his HIV infection in 1985. As such, he appeared on talk shows like Donahue, where his wild and acerbic personality sometimes bumped hard against an audience ignorant and fearful of the disease AIDS. Some may criticize Stucker for his behavior, but I found him refreshingly honest and uncompromising:

 

Stucker died of AIDS-related complications in 1986.

While we mourn this man's life and what could have been, let's never forget Stucker and those who lived before the age of Ellen, Will and Grace, and the openess regarding who we are as a people.

They endured so we didn't have to.

 Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

 
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The Jeffersons and the transgender community