'City' star takes AIDS fight to the streets

By Jaye Beeler
The Arizona Republic
October 15, 1998

For Malcolm Gets of NBC's Caroline in the City, a beautiful Sunday morning is meant to be touched.

This Sunday at the 11th annual AIDS Walk Arizona, Gets will touch, feel and see the human spirit soar above the jagged mountains surrounding the Valley of the Sun.

"There's nothing like getting up on Sunday morning and walking in the sunshine with a lot of people," said Gets, 34, in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home.

"It's uplifting. It's reaffirming. It's essential that we sponsor AIDS walks, keep raising money, until there is a cure."

The state's largest HIV/AIDS fund-raising event will draw close to 20,000 walkers, organizers say. The walk will begin at Phoenix Civic Plaza, at Second and Monroe streets.

The Trevor G. Browne Marching Band will lead the procession south on Second Street, then west on Jefferson Street.

After the band steps aside, Gets and Beth Broderick of ABC's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch will take the lead as grand marshals. There will be entertainment on the main stage and on satellite stages set up at six rest stops.

Look for performances by Planned Parenthood's Positive Force Players, Actors Theatre of Phoenix, Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona State University Civic Light Opera and Phoenix Theatre. Alt-rock band Sister 7 headlines on the main stage at 1 p.m.

Since his graduate-school days at Yale Drama School, Gets has soldiered in HIV/AIDS fund-raising walks, once organizing a team to march in New York City.

"This is a crucial time," he said. ". . . I was listening to National Public Radio yesterday, and they were saying young people had stopped practicing safe sex. Clearly, the danger is not over. People are pretending that this is over."

Long before Hollywood produced Philadelphia, Gets performed in theater productions about AIDS. This summer, he played the neurotic gay songwriter Gordon Michael Schwinn in William Finn's A New Brian.

"It was demanding and challenging. It's from where I come from," said Gets, who has had leading roles in The Moliere Comedies and The Boys From Syracuse.

"I love theater more than anything in the world. (There's) nothing like putting yourself out there. No one's going to yell, "Cut!' "

Gets is in his fourth season on Caroline. His angst-driven character, Richard, will divorce his sultry model wife, clearing the way for him and Caroline to go for it.

Gets enjoys playing the cranky, high-minded illustrator.

"Half-hour TV (sitcoms) are full of perky, happy people," he said. "I'm glad to be able to bring a bit of gloom and depression to TV."

After Gets auditioned for the part, the show's producers rewrote the character to fit him.

"I'm like Richard, who is so stubborn, ornery and grouchy. It's a real change for me to play Richard. Before, I played a lot of Romeo parts, a lot of princes, the golden boy."

The part he will play Sunday comes straight from the heart.

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