Welcome to August, it’s now the peak of summer heat for our Northern Hemisphere teams across the globe and while trying to beat the heat, let’s look back on two summer benefit shows with two famous divas who promoted AHF’s early days of the fight to beat AIDS.
In August of 1989, superstar Joan Rivers performed two benefit shows to support the Chris Brownlie Hospice alongside fellow star Andrea Marcovicci. Their contributions to funding the hospice came at a critical time when AIDS care was underfunded and underrepresented in the media, and when AHF’s lifesaving work as the AIDS Hospice Foundation only recently started in 1987.
Rivers’s advocacy as one of the first outspoken activists outside of the gay community made all the difference when raising awareness and financial support. Rivers partnered with AHF specifically after the death of her hairdresser and friend Jason Dyl who lost his life at 40 years old due to AIDS-related complications and passed with dignity at the Chris Brownlie Hospice. The concert was not the first or last time Rivers collaborated with AHF and after her passing in 2014, AHF President Michael Weinstein honored her with a very Rivers-esque quote, “We are deeply saddened on the news of the passing of Joan Rivers, her heart was as big as her mouth was tart.”
Fast forward not even a decade later and another diva graced the stage with AHF in August of 1997 when Liza Minnelli donated the proceeds from specialty tickets sold at her iconic “Liza in Concert” performance at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater to support AHF’s work in providing AIDS treatment to the then over 5,000 patients served in the Greater Los Angeles area.
Minnelli’s advocacy stemmed from a similar place that Rivers’s did, as someone who lost friends and peers to the AIDS crisis, and she delivered an emotionally charged concert that she felt captured the essence of the search for the cure for AIDS. She followed her stage show with a private reception to further bolster her donation to AHF.
Rivers and Minnelli were part of AHF’s burgeoning tradition of collaborating with high-profile stars to bring attention and urgency to the fight against AIDS. Join in on the support and brush elbows with stardom at upcoming events like Atlanta AIDS Walk this September with CeeLo Green and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue!
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