An Early Frost

Storyline

Michael Pierson, a successful lawyer, suffers a bad coughing jag at work and is rushed to the hospital. There he learns from a doctor that he has been exposed to the AIDS virus. At home, he receives another piece of disturbing news: his lover, Peter (D. W. Moffett), confesses that he had sex outside the relationship because Michael is a workaholic and is living in the closet. Michael, in a rage, throws Peter out of the house. He then travels to his parents' home to inform them that he is gay and has AIDS.

Michael's father, Nick (Ben Gazzara), is a lumber company owner, and his wife, Kate (Gena Rowlands), is a former concert pianist, housewife, and grandmother. The couple's daughter, Susan (Sydney Walsh) is married and has a child. Nick reacts angrily to the news, while Kate attempts to adapt to the situation. Nick initially refuses to speak to Michael for a day before breaking silence by saying, "I never thought the day would come when you'd be in front of me and I wouldn't know who you are." Susan, who is pregnant, refuses to see Michael, saying that she "can't take that chance," and Nick explodes when Michael tries to kiss Kate. Kate remembers reading in a magazine article that AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact and tries to get the rest of the family to accept Michael (Gena Rowlands also taped a public service announcement about AIDS transmission). Michael eventually winds up in the hospital (after paramedics who are called to his parents' house refuse to transport him to the hospital) and meets a fellow patient named Victor (John Glover), a flamboyant homosexual with AIDS. The film depicts Victor's death and shows a nurse throwing Victor's few possessions into a garbage bag because she fears that the items could be contaminated.

Development

The teleplay for the film by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman spent two years in development and underwent at least thirteen rewrites before the Standards and Practices division at the network accepted it for airing.

Cast

Reviews, awards, and aftermath

Tom Shales of The Washington Post called An Early Frost "the most important TV movie of the year."

The film was number one in the Nielsen ratings during the night it aired, garnering a 23.3 share and watched by 34 million people (the film outperformed a San Francisco 49ers-Denver Broncos game broadcast on ABC and a Cagney & Lacey episode on CBS). The film was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards and won three, including Outstanding Writing For a Movie or Miniseries for Cowen and Lipman for their teleplay. Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Aidan Quinn, Sylvia Sidney and John Glover were all nominated for their performances, as was John Erman for his direction. The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television movie and won Sylvia Sidney the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or a TV Movie. It also won the coveted Peabody Award. The network, however, lost $500,000 in revenue because advertisers were leery about sponsoring the film. The film conveyed the prejudices surrounding HIV/AIDS at the time and the then common limited understanding by the general public of the methods of transmission and likelihood of infection.

While the three major networks generally shied away from airing programming with similar themes until 1988, in the weeks following the broadcast of An Early Frost, episodes of St. Elsewhere, Mr. Belvedere, and Hotel dealt with AIDS issues, and in July 1986, Showtime broadcast the AIDS film As Is. The movie paved the way for later TV and feature films dealing with the topic of AIDS, including Go Toward The Light (1988); The Littlest Victims and The Ryan White Story (both 1989); Longtime Companion (1990); and Philadelphia (1993).