Mark Nicholas Milano, a world-renowned AIDS activist and fierce warrior who saved millions of lives as he fought for gay rights and all humans’ rights, died of complications from cancer on Jan. 3, 2026, in New York City. He was 69.

He was born on April 28, 1956, in Milwaukee, Wis., the son of a brilliant metallurgist and a homemaker who was also an accomplished community theater actress. He attended St. Petronille Catholic School in Glen Ellyn, Ill., and graduated from St. Francis High School in Wheaton, Ill., in 1974. After graduating from the University of Iowa with a Speech & Communications degree, he worked as a video editor at Loyola University in Chicago.

Mark became one of the longest known survivors of AIDS, contracting HIV in 1981. He often said that he was the only person on the planet who was overjoyed to get his diagnosis in 1985, because then he finally at least knew what the mysterious and frightening illness was that was plaguing him.

Almost miraculously to those around him, Mark bravely persevered, never needing to use AIDS drugs until highly effective ones finally became available decades later. He lived and ate healthily, exercised, convinced his doctors to try alternate-day prednisone dosing, and kept on taking in life with each breath and giving it back to others.

True to his proactive nature and intellect, Mark was an empowered patient who engaged with his doctors on the management of his health conditions, which served him well in his eventual HIV/AIDS education work. He taught many others how to be empowered patients themselves.

He would be the first to admit that for much of his life, he was an embattled soul, in many ways due to the repression and guilt brought on by a strict and homophobic Catholic upbringing. But despite and because of that, Mark became a consummate leader in battle. He channeled the pain and anger from a very difficult childhood and adolescence into questioning and fighting the authorities we entrust with our freedoms and wellbeing when they would violate that trust.

In the late 1980s, having survived a near-death experience from his mounting health challenges, Mark stated that, lying alone on what he felt might likely be his deathbed, he vowed that if he survived he would make something of himself and not waste the rest of his life.

From then on, Mark said, he lived by this quote from George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

He moved to New York City and continued his video editing and production career, and quickly fell in love with the city’s vitality and cultural significance. Mark then found himself in AIDS nonprofit and state government health and drug trial treatment education work and became a powerful presenter, teacher and mentor to hundreds, if not thousands, of people, many of them frightened and often lost young gay males who needed courage and enlightenment.

Early during his time in New York, Mark joined ACT UP New York, a bold and potent chapter fighting against AIDS bias and government neglect. This timid, stuttering boy from the Midwest found his voice, and became a leading member of the group.

Organizing protest actions and adding his often controversial and contrarian opinions, Mark, as he had in all avenues of his life, made friends, admirers … and strong detractors. He was highly principled and unwavering in his beliefs, however, unless compellingly convinced otherwise. Just ask anyone in ACT UP about Mark’s relentless advocacy for the sometimes boring and difficult challenge of practicing safer sex. They will nod knowingly as they honor (and sometimes disagree with) his strong opinions. Fellow activists even admit that during epic discussions and arguments about issues and actions, even though they knew they were right, “Mark … would almost always be more right.”

Mark added membership in Health GAP, Rise and Resist, Gays Against Guns, the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition and other causes to his advocacy and activism.

And the protests mattered.

When Vice President Al Gore kicked off his presidential candidacy on June 16, 1999, in his hometown of Carthage, Tenn., Mark and ACT UP were there. Mark blew the first whistle to signal the start of a monumentally important protest action that lasted weeks as Gore campaigned, calling him out for working at the behest of Big Pharma to obstruct cheap generic AIDS drugs from getting to Africa. Gore finally relented after the media began to call attention to the travesty because of ACT UP’s efforts.

In what Mark said was his proudest moment in activism, this single protest action forcing the U.S. government to end its international trade pressures, has been estimated to have saved at least 26 million lives in Africa.

Onward Mark pushed, organizing and leading numerous protests, putting his body on the line, enduring physical violence, and being arrested and put in jail numerous times. Some of his actions included shouting down then-presidential candidate George W. Bush to his face during a Sept. 5, 2000, fundraising luncheon, infiltrating the 2004 Republican National Convention and protesting the Pope in New York over the Catholic Church’s stance on sexual orientation.

In 2002, Mark co-organized a protest with multiple groups outside the Chinese consulate in New York (his partner Gerry’s first action with him!) to demand the release of Dr. Wan Yanhai, one of China’s most prominent AIDS activists. Dr. Yanhai was detained by Chinese police after publicizing a scandal in which 1 million Henan province farmers were infected with AIDS due to a vast, shady blood-for-money operation. The day after the protest, Chinese authorities released Dr. Yanhai.

Mark even became the first person on the planet to protest Donald Trump in person as president when in 2017 he and a fellow activist cleverly positioned themselves near the Capitol steps podium and blew their whistles loudly as Trump uttered the first syllable of the oath of office. Google it and listen for it!

“Progress never comes without struggle. We need to put our bodies on the line if we are to change the system. But don’t forget self-care! I’ve had to take breaks in order to keep my sanity,” Mark told POZ Magazine in 2020, which had honored him in 2015 as a member of the POZ 100 people “making significant contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

When not protesting in the streets, Mark took action in the courts. In a landmark case in 2020, he won a discrimination lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York against a surgeon who had refused to treat him because he had HIV.

“Through his radical activism he shaped global and domestic HIV policies and held powerful officials to account for their deeds,” Asia Russell, Executive Director of Health GAP (Global Access Project), wrote in a recent remembrance published in Gay City News. “He stubbornly put his body on the line over and over, in service of a vision of ending the AIDS crisis… True to his character, he was making signs for protests, attending organizing meetings, and advising on strategies to fight back against Trump’s depraved HIV funding cuts right up until the effects of his cancer treatment made him too exhausted.”

