Lee Mathis

In 1993, Mathis realized that he had not worked enough to qualify for Screen Actors Guild (SAG) health benefits. Against the advice of family and friends, he placed a $99 ad in Variety which read: "Healthy HIV-positive actor needs $3,500 worth of SAG work by Dec. 31 to maintain his health insurance." He told Entertainment Weekly in 1994, "Friends said it would ruin my career. But I figured, f- it, I need the benefits." Despite press coverage of his predicament, Mathis only made his deadline "with $44 and three days to spare" after paying for his Variety ad to run a second time. Several casting directors responded, offering bit parts and in 1995, he landed a recurring role on the daytime soap opera, "General Hospital," playing Jon Hanley, a HIV positive character. Jon, a longtime friend of series regular Lucy Coe (played by Lynn Herring) was the first gay, HIV-positive actor to play a similar character on a soap opera. "People with HIV tend to feel illegitimate, ineligible and basically like throwing in the towel," Mathis told The Advocate (February 1994). "What Brad Davis went through, just living with himself alone, knowing he was hiding the truth--that's something I could not welcome into my life. Stigma is better than silence. I don't know if what I did was really heroic but it sure feels good."