Peter Adair (November 25, 1943 – June 27, 1996) was a filmmaker and artist, best known for his pioneering gay and lesbian documentary Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977).
Early life
Adair was born in Los Angeles County in 1943. He grew up in New Mexico, where his father, John, was an anthropologist who studied the Navajo people.
He went to Antioch College (based in Yellow Springs, Ohio). Peter and his producer Janet Cole, had interviewed 120 people before selecting the 11 most interesting including; Doris, a soprano in her Baptist church choir who discovered she was HIV positive when her baby son was diagnosed with AIDS; Gregg, a gay San Francisco-based model, and Juan, a young husband and father who was infected by his late first wife, a drug addict.
In 1995, Adair and Haney Armstrong completed "In the First Degree," an interactive CD-ROM featuring live actors. It was published by Broderbund Software.
In June 1996, Adair succumbed to complications of AIDS at the age of 52 in Bernal Heights,
Awards
He won many awards, including the Columbia-Dupont Citation for Broadcast Excellence, Golden Gate Award, EMMY, James D. Phelan Award, Distinguished Documentary Achievement, Blue Ribbon, Red Ribbon, American Film Festival and the Prix l'Age d'Or.