Alanson Russell "Lance" Loud (June 26, 1951 – December 22, 2001) was an American television personality, magazine columnist, and new wave rock-n-roll performer. Loud is best known for his 1973 appearance in An American Family, a pioneer reality television series that featured his coming out, leading to his status as an icon in the gay community.
Donato Bilancia (10 July 1951 – 17 December 2020) was an Italian serial killer who murdered seventeen people – nine women and eight men – on the Italian Riviera in the period from October 1997 to April 1998.Bilancia's inconsistent modus operandi made him difficult to identify and capture. There were no obvious links between the majority of his murders. He chose most of his victims at random, across a vast area of Northern Italy, and became a synonym for fear among the people living along the Italian Riviera. He was given the nicknames Mostro della Liguria ("The Liguria Monster") and L'assassino dei treni ("Killer on the trains").
Initially attributed with only nine homicides by the Italian police, Bilancia later confessed to having killed eight other people. With a sentence to 13 terms of life imprisonment, and no possibility of release, Bilancia has been defined by some newspapers as "the worst serial killer in the history of Italy". Despite confessing to the killings, Bilancia never explicitly regretted his crimes, claiming that he did not consciously commit them because he was "possessed" by a disease. Bilancia died on 17 December 2020, in prison, from COVID-19.
Calogero Alessandro Augusto Calà, known by his stage name Jerry Calà (born 28 June 1951), is an Italian actor, filmmaker, comedian and singer who has written, directed, and acted in multiple film and television projects. He is considered one of the most popular Italian comedians of the eighties and nineties in his country.
James Aaron Diamond (28 September 1951 – 8 October 2015) was a Scottish singer-songwriter, best known for his three top 5 hits: "I Won't Let You Down" (1982), as the lead singer of PhD; and his solo performances "I Should Have Known Better", a United Kingdom No. 1 in 1984, and "Hi Ho Silver", the theme song from Boon, which reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart in 1986.
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ lakʁwa]; born 16 May 1951) is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded.
Lacroix's designs combine luxury and insouciance. He prefers artisanal trades, fringe, bead, and embroidery. He's characterized by a strong sense of colour, and patterns mix.
Louis Graydon Sullivan (June 16, 1951 – March 2, 1991) was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay, and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts.Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for FTM individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.
Stedman Graham (born March 6, 1951) is an American educator, author, businessman, and public speaker. He is the long-term partner of Oprah Winfrey.
Marie-Anne France Jacqueline Chazel (born 19 September 1951) is a French actress, screenwriter and director, who has been active in both film and television since 1974.
Marcel Dadi (French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl dadi]; 20 August 1951 – 17 July 1996) was a Tunisian-born Jewish French virtuoso guitarist known for his finger-picking style which faithfully recreated the instrumental styles of American guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed. He became a friend of country star Chet Atkins.
Randy Shilts (August 8, 1951 – February 17, 1994) was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In the 1980s, he was noted for being the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.His first book, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, was a biography of LGBT activist Harvey Milk. His second book, And the Band Played On, chronicled the history of the AIDS epidemic. Despite some controversy surrounding the book in the LGBT community, Shilts was praised for his meticulous documentation of an epidemic that was little-understood at the time. It was later made into an HBO film of the same name in 1993. His final book, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, examined discrimination against lesbians and gays in the military.
Shilts garnered several accolades for his work. He was honored with the 1988 Outstanding Author award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the 1990 Mather Lectureship at Harvard University, and the 1993 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists' Association. Diagnosed with HIV in 1985, Shilts died of an AIDS-related illness in 1994 at the age of 42.