American gay musician and TV personality, Loud was one of the first gay men to come out on American television in 1973 documentary series, An American Family. He once said, “Television ate my family.”
He died at age 50 on 22 December 2001 at about 1 AM in Los Angeles according to his mother who gave the information on the public broadcasting system website. He died of liver failure caused by Hepatitis C and HIV infection.
The 12-part documentary series focused on the complexities of the modern middle class family life and premiered on 11 January 1973. Ten million viewers watched their real-life drama unfold, and witnessed the marital tensions which ultimately led to divorce, revelation of Lance’s gay lifestyle and the changing family values of an entire culture. Lance was the eldest son (with four siblings) and arguably the audience’s favourite personality in the family. He was gregarious and frank, and his TV appearances in the documentary led him to become a rock and roll musician and later, when the band, The Mumps, disbanded in 1980, a writer and columnist for Andy Warhol’s “Interview” magazine, “Vanity Fair,” “American Film,” and other magazines and journals.
Loud wanted to be perceived, not as a gay icon, but as “an outsider, a rebel, someone always living on society’s edge.” He and the family consented to film a follow-up episode in 1983, and, in 2003, the filmmakers released a film, Lance Loud! A Death in an American Family.
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