Michael Callen

{{short description|American writer, musician and AIDS activist (1955–1993)}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Michael Callen

|image = Michael Callen.jpg

|caption =

|birth_date = {{birth date|1955|4|11}}

|birth_place = Rising Sun, Indiana,
United States

|death_date = {{death date and age|1993|12|27|1955|4|11}}

|death_place = Los Angeles, California,
United States

|death_cause = AIDS-related complications

|other_names =

|known_for = Early AIDS activist

|occupation = Musician, author, and AIDS activist

}}

Michael Callen (April 11, 1955 – December 27, 1993) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, author, and AIDS activist. Callen was diagnosed with AIDS in 1982 and became a pioneer of AIDS activism in New York City, working closely with his doctor, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, and Richard Berkowitz. Together, they published articles and pamphlets to raise awareness about the correlation between risky sexual behaviors and AIDS.{{Cite book |last=Watney |first=Simon |title=Imagine Hope: AIDS and Gay Identity |publisher=Taylor and Francis Group |year=2000 |isbn=9780203495445 |location=London |pages=114–115 |language=English}}

As a major contributor to the foundation of AIDS activism, specifically activism from People With AIDS, Callen helped draft unprecedented documents such as How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach, and The Denver Principles. In addition to his written work, Callen was a leader and founder of activist organizations including The People with AIDS Coalition and the Community Research Initiative. As a musician, he was a member of the openly gay and politically active a cappella quintet The Flirtations and released two solo albums: Purple Heart in 1988 and Legacy in 1996. He consistently spoke out for AIDS activists and gay and lesbian organizations and made frequent speaking and performance appearances. Callen remained a primary public figure in AIDS activism until he died at age 38 from AIDS-related complications of pulmonary Kaposi's sarcoma at Midway Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/29/obituaries/michael-callen-singer-and-expert-on-coping-with-aids-dies-at-38.html?mtrref=www.nytimes.com|title=Michael Callen, Singer and Expert on Coping With AIDS, Dies at 38|last=Dunlap|first=David W.|date=December 29, 1993|work=The New York Times|access-date=October 23, 2018}} In Love Doesn't Need a Reason the author, Jones, wrote that Michael Callen requested that Douglas Sadownick and Tim{{who|date=April 2025}} should be granted power of attorney over him.{{cite book |author=Jones |date=2020 |title=Love Don't Need a Reason – The Life & Music of Michael Callen |url= |publisher=Punctum Books |page=261 |isbn=9781953035158}}

AIDS activist

= Activism with Sonnabend, Berkowitz, and Dworkin =

In 1982, Callen joined with fellow person with AIDS Richard Berkowitz and partner Richard Dworkin to write an essay entitled "We Know Who We Are: Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity" for the New York Native. Inspired by Dr. Joseph Sonnabend's theory, the men suggested closing the baths as a way to stop the spread of AIDS. What the men referred to as "promiscuity" was the frequent backroom, unprotected sexual encounters that dominated the gay sexual culture of the time and place. In the post-Stonewall Riots and gay liberation years, the popular belief was that sex was a revolutionary act, and more sex was equivalent to being more liberated.{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=Matthew J. |date=October 20, 2017 |title="Luck, Classic Coke, and the Love of a Good Man": The Politics of Hope and AIDS in Two Songs by Michael Callen |journal=Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture |language=en |volume=21 |pages=175–198 |doi=10.1353/wam.2017.0011 |issn=1553-0612 |s2cid=158389650}}

Callen co-authored the manual How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach, which was developed in collaboration with Berkowitz and Sonnabend in 1983. The authors outlined the tenets of safe sex, advocating for the increased use of condoms. Prior to the AIDS epidemic, condoms were advertised as a viable way to prevent pregnancy but not considered an effective tool for STD prevention.{{Cite book |last=France |first=David |title=How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |year=2015 |isbn=978-0307700636 |language=English}}

In 1990, Callen wrote Surviving AIDS, which received an Honorable Mention from the American Medical Writers Association. In Surviving AIDS, Callen exposes what he calls the "propaganda of hopelessness", arguing that public health officials and researchers are more interested in the dead than the living, ultimately largely ignoring long-term survivors. The latter half of the book tells the story of 13 long-term survivors, including people of different sexes, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds.{{Cite news |last=Zurlinden |first=Jeff |date=1991 |title=Choosing Life: Man-at-Arms Michael Callen Declares War on Hopelessness |work=Lambda Book Report |pages=19}}

= Opposition =

Despite his career and prominence as an activist, Callen was met with resentment, suspicion and opposition from others. Since he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1982 and survived over a decade, people speculated as to whether his diagnosis was real or fabricated to get attention. He responded to that criticism by releasing his medical reports and pictures of his lungs which showed his pulmonary Kaposi's Sarcoma. Additionally, Callen stood by his belief in the multifactorial theory when there was scientific proof that HIV was the cause of AIDS.

