#12 – Robbin Crosby
What’s glam metal without big hair bands? In the days of hair metal, one of the biggest bands in the industry was known as Ratt whose guitarist was none other than Robbin Crosby. Earning several platinum albums throughout the 1980s and despite the drama surrounding the band and its members, Ratt found great success with hits such as “Round and Round” and “Lay It Down”.
Outside of the band’s fame, few rock fans knew that Crosby had contracted HIV until the band was featured in an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music. On the show, Crosby revealed that his life had basically been ruined because of drug use and HIV. Just two years later, in 2001, Crosby announced that his 1994 diagnosis had progressed into AIDS, which led to numerous hospital visits due to complications. Though Crosby picked up other hobbies to take his mind off the disease, rumors of his June 6, 2002 death still run wild as many believe he overdosed on heroin.
#11 – Anthony Perkins
Known by many as the infamous Norman Bates in Psycho, Anthony Perkins was already an Academy Award nominated actor thanks to his stellar performance in the 1956 film Friendly Persuasion.
With other appearances in The Trial, Murder on the Orient Express and Fear Strikes Out, Perkins will forever be known as Alfred Hitchcock’s notorious psycho.
By the mid-1980s with Psycho III already in production, Perkins found out that he was HIV positive. Worried about his future in film, Perkins had long avoided getting tested but a fake story in The National Enquirer spreading rumors about him having HIV led him to find out the truth. Once the test confirmed the rumors, Perkins did his best to maintain his privacy until his death, at just 60 years old, in September 1992 from AIDS related pneumonia.
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