George Whitmore; Wrote About Effects of AIDS on Society, Himself

George Whitmore, an author and playwright who wrote about the effect of AIDS on society and on his friends, then finally about his own expected death from complications of the disease, died Wednesday at New York Medical Center at age 43.

Whitmore wrote three plays--”The Caseworker,” “Flight--The Legacy” and “The Rights”--and two novels: “The Confessions of Danny Slocum,” published in 1980 by St. Martin’s Press, and “Nebraska,” published in 1987 by Grove Press.

He began by writing about gays facing the traditional mores of American culture. As the menace of acquired immune deficiency syndrome evolved, he turned to the struggle for acceptance among his friends and finally to his own dilemma.

Whitmore also wrote “Reaching Out to Someone With AIDS” for The New York Times Magazine and later wrote a cover story for the magazine about his experience as an AIDS patient. In 1988 New American Library published his “Someone Was Here: Profiles in the AIDS Epidemic,” an outgrowth of his magazine articles.

He also became known for suing a Greenwich Village dental clinic that refused to treat him because he had AIDS. Northern Dispensary was fined $47,000 by the city’s Human Rights Commission; last month, officials announced that, because of financial pressures, the clinic would close and reopen as a nursing home for AIDS patients under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York.

Born in Denver, Whitmore attended Bennington College and was a conscientious objector, choosing to work at Planned Parenthood of New York City in lieu of military service in the Vietnam War.