All during his activism, Mark continued educating and consoling those who needed help living and coping with HIV and other health issues, in later decades as Publications Manager at the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA).

Mark had many other interests, all secondary to his activism. His creativity and love for artistry were formed during childhood. On a muggy, boring summer day, you could depend on Mark to spearhead neighborhood spookhouses, circuses, plays … even directing Super 8 home movies. In the ‘70s, long before YouTube and the internet, he would covertly obtain old movie and TV show reels (no one ever knew his secret contacts) and show them in the living room or on the garage door for all the area kids to come watch.

As a youngster, he also found joy participating in groups like the Boy Scouts, Glen Ellyn Children's Theater Guild and Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus. He loved science and was a huge NASA/space and Star Trek buff in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Despite his righteous anger at present-day societal ills, Mark once stated that he much preferred a more utopian interpretation of the future in entertainment genres like science fiction (e.g. Star Trek), which highlighted exploration, technology and cooperation in overcoming problems such as racism and poverty. He said he essentially had no use for most of the darker, dystopian views (like Terminator) in modern films and TV, which he felt preyed upon people’s fears.

Among Mark’s varied activities, he created a YouTube channel (@lostvocals8) to feed his fascination with dubbed classic Hollywood musicals, creating never-before-seen clips of the original actors as they sang their songs, and interviewing the unsung “playback singer” heroes of the movies, including the world-famous Marni Nixon before she died.

He was a huge fan of the Kukla Fran and Ollie TV puppet show. Mark created a website (kukla.tv) and YouTube channel (@kuklafranandollie) filled with hundreds of videos of original KFO episodes that he discovered and painstakingly had restored, bringing joy to tens of thousands.

He never was shy about strongly expressing his love for what he considered the best music America had to offer – the works of composers such as George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Cab Calloway, Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hart, Count Basie and so many other geniuses. He adored Broadway musicals as well.

His experience working with Sir George Solti, famed jazz musician and uncle Conti Milano, and others put him on his long path of love of music, and he continued singing as an adult, as an accomplished cabaret jazz vocalist and choir singer who performed with the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and at Carnegie Hall. As a member of the award-winning Cantori New York choir, Mark co-produced and performed on its 2003 A Cantori Christmas CD.

Added to all that was his obsession with the New York World’s Fair and collectible toys. In fact, Mark was so enthralled with the Easy Bake Oven, which he had desperately wanted as a child, that he bought a vintage one and created yet another YouTube channel (@boink345) featuring him creating dishes using Easy Bake Oven cookbooks. In true Mark fashion, he finished the fun and engrossing series with “Roasted Quail Breast with Wild Mushrooms & Pomme Anna” – opining confidently, of course, that the gourmet chefs behind the books had erred by recommending too long of a cooking time for the quail!

Having lived a difficult life searching for the love that seemed to always be tortuously outside his grasp, he eventually found it in 2002 with his Life Partner Gerry Valero, who gave Mark the precious gift of his soul and helped him finally navigate to the place of innocent joy and love that had always been deep inside him. He was forever grateful for having found his tender, sweet, brilliant Gerry.

Mark once confided that as a deeply despairing preteen filled with tremendous insecurities, self-hatred and low self-esteem, wrestling with demons over his social isolation and sexuality, he would turn to the pages of his favorite comic book hero, Wonder Man. At night, as he tried to go to sleep, he would repeat to himself, over and over and over again:

When I wake up, I will be Wonder Man.

When I wake up, I will be Wonder Man.

When I wake up, I will be Wonder Man.

The time for waking up has now gently passed, our dearest brother, our loving friend, our fearless champion. Have a well-deserved and peaceful rest. From those of us privileged enough to have known you best, who knew the depth of your love and your commitment to honesty and justice, who saw the countless battles you fought and won for your own life and the lives of so many others, we say:

You were, indeed, our Wonder Man.

Ultimately, Mark won the greatest battle of his life, because in the end he did, in fact, beat AIDS.

His spirit lives on in the family, friends, activists and admirers he so inspired. With a righteously loud voice, he would now say to you all, with his fist held so very high:

Never give up! Fight back! Protest! Get out in the streets and make a difference on this earth before you leave it!

That is the legacy of this revolutionary.

“My activism taught me that doing the right kind of action at the right time, you can really change the world,” Mark told Mic news website in 2018. “If we commit ourselves to it, we can do it. It’s just a matter of having the will to make it happen.”

For his “extraordinary leadership and contribution to the struggle for HIV treatment access worldwide,” Mark will posthumously be honored with the Alan Berkman Global Health Justice Award for 2026 by Health GAP, an international organization advocating for people living with HIV.

Your voice will never go unheard, Mark.

Mark Nicholas Milano was preceded in death by his parents, Nicholas Phillip Milano and Maxine Ruth (Kulas) Milano. He is survived by his dear Life Partner Gerry Valero; loving brothers Dean (Gay), Paul (Judy), Steve and Phillip (Robin Dycus-Milano); nephews Evan (Marisa), Steven (Sami), Jacob (Peyton), Lucas (Emily) and Benjamin (Lily); grand-nephew Anthony; grand-niece Adriana; and numerous other much-loved relatives, including those in Italy.

Details about a planned memorial service in New York for Mark will be forthcoming.

UPDATE: A Memorial Service for Mark will be held at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday, May 3, at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., New York, NY 10011. Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82006229808?pwd=VN203M10KYoYEgR83pdsOblWo6EABP.1

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