Michael Callen
(1955 - 1993) U.S.A.
Singer, songwriter, actor
Michael Callen was born and raised in Rising Sun, Indiana. By 1982, when he was diagnosed with AIDS, he was already a successful composer and singer. He became a pioneering AIDS activist, and drew attention to the bathhouse culture and excessive sexual promiscuity among some gay men and its relation to the spread of AIDS.
 In 1985, along with a handful of other people with AIDS, he founded the PWA (People with AIDS) Coalition - the first AIDS self-empowerment organization - and served as the first editor of PWAC's Newsline. He was also a co-founder of Community Research Initiative (CRI). In 1990, Callen chronicled the stories of long-term survivors in his book, Surviving AIDS.
With Peter Allen, he composed Love Don't Need a Reason, a gay-positive anthem, and he was a founder and member of the gay a cappella group "The Flirtations". He is survived by his life partner, Richard Dworkin.
"I'm definitely dying; I know it in my bones, I can't say when, but soon. And it's truly O.K. I don't know how to break it to you, but we're all gonna eventually die. Maybe not from AIDS, but there are a lot of buses out there to run people down."
Quote source: Blanton, David. Queer Notions
Hits: Crazy World (from "Legacy," 1996)
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