Callen openly questioned the HIV theory of AIDS and was especially critical of AZT monotherapy when it was first introduced: "The HIV paradigm has produced nothing of value for my life and I actually believe that treatments based on the arrogant belief that HIV has proven to be the sole and sufficient cause of AIDS has hastened the deaths of many of my friends."{{cite web|url=http://www.immunity.org.uk/videos.html|title=Immunity Resource Foundation – Meditel Film and Video Archive|publisher=Immunity.org.uk|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130807120900/http://immunity.org.uk/videos.html|archivedate=August 7, 2013|url-status=dead|accessdate=March 31, 2013}}

=Honors=

In June 2019, Callen was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn.{{Cite web|url=https://www.metro.us/news/local-news/new-york/stonewall-inn-lgbtq-wall-honor|title=National LGBTQ Wall of Honor unveiled at Stonewall Inn|last=Glasses-Baker|first=Becca|date=June 27, 2019|website=metro.us|access-date=June 28, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://sdgln.com/news/2019/06/19/national-lgbtq-wall-honor-be-unveiled-historic-stonewall-inn|title=National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn|last= Rawles|first=Timothy|date=June 19, 2019|website=San Diego Gay and Lesbian News|language=en|access-date=June 21, 2019}} The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history,{{Cite web|url=https://www.ebar.com/news/news//272833|title=Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall|date=February 27, 2019|first= Cynthia|last=Laird|website=The Bay Area Reporter|language=en|access-date=May 24, 2019}} and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.{{Cite web|first=Donna|last=Sachet|date=April 4, 2019 |url=http://sfbaytimes.com/stonewall-50/|title=Stonewall 50|website=San Francisco Bay Times|access-date=May 25, 2019}}

Approximately five years after Callen's death, the Community Health Project (CHP), a primary care center located in New York City that serves the needs of the LGBT community and people living with HIV/AIDS, was renamed to the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center after Callen and activist Audre Lorde.{{Cite journal |last=Hensler F. |first=Kate |date=1998 |title=Michael Callen-Audre Lorde Community Health Center |journal=Interiors |volume=157 |issue=8 |pages=50–55 |id={{ProQuest|}} }}

Performance career

Michael Callen briefly was the lead of the a cappella group Mike & the Headsets. In 1982, Callen, along with Janet Cleary, Pamela Brandt, and Richard Dworkin formed a queer rock-and-roll band called Low Life. After Low Life disbanded, Callen's solo album Purple Heart was released and quickly acclaimed as a staple of gay men's music.

He was a founding member of the gay male a cappella singing group The Flirtations, with whom he recorded two albums. He also had a solo album, Purple Heart, which a review in The Advocate called "the most remarkable gay independent release of the past decade." Callen recorded two albums with The Flirtations, as well as a double disc album, Legacy, which was released by Significant Other Records in 1996 after Callen's death.{{Cite journal|last=Jones|first=Matthew|date=November 2016|title="Enough of Being Basely Tearful": "Glitter and Be Gay" and the Camp Politics of Queer Resistance|journal=Journal of the Society for American Music|volume=10|issue=4|pages=422–445|id={{ProQuest|1862305966}}|doi=10.1017/S1752196316000341|s2cid=157497540 }}

Additionally, Callen made cameo appearances in the films Philadelphia (1993) and Zero Patience (1993), in which he famously performed a song in falsetto as the fictitious "Miss HIV".

In partnership with Oscar winner Peter Allen and Marsha Melamet, Callen wrote his most famous song, "Love Don't Need a Reason", commissioned by Larry Kramer for his play, The Normal Heart. The song was introduced at a 1986 AIDS Walk and was performed frequently at gay pride and AIDS-related events around the country. The song has been covered by numerous gay men's choirs as well as the Peter Allen Broadway musical The Boy From Oz (1998).

Bibliography

1983: How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach (co-author)
1990: Surviving AIDS (author)

Discography

=Albums=

;as part of The Flirtations

The Flirtations (1990)
The Flirtations: Live Out on the Road (1991)
Feeding The Flame: Songs By Men to End AIDS (1992)

;Solo

Purple Heart (1988)
Legacy – a 2-CD album (posthumously)

Filmography

Zero Patience (1993) – Miss HIV
Philadelphia (1993) – The Flirtations (final film role)

References

External links

[http://michaelcallen.com Official posthumous home page of Michael Callen]
{{IMDb name|130445}}
[http://www.thebody.com/gmhc/issues/feb_mar01/callen.html Remarks of Michael Callen to the New York congressional delegation 1983] at TheBody.com
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080212092545/http://home.cfl.rr.com/atbpo/ Photographs of the real people] from Randy Shilts' history of the AIDS crisis And the Band Played On

Category:1955 births

Category:1993 deaths

Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people

Category:20th-century American male singers

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American singers

Category:20th-century American songwriters

Category:AIDS-related deaths in California

Category:American gay musicians

Category:American gay writers

Category:American health activists