In Do the Right Thing, Rosie Perez kicks ass as a
hysterical, foul-mouthed mother given to emotional eruptions.
In 1994, at an emotional ACT UP disruption outside New
York's City Hall, bad mutha Rosie did the right thing by
shouting at Mayor Rudy Giuliani to "Get up off your ass!"
Apocalypse Now star Martin Sheen appeared in the
movie Wall Street, which demonstrated the greed of the
coke-addled corporate '80s.
In 1987, Sheen attended the founding meeting of the
apocalyptic ACT UP, which demonstrated against Wall Street's
AIDS-drug-inspired greed.
Anti-diva Susan Sarandon, who fell silently to her death in
Thelma and Louise, surrendered her virginity to a
transvestite from another planet in The Rocky Horror
Picture Show.
In 1994, Sarandon, who once wore a Silence=Death button on
Good Morning America, showed her incredulity during a
demo against Rudy Giuliani, the mayor from another planet.
Terminally cute all-American Patty Duke made her grown-up
debut in Valley of the Dolls, a camp classic about the
impact of recreational drugs on the Hollywood system.
In 1988, Duke attended a demo for ACT UP, at which
terminally ill all-Americans warned about the impact of toxic
drugs on the circulatory system.
CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, living in the
shadow of Walter Cronkite, lost credibility after a week of
his eccentric signing-off with the word "courage."
In 1987, eccentric ACT UP demonstrators, living in the
shadow of the epidemic, were given credibility by Rather, who
showed "courage" as the first anchor to air an ACT UP demo.
For a "terrifying year and a half" in the mid-1960s, ABC
World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings followed
civil-rights activists in their personal crusades across the
South.
During ACT UP's 1991 Day of Desperation, activists passed
over World News Tonight in their on-air protests because
Jennings had made AIDS a "personal crusade."
Frasier's Dan Butler plays sportscaster Bulldog, a
whistle-blowing, loudmouthed, skirt-chaser.
In 1987, Butler was the chair of logistics for ACT UP, a
group of whistle-blowing, loudmouthed, skirt-wearers.
