Vito Russo (1946-1990), a film historian, writer, and gay rights and AIDS activist, was born on July 11, 1946 in New York City, the son of Angelo and Angelina Russo. He was raised in New York City and completed his undergraduate work at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He received a master's degree in cinema from New York University in 1971 and worked as a film distributor for the Museum of Modern Art from 1971 to 1973 and Cinema 5 Limited from 1973 to 1975.
Russo became active in gay politics in 1970 when he joined New York's Gay Activist's Alliance (GAA). During the 1980s, Russo co-founded and became a frequent speaker at meetings, demonstrations, and fundraisers for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In 1985, Russo became one of the founding members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization which sought to counteract the negative effects of the media on gays, lesbians, and people with AIDS.
A freelance writer for most of his career, Russo was one of the first critics to bring a gay liberationist's view to popular culture, particularly film. In the mid-1970s, Russo and Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell co-wrote a column for Gaysweek that consisted primarily of transcripts of phone conversations between the two writers. He later wrote a regular column for The Advocate called "Russo on Film." Russo's essays, interviews, and reviews appeared in the gay and mainstream press, including Rolling Stone, New York, Outweek, The Village Voice, and Esquire. He also wrote material for several performers, including Lily Tomlin. He was granted awards by many foundations, including The Human Rights Campaign Fund, The Stonewall Foundation, The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, The Alliance of Gay Artists in the Entertainment Industry, The Hetrick-Martin Institute, and the National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation. In 1983, Russo wrote, produced, and co-hosted a series focusing on the gay community called "Our Time" for WNYC-TV and in 1985 he was the national publicity director for the Academy Award-winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. He achieved prominence on-screen as one of the subjects of Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, which won the 1990 Academy Award for best documentary. The film focused on Russo's loss of his lover, Jeffrey Sevcik, to AIDS in 1986.
Russo began giving film and lecture presentations in the mid-1970s about the treatment of gay characters in film. This ever-changing program called "The Celluloid Closet," which he presented at universities, museums and film festivals all over the United States, Europe, and Australia, eventually evolved into a book of the same name. The Celluloid Closet was published by Harper and Row in 1981 and revised in 1987. During the spring 1990 semester, Russo taught two courses at the University of California at Santa Cruz: "The Celluloid Closet" and "Documenting Gay Activism."
Russo learned he had AIDS in 1985 but was determined to continue his demanding speaking and teaching schedule despite his declining health. He persisted in fighting for increased AIDS research, access to new medications, and an end to discrimination against people with AIDS. He died of AIDS-related complications on November 7, 1990 at the age of forty-four. Continue reading from NYPL Archives
