Vito

The moment he discovered the drag scene as a high school student, Vito Russo knew he'd found kindred spirits. He went on to dedicate his life to gay rights. As a student in 1960s New York, Vito couldn't understand why people didn't protest the raids on gay establishments. Then Stonewall happened, and nothing stayed the same. Vito was a founding member of the Gay Activists Alliance, whose forte was street activism. A movie-obsessed gay journalist and a charmingly extraverted personality, Vito got Bette Midler to perform at baths and found an ally in comedian Lily Tomlin. His influential book The Celluloid Closet came out in 1973; he hosted one of the first gay TV shows; he cofounded both the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and ACT UP, which protested the exorbitant prices companies charged for life-saving AIDS drugs. But even Vito's astonishing vitality was no match for the horrible disease, and he died of AIDS-related complications in 1990. VITO is an engrossing film about a compassionate and impassioned soul. –B.B.