ACT UP Veteran Scott Robbe Dies at 66
Activist participated in some of ACT UP’s most daring protests
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
Scott Robbe, an early and
important member of ACT
UP and Queer Nation and
a founder of other activist
groups, died on November 21 in
hospice care in his sister’s home in
Wisconsin after a year-long battle
with myelodysplastic anemia, a
form of blood cancer. He was 66.
“He was always one to take
charge, kind of looking out after
his sister, Angie,” said John Robbe,
Scott’s brother and one of fi ve children
in the Robbe family. “Looked
after most of us. He always made
sure everyone was okay.”
Scott, who was the oldest of the
fi ve children, was born in 1955 in
Iowa and raised in Wisconsin with
his three brothers and one sister.
His father, James Robbe, was a
construction supervisor and his
mother, Helen Robbe, was a homemaker.
Scott credited his father
with raising him in an “activist
household,” according to his 2013
interview with the ACT UP Oral
History Project.
“I think there was a strong sense
of community that was given to me
by my father, who was always very
active in the community on ecological
issues, community issues that
affected the broader community,”
Scott said.
He was also exposed to more
radical politics as a teenager. A
babysitter gave him a copy of “Living
My Life,” the autobiography of
anarchist Emma Goldman, when
he was 13. That babysitter was
the girlfriend of Leo Burt, who was
indicted but never apprehended
in the 1970 bombing of the Army
Math Research Center on the University
of Wisconsin campus. The
bombing protested the American
war in Vietnam. Scott said in his
interview that his parents knew
about the babysitter’s politics.
Robbe is credited with joining
some of ACT UP’s more daring protests,
such as briefl y halting the
opening of the New York Stock Exchange
in 1988. He joined ACT UP,
the HIV activist group, after seeing
an ACT UP protest during the 1987
Scott Robbe joined ACT UP after seeing an ACT UP protest during the 1987 Second National March on
Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
Second National March on Washington
for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
He modernized ACT UP’s protests
by using cellphones and walkietalkies.
As a member of ACT UP’s
media committee, he promoted
upcoming protests with displays
on unused billboards around New
York City.
“I came to ACT UP because I’d
always been a fervent believer that
if you want to create change, you
have to participate,” he said in
his interview. “Democracy doesn’t
work unless you participate. You
can’t foster change unless you participate.”
Scott moved to New York City after
graduating from the University
of Wisconsin in 1978 with a degree
in theater, according to a biography
that was compiled by Jay Blotcher,
a publicist and former ACT UP
member. He produced Off-Broadway
shows, including workshopping
“Fugue in the Nursery,” which
was the middle segment of Harvey
Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” at
La MaMa, the experimental theater
collective in the East Village,
and producing “False Promises” by
the San Francisco Mime Troupe at
the Entermedia Theatre. Scott was
part of a collective that was renovating
the Orpheum Theatre in
SCOTT ROBBE ESTATE
the East Village. He produced the
Harvey Fierstein play “Safe Sex” on
Broadway.
In 1990, Robbe moved to Los
Angeles to produce commercials
for Japanese television and he began
a career in producing fi lms
and television shows. While he
eventually enjoyed success in fi lm
and television production, he was
initially hampered by his activism.
In 1991, he was among a group of
activists who founded Out in Film,
an organization that protested how
LGBTQ people were represented
in fi lms and on television and the
discrimination they faced in working
in that industry. Out in Film,
ACT UP, Queer Nation, and other
groups protested during the 1992
Oscars.
“That really made me persona
non grata in Hollywood at the
time,” Scott said during his interview
with author Sarah Schulman
for the oral history project.
His producing career in television
and fi lm continued through
2013, according to credits listed
on imdb.com, but he had returned
to Wisconsin by 2005 where he
launched a volunteer effort to bring
major Hollywood productions to
the state. In 2007, that organization,
Film Wisconsin, was made
REMEMBRANCE
offi cial and Scott was appointed
executive director. The Blotcher
biography credits him with bringing
“28 TV and fi lm projects to the
state.”
Throughout his career, Scott
maintained relationships with
friends he made in college and later
in his life. Scott had retired in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico when the
cancer struck. He went to Boston to
receive a stem cell transplant that
was ultimately unsuccessful at the
Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Two
friends Scott knew from his childhood
or his time at the University
of Wisconsin — Ben Fraundorf and
Mike Mack — traveled to Boston to
care for Scott.
“I would always think of him
as being very much an activist,
very much caring about people,
making sure that everybody was
treated fairly,” Fraundorf told Gay
City News. “My wife was equally as
much a friend of Scott as I was…
My thought was if this happened
to me, I’m sure Scott would have
been there as well.”
Former ACT UP colleagues
echoed Fraundorf’s view of Scott.
“Scott was not only a man with
big heart, but he had a remarkable
sense of humor,” John Voelcker, a
former ACT UP member, told Gay
City News. “I might not talk to him
for six months or 18 months, but
when we picked up the conversation,
it was as if no time had
elapsed and that to me has always
been the mark of a good friend.”
In an email, Blotcher wrote that
Scott “was an old-school leftie” and
his work in “ACT UP and Queer Nation
were a logical continuation of
that spirit. Scott had the historical
perspective that many of us activist
newcomers lacked, and perhaps
that accounted for his patience
and persistence. He knew how to
play the long game when it came to
social justice.”
Scott is survived by his mother
and his four siblings and their
spouses, an uncle, and several
nieces and nephews. Donations
in Scott’s memory may be
made to Broadway Cares/Equity
Fights.
GayCityNews.com | December 3 - December 15, 2021 5
/imdb.com
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