Robert Hilferty

Robert Hilferty (December 14, 1959 – July 24, 2009) was an American journalist, filmmaker, and AIDS activist based in New York City.

Career Hilferty began his career in 1988 working as a production assistant for Robert Altman on The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Tanner '88.

Although he was HIV-negative, Hilferty responded that PBSs decision was a "cowardly and unprincipled" form of censorship. Various local PBS stations, including New York's WNET, aired it in protest.

Hilferty followed Stop the Church with I Wrapped a Giant Condom Over Jesse Helms' House which documented a September 1991 demonstration by TAG, an activist group related to Act Up.

In 1991, Hilferty completed a screenplay, Comes to Shove which he described as "an action film" — a pun on Act Ups strategy of direct action, but the film was never produced. a documentary about composer Milton Babbitt with whom Hilferty had become acquainted during his years at Princeton. In 1993, Hilferty shot footage of Babbitt and conducted interviews with some of Babbitt's former students, including composer Stephen Sondheim, but did not complete the film. It was gently edited in 2010 by another former Babbitt student Laura Karpman, and presented on NPR online upon Babbitt's death in January 2011. Hilferty also served as cinematographer for the 1996 documentary I Was a Jewish Sex Worker.

From the mid-1990s until his death, Hilferty worked as a journalist for publications such as Artforum, Bloomberg News, Gramophone, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Opera News, Playbill, Stagebill and The Village Voice, writing about acting, architecture, classical music, fashion and gardening.

Personal life Hilferty was born on December 14, 1959, in Teaneck He attended Regis High School Hilferty's partner from 1995 until his death was costume designer Fabio Toblini.

Hilferty committed suicide on July 24, 2009, following complications from a concussion in March 2009.