Michael Kearns, an actor and AIDS activist who played Hal in several 1996 episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and was one of the first openly gay actors in Hollywood, died Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, at 76.
Karen Ocamb, a journalist who described herself as a friend of Kearns, announced his death in the Los Angeles Blade. Several of Kearns’ friends confirmed the death.
Kearns died at 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 5. No cause of death has been released.
His daughter, Katherine, survives him. Kearns took her in as a single parent in 1995 and later adopted her, and the two remained close throughout his life.
Kearns worked across film, television, theater and literature, and he drew much of that work from the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. Friends and colleagues across that community are in mourning.
A Friend’s Final Messages
Roland Palencia, a filmmaker who was a friend and neighbor of Kearns, said the two spoke by phone on Sunday, Oct. 4, the day before Kearns died. Palencia said Kearns “was not feeling well” and had called the paramedics.
Palencia said Kearns texted him at 6:34 p.m. that same Sunday from the hospital, telling him that doctors were running tests and that he expected to be there all night.
Palencia wrote in a social media tribute: “Some of his last words continue to reverberate in my mind: ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,’ as he had been in and out of emergency rooms over five times within a three-month period.”
Tim Miller, a performance artist who had known Kearns since 1984, posted a tribute on Facebook calling him one of a kind. “I am mourning my beloved Michael Kearns,” Miller wrote.
The Celebration Theatre wrote in a post on its Facebook page: “We share the community’s sorrow in this loss and celebrate the incredible impact he has had on our mission and the HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ Rights movements. Thank you, Michael, for all you gave this world.”
Ocamb wrote in the Los Angeles Blade, as of Oct. 10: “Today, a stunned gay theatre and AIDS activism world is mourning the loss of the ubiquitous and creative artist who helped so many, literally touched so many, and probably died not knowing how beloved he really was.”
From St. Louis to Hollywood
Kearns was born on Jan. 8, 1950, in St. Louis. He studied acting at Chicago’s Goodman School of Drama, graduating in 1972, before he moved to Los Angeles. He made his Broadway debut in the 1974 comedy “Tubstrip,” set in a steam bath.
Tom Eyen, the book writer of “Dreamgirls,” discovered him. Kearns spent the 1970s and ’80s in Eyen’s camp-theater extravaganzas and in series television.
His screen credits include “Murder, She Wrote,” “Knots Landing,” “Days of Our Lives,” “Body Double,” “The Fall Guy,” “The Waltons” and “Cheers.” He also appeared in HBO’s Emmy-winning AIDS film “And the Band Played On” and played an HIV-positive character on “Life Goes On.”
Activism and Stage Work
Rock Hudson, the actor, died of AIDS in 1985, and Kearns was then Hollywood’s only openly gay actor and the media’s go-to person for sound bites. Brad Davis, the star of “Midnight Express,” died of AIDS in 1991, and the industry again turned to Kearns as the only openly gay and HIV-positive actor willing to talk.
Kearns disclosed his HIV diagnosis publicly in 1991, a decision credited with helping destigmatize HIV and AIDS at a time when few public figures spoke openly about them. “HIV is nothing to be ashamed of,” Kearns said in 1991, adding that staying quiet would, for him, signal shame or fear.
He directed playwright Robert Chesley’s “Jerker,” about two gay men falling in love, in 1986. The Los Angeles radio station KPFK-FM broadcast portions of the play, drawing national outrage and a warning from the Federal Communications Commission. Kearns told the Los Angeles Times that the episode marked the beginning of a censorship of queer work that, in his view, had never stopped.
Kearns starred in playwright James Carroll Pickett’s “Dream Man” and “Bathhouse Benediction,” and he wrote and performed the solo works “Intimacies” and “Rock.” He produced and directed the AIDS-related ensemble pieces “AIDS/US” and “Jerker.”
He cofounded the Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (STAGE) with Pickett in 1984, described as the longest-running annual HIV/AIDS fundraiser in the world. Kearns co-founded Artists Confronting AIDS, founded the collective QueerWise and served as a commissioner for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
Kearns wrote several books and received the Queen of the Angels theater award from L.A. Weekly in 2007.
He lived in a Los Feliz apartment appointed with custom-made crucifixes bearing images of rebels and gay icons. He taught Express Yourself workshops on Skid Row, volunteered at the Downtown Women’s Center and the Lamp Community, and he taught acting classes in Silver Lake. He worked with the archival One Institute to make the work of gay and lesbian writers and performers available on YouTube and other websites.
His partner, Philip Juwig, died in 1992.
Kearns was scheduled to return to the Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, Oct. 11, for a tribute to LGBTQIA+ theater history. He died six days before the performance, the Circa: Queer Histories Festival.