Christian Haren (February 1, 1935 – February 27, 1996) was an American stage and screen actor, model and community activist.

Early life

Haren was born in

San Bernardino County, California San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the ...

. He attended school and colleges in San Bernardino. In his 20s he served in the United States Army during the 1950s.

Acting career

In the 1960s Haren received a studio contract from

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

and starred in

Vincente Minnelli Vincente Minnelli (born Lester Anthony Minnelli; February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was an American stage director and film director. He directed the classic movie musicals ''Meet Me in St. Louis'' (1944), ''An American in Paris'' (1951), ''Th ...

's '' Bells Are Ringing'',

Otto Preminger Otto Ludwig Preminger ( , ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gai ...

's ''

In Harm's Way ''In Harm's Way'' is a 1965 American epic war film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Patricia Neal, with a supporting cast featuring Henry Fonda in a lengthy cameo, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Stanle ...

'' (a

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

film), and ''

Billy Rose's Jumbo ''Billy Rose's Jumbo'' is a 1962 American musical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Raye. An adaptation of the stage musical ''Jumbo'' produced by Billy Rose, the film was dir ...

''. He starred on Broadway in the

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

play ''

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui ''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'' (german: Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui, links=no), subtitled "A parable play", is a 1941 play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s Chicago m ...

'', produced by

Tony Richardson Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film ...

. He is best remembered for playing the role of the

Marlboro Man The Marlboro Man is a figure that was used in tobacco advertising campaigns for Marlboro cigarettes. In the United States, where the campaign originated, it was used from 1954 to 1999. The Marlboro Man was first conceived by Leo Burnett in 1954. ...

in print advertisements in the early 1960s, and appearing in print ads for Budweiser Beer.

Activism

Haren was openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

, and was the proprietor of the popular

Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land ...

gay bar CC Construction Co. in later years. In 1985, he was diagnosed with

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

and became active in AIDS prevention education. He started "The Wedge", a "

safe sex Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer se ...

" AIDS prevention organization for teens in San Francisco. After living with the disease for over a decade, Haren died in 1996. Five well-known Marlboro men died of smoking related illnesses. Haren and

Darrell Winfield Darrell H. Winfield (July 30, 1929 – January 12, 2015) was an American rancher and Model (person), model best known as "The Marlboro Man" in television commercials and magazine Advertising, advertisements for Marlboro (cigarette), Marlboro cigar ...

(21 years as the Marlboro Man) were the two best known of all of men who portrayed the Marlboro Man, but who did not suffer ill effects from smoking.

Death and legacy

Haren died in 1996 in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, of complications from

, at the age of 61.LA Times obituary
/ref> His life was the subject of the 1998 documentary short ''Castro Cowboy''.

Filmography

References

External links

*
San Francisco Chronicle obituaryLA Times obituary
1935 births 1996 deaths People from San Bernardino County, California AIDS-related deaths in California American gay actors Gay models Male models from California 20th-century American male actors Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players 20th-century American LGBT people {{US-film-actor-1930s-stub