WORLD AIDS DAY: 'DESIGNING WOMEN'

October 5, 1987 - 'Designing Women' tackles the topic of AIDS when a young designer and friend of Sugarbakers asks the ladies for a special request. 

Kendall Dobbs (played by Scandal's Tony Goldwyn) has contracted AIDS and is dying. He asks the women to design his funeral with a Dixieland/New Orleans Jazz theme. While they come to terms with the news, Mary Jo finds herself battling parents at a PTA over the distribution of birth control at Claudia's school. At one time opposed to it, Mary Jo realizes that it isn't births that need to be prevented, but rather deaths.

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WORLD AIDS DAY: "AN EARLY FROST"

November 11, 1985 - "An Early Frost" premieres on NBC, attracting an astounding 34 million viewers. It was the first made-for-TV movie to address the topic of AIDS. 

Aidan Quinn played Michael Pierson, a lawyer who is exposed to the AIDS virus thanks to his lover's infidelity. Pierson travels home to inform his family.Ben Gazzara, Gena Rowlands, Sylvia Sidney, Terry O'Quinn, and John Glover also starred in the film.

"An Early Frost" was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards and won three categories including Outstanding Writing. Due to the sensitivity of the topic and general lack of information during the mid-1980s, the film's script was revised and rewritten more than ten times before NBC's Standard and Practices department accepted the version for airing.

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