As the AIDS epidemic ripped through the U.S. in the 1980s, Stephen Stucker became one of the first celebrities to go public with his diagnosis before succumbing to the disease in 1986.
Paramount Pictures/YouTubeStephen Stucker (left) was best known for his role as Johnny Henshaw-Jacobs in Airplane!
In 1980, up-and-coming actor and comedian Stephen Stucker brought audiences to tears of laughter with his role in the film Airplane! But behind the scenes, he was in the middle of a painful battle.
Stucker had been struggling with “every kind of cancer symptom” for over a year, and doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then, in 1984, he finally received a diagnosis: AIDS.
The following year, he became one of the first celebrities to go public about his fight against the disease. While he had high hopes for his prognosis, however, he declined rapidly.
Stephen Stucker died on April 13, 1986, at age 38, but he kept his famous sense of humor until the very end.
Stephen Stucker’s Rise As An Actor And Comedian
Stephen Stucker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1947, and he was known as the class clown from a young age. He set out to turn his passion for comedy into a successful career, and he snagged his first role in the 1975 film Carnal Madness. He portrayed a gay fashion designer who escapes from a mental health facility, and while the movie wasn’t particularly successful, it helped Stucker land additional roles.
Paramount Pictures/YouTubeStephen Stucker was famous for his flamboyant characters.
Around the same time, Stucker joined the Wisconsin-based Kentucky Fried Theater sketch comedy troupe, and he appeared in the The Kentucky Fried Movie in 1977. This, in turn, led to him being cast as air traffic controller Johnny Henshaw-Jacobs in Airplane!
Stucker was so funny that the film’s writers reportedly gave him the script for scenes he was set to appear in and let him come up with his own lines. One of his most iconic moments comes when his character’s supervisor brings over a paper weather bulletin and asks him, “Johnny, what can you make out of this?” Stucker grabs it, begins folding it into various shapes, and replies, “This? Why, I could make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl…”
He also appeared in Airplane II: The Sequel in 1982, as well as a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and the hit 1983 film Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis. But all the while, Stephen Stucker was fighting an invisible battle that would soon take his life.
The Health Struggles That Led To An AIDS Diagnosis
While filming Airplane!, Stucker was having some major issues with his health. As he told the Los Angeles Times in 1985, he had “every kind of cancer symptom,” but since the first official AIDS cases weren’t reported in the United States until 1981, nobody knew what was wrong with him. Stucker believed he already had the disease at that time.
Paramount Pictures/YouTubeStephen Stucker’s role in the sequel to Airplane! was a callback to his performance in The Kentucky Fried Movie.
“I had blood transfusions in San Francisco when I had an appendectomy,” Stucker said. “Then, when I was living in New York, it was a very fast life. The parties, the needles. I was the fool that did that. I was using a lot of drugs. I was sick a long time.”
Finally, on July 12, 1984, after more than five years of health struggles, Stucker got a diagnosis. His doctor called to inform him that he had AIDS and Kaposi sarcoma, a cancer of the blood vessel lining that roughly 50 percent of AIDS patients developed in the early 1980s.
Before antiretroviral therapy was introduced in 1987, AIDS was almost always fatal. Still, Stucker hoped to make the most of the time he had left — which is why he decided to go public with his diagnosis.
Becoming One Of The First Actors To Go Public About AIDS
In September 1985, Stephen Stucker appeared on The Phil Donahue Show to discuss his disease. After confirming that he had AIDS, he said, “I’ll have it ’til the end of the century. And then I’ll probably look really horrible, but I’ll ring in the end of the century.”
Stucker kept that confidence when he spoke to the Los Angeles Times two months later. “Since [my diagnosis] I’ve had Kaposi’s and then Pneumocystis [a fungal lung infection] twice,” he said. “I’m still here and I refuse to give up. You can’t just roll over and quit.”
Paramount Pictures/YouTubeStephen Stucker was already struggling with his health when he appeared in Airplane! in 1980.
Despite his health issues, Stucker was still trying to maintain his career any way he could. He was writing a TV show pilot and songs for AIDS seminars. “I can’t do a normal job,” he said. “But I can play my music and entertain people. Sometimes I have to take a day and just rest. AIDS is a dangerous disease and you have to take care of yourself.”
Stephen Stucker also explained his decision to announce his diagnosis. At a time when few famous figures were coming forward about the disease (Rock Hudson was the first major celebrity to do so in July 1985), Stucker wanted to use his platform to help others.
“There is no time to lie anymore,” Stucker stated. “I’m way over the time limit at more than five years. As far as I’m concerned my life is an open book. I have no secrets. I’ll get on TV and talk about it… It’s time that people knew that there are people who have had this as long as I have.”
He said that 40 of his friends had died of AIDS, but “you’ve got to look at the positive side. It doesn’t kill everybody.”
However, while Stucker underwent radiation, took antiviral drugs, changed his diet, and quit smoking in an attempt to slow down the progression of his disease, it was too late. Less than six months after his interview with the Los Angeles Times, he was hospitalized for the last time.
Paramount Pictures/YouTubeStephen Stucker kept up his famous sense of humor even on his deathbed.
“We were close friends back in the day,” producer Frank J. Hagan later told the AIDS Memorial. “I visited him at Cedars-Sinai when he was starting to slip away.” At the time, Stucker’s Kaposi sarcoma had advanced to the point where he was covered in lesions.
“By now, he was covered in KS spots,” Hagan continued, “and when I walked in his hospital room, he looked up at me and said, ‘Hi, doll! Don’t you love the look? Polka dots are in this year.'”
Stephen Stucker died in the hospital on April 13, 1986. He was just 38 years old. He was cremated and interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California.
Still, despite his untimely death, he’d spent his final years following the same advice he’d given all of his fellow AIDS patients: “You’ve got to live. Life is for the living.”
After reading about the life and death of Stephen Stucker, learn about the tragic death of actor Dustin Diamond. Then, read about Ryan White and how he changed the way people thought about AIDS.
