Peter Blazey

Australian gay activist and writer, outspoken, impulsive and often outrageous, Peter Blazey was an over-the-top character who squandered his inheritance while working toward fame and irregular fortune. A well-connected son of the Melbourne establishment, he had a sexually promiscuous youth with both women and men. Working as a speechwriter for ministers on both sides of politics, he described himself as "politically bisexual." He edited a four-page supplement on "Homosexuals in Our Society" for The Australian paper in June 1978 when no other mainstream newspaper would even print the word, months later campaigning for an electoral seat in inner Sydney with the slogan, "Put a Poofta in Parliament." He received 108 votes at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. During the 1970s and 1980s he was a journalist for The Australian, The National Times, The Australian Financial Review, The Bulletin and ABC. During the 1990s he had an inflammably opinionated column in "Outrage," Sydney's major gay magazine. His books are "Bolte: A Political Biography" 1972, "The Political Dicemen" 1974, "The Secret Diary of Jeffrey Kennett Aged 45 and a Quarter" 1992, and his compellingly candid autobiography "Screw Loose" 1997, from which his publishers, before the release of the book, removed the names of several famous people with whom Blazey typically claimed to have been intimate. With his partner Tim Herbert he co-edited an erotic anthology, "Love Cries - Cruel Passions, Strange Desires" 1995. In the early 1980s Blazey and his two brothers inherited a sizeable fortune from their father, the founder of an agricultural empire. Blazey squandered his money on indulgences like artworks, cocaine, pornography, gambling and even bought, renovated and took up residence in Barbara Stanwyck's former hilltop mansion in Los Angeles. Eventually he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous for sober recovery. Blazey was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984, having contracted the disease four years earlier in New York City. He refused drug therapies, claiming that anti-AIDS drug companies were "causing the death by poisoning of thousands of healthy gay men." He called one Sydney AIDS-treating doctor, the "Dr Mengele of Darlinghurst." Shiatsu massage, herbs and naturopathic remedies, along with a passion for life, kept him going until 2/07/1997, when he died in the early morning, his partner Tim beside him, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. A controversial figure, he had been engaged to marry a woman identified as "Cassandra" several times, and while a "gay activist" was more likely an acting bisexual. A colorful member of the gay community, he had appeared with his partner Tim as "Bob and Blanche" and "Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein" in Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parades.