- An Early Frost
Infobox Television Film
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name = An Early Frost
caption = "An Early Frost"DVD cover.
format = Drama
runtime = 100 min
creator =
director =John Erman
producer = Perry Lafferty
writer =Sherman Yellen (story)Ron Cowen Daniel Lipman
starring =Aidan Quinn
music =John Kander
country = USA
language = English
network = NBC
released = 11 November 1985
first_aired =
last_aired =
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preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
imdb_id = 0089069
tv_com_id =
amg_id ="An Early Frost" was the first major
film to deal with the topic ofHIV /AIDS . It was first broadcast on the NBC television network onNovember 11 ,1985 . It was directed byJohn Erman and starredAidan Quinn as Michael Pierson, aChicago attorney who goes home to break the news that he ishomosexual and has AIDS to his parents, played byBen Gazzara andGena Rowlands .Reviews, awards, and aftermath
Tom Shales of the "Washington Post " called "An Early Frost" "the most important TV movie of the year," although he had misgivings about the character played by Quinn, writing that "the central character has been made so far removed from the stereotypical homosexual that it could be argued he is stereotypically unstereotypical."The film was number one in the
Nielsen ratings during the night it aired, garnering a 23.3 share (the film outperformed aSan Francisco 49ers -Denver Broncos game broadcast on ABC and a "Cagney & Lacey " episode dealing withabortion onCBS ). The film wonSylvia Sidney theGolden Globe Award for . It also won anEmmy Award for Outstanding Writing For a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special (Quinn was also nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie, though he lost toDustin Hoffman ). However, the network lost $500,000 in revenue because advertisers were leery about sponsoring the film.The show conveyed the prejudices surrounding HIV/AIDS at the time and the then common limited understanding by the general public of the methods of transmission and likelihood of infection. The three main networks shied away from airing programming with similar themes until1988 , although in the weeks following the broadcast of "An Early Frost", episodes of "St. Elsewhere ", "Mr. Belvedere ", and "Hotel" dealt with AIDS issues, and in July 1986,Showtime broadcast the AIDS film "As Is". The movie paved the way for later TV and general release films dealing with the topic of AIDS, including "TheRyan White Story" (1989), "Longtime Companion " (1990), and "Philadelphia" (1993), which wonTom Hanks , whose Andrew Beckett was similar in many ways to Michael Pierson, anAcademy Award for Best Actor .toryline
Michael Pierson, a successful lawyer, discovers he has AIDS after his lover Peter, played by
D. W. Moffett , confesses that he had sex outside the relationship because Michael is a workaholic and is living inthe closet . Michael goes home to disclose the news to his parents.Michael's father, Nick (Gazzara), is a lumber company owner, and his wife, Kate (Rowlands), is a former concert pianist, housewife, and grandmother (the couple's daughter, Susan, played by
Sydney Walsh , has a husband and child). Nick's reaction is fury and betrayal, while Kate's reaction is an attempt to adjust. Probably the most famous scene in the movie occurs when Nick, having refused to speak to Michael for a day after getting the news, finally breaks the silence by saying, "I never thought the day would come when you'd be in front of me and I wouldn't know who you are." Susan, who is pregnant, refuses to see Michael, saying that she "can't take that chance," and Nick explodes when Michael tries to kiss Kate. Kate remembers reading in a magazine article that AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact and tries to get the rest of the family to accept Michael. (Gena Rowlands also taped a public service announcement about AIDS transmission.) Michael eventually winds up in the hospital (after paramedics who are called to his parents' house refuse to transport him to the hospital) and meets a fellow patient named Victor (played by John Glover), a stereotyped flamboyant homosexual with AIDS who spouts lines like "It's getting almost impossible to put together a dinner party these days." The film deals with the inevitable death of Victor with a scene showing Victor's few possessions being dumped into a garbage bag by a nurse because of fear that they could be contaminated.The script for the film (written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, and directed by Jon Erman) spent two years in development and underwent at least 13 rewrites before the standards division at the network would clear it for airing. The film became the prototype for AIDS movies that followed it by providing a storyline and emotional hook that the everyday viewer with no experience of the disease could understand, follow, and identify with. It also grounded the disease in middle-class experience, which was a departure from earlier cultural depictions of AIDS as a disease that only affected American
subculture s. The film was broadcast a month afterRock Hudson died of the disease, which added to the film's resonance.ee also
Sherman Yellen External links
*imdb title|id=0089069|title=An Early Frost
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