Alison Gertz

Alison L. Gertz (February 27, 1966 – August 8, 1992) was an American AIDS activist in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gertz died of AIDS-related pneumonia.

Early life Gertz was born in Manhattan and was raised in an apartment on Park Avenue. She was the only child of Jerrold Gertz, a real estate executive, and his wife Carol, the co-founder (with Adriana Mnuchin, wife of Robert Mnuchin) of a woman's clothing store chain, Tennis Lady. She attended the Horace Mann School, and later studied art at Parsons The New School for Design.

Diagnosis In summer 1988, Gertz developed a persistent fever and chronic diarrhea. She was hospitalized and underwent testing to determine the cause of her illness. Gertz was never tested for AIDS because doctors did not consider her to be in a "high-risk group" for the disease. Two weeks later, she developed pneumonia. A bronchoscopy revealed that Gertz had AIDS.

Gertz later found out that she had contracted HIV from a 27-year-old man named Cort Brown. He was a bisexual bartender whom Gertz met at Studio 54 when she was 16. They had their only sexual encounter in 1982. He died of AIDS in 1988. During Gertz's time as an activist, she was voted Woman of the Year by Esquire magazine A memorial service for Gertz was held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on September 24, 1992, in Manhattan.

In popular culture Gertz was referred to in the song "Life Support" from the rock musical Rent. At the beginning of the song, various members of the group say their names. Jonathan Larson used the names of his HIV-positive friends as the characters in this song. At the beginning of the song, the character who refers to herself as "Ali" was named after Gertz.

An episode of Beverly Hills 90210 entitled "Isn't It Romantic?" was inspired by Gertz's story.