Actor and dancer Gene Ray, who appeared in Fame, dies at age 41

[Socialist Christian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1832&ncid=737&e=8&u=/cpress/20031119/ca_pr_on_en/obit_film_ray
<snip>

NEW YORK (AP) - Gene Ray, an actor and dancer best known for his roles in the 1980 movie Fame and its spin-off television series, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 41.



Ray died of complications from a stroke he had in June and was also HIV (news - web sites) positive, said his mother, Jean Ray.


Like Leroy, the rebellious character he played in Fame, Ray attended New York's High School of the Performing Arts. Ray dropped out after a year.


Ray returned to the role of Leroy for the Fame television series, which ran from 1982 to 1987. He went on to appear in the films Out of Sync (1995) and Eddie (1996), starring Whoopi Goldberg (news

[roughsatori]

1. VH1 did a small clip on "Where are they now"

of Gene Ray. It was depressing. I felt like they were exploiting the tragedy of his life. He was in Europe stripping in bars under the name of his character "Leroy." They interviewed him on the street and he seemed high on cocaine or speed. They did a close up and there was a white powder around the base of his nose. It bothered me tremendously that we live in a culture that belittles suffering and personal tragedy.

It is sad to see lives go so awry.

[Sparkle]

2. What does this have to do with pResident Dumbass or politics?

[Terwilliger]

3. picture from NY Times

[Spazito]

4. Very sad, he was very talented..

Fame was one of my favorite shows.

[tridim]

5. Fame is a great movie

Rent it if you haven't seen it in awhile.

[Socialist Christian]

6. Sorry still getting use to things around here, i guess my last 3 go in

the lounge, sorry

[roughsatori]

7. Don't worry, we all make mistakes

You can just alert the mods yourself and ask them to move this to the lounge. "Alert" by clicking on the word "alert" in your original post.