Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story
| Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Drama |
| Written by | Deborah Joy LeVine |
| Directed by | Tom McLoughlin |
| Starring |
Molly Ringwald Lee Grant Perry King Martin Landau |
| Theme music composer | David Shire |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Joan Barnett Jack Grossbart |
| Cinematography | Shelly Johnson |
| Editor(s) | Charles Bornstein Sidney Wolinsky |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Grossbart Barnett Productions Spectacor Films |
| Distributor | ABC |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | March 29, 1992 |
Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story (also known in UK as Fatal Love) is a 1992 American television movie based on the life of a prominent AIDS activist Alison Gertz. The movie originally aired on ABC on March 29, 1992, approximately four months before Gertz's death.
Alison Gertz (played by Molly Ringwald) is an upscale and self-assured Manhattanite. At the age of sixteen, Gertz meets a bartender named Darren and has a one-night stand with him. This results in her contracting HIV. The film shows how Gertz overcomes her fears and becomes an advocate educating high schoolers and collegians about AIDS and its possible threats to sexually active people of those ages.
A Federal AIDS information number that ran after the film generated a record 189,251 calls within 24 hours of the film's showing, mostly from women.
In the Boca Raton News (The News) of March 19, 1992, an article based on the film was published under the title "Molly Ringwald learns real world in TV movie", written by Stacy Jenel Smith. In the article, Ringwald spoke about meeting the real Alison Gertz. The article noted that Ringwald had little idea of just how intense the emotional experience would become when she agreed to play Gertz. From her first phone conversation with her real-life counterpart to her final scene in the telefilm, the then 24-year-old actress found herself facing stresses she'd never faced before. She stated in an afternoon interview "I spent a weekend with Ali two weeks before we started the movie. Did I feel nervous? Yes. Guilty? Oh, sure. I remember having dinner with Carol and Jerry - Ali's mother and father. They sat there looking at her and looking at me and we're close to the same age and I'm healthy... I guess it was hard for everyone. Meeting her sort of made me panic like: "How am I going to get that voice right?" Then I realized - I'm not an impersonator. I didn't want to try to imitate Ali. And I think it's stronger because I didn't. This person I play, she could be any girl. She is a very, very strong personality. Maybe when you start facing your own mortality, you just don't have the time to B.S. people, or to be diplomatic even. Ali says whatever is on her mind. She'll just tell you what she thinks. I'm not used to that in people." During filming of the movie - particularly after days of hospital sequences, it was revealed that Ringwald was very fragile emotionally. She stated "You could look at me the wrong way and I'd burst into tears." Finally, the article noted that Ringwald found that the experience of making the film led her to a new understanding of "how people react and deal with you when you have AIDS."
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