What is Brad Davis up to?

Search: midnight express

Why: Chandler made me watch his "favorite movie" Midnight Express last night. In sunglasses, that guy looks exactly like Brad Pitt.

Answer: Nothing! I mean really nothing - he died in 1991.

Davis was married to Susan Bluestein, who later became an Emmy Award-winning casting director. They had one child, Alexandra.

Death

Diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, Davis kept his condition secret until shortly before his death. Although the announcement said he died of AIDS in 1991 in Los Angeles, he actually died of an intentional drug overdose. Near death and in severe pain in a hospital, he opted to return home and end his life on his own terms. With his wife and a family friend present, he committed assisted suicide. Susan Bluestein Davis continues to campaign to combat AIDS.

Davis was referred to as "the first heterosexual actor to die of AIDS," although he reportedly was bisexual, a claim disputed by his wife in her book. When asked if he considered himself bisexual, he replied, "Didn't someone once say everyone's bisexual, deep down?"

What a bummer.

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The real Billy Hayes - the character Davis portrayed - is alive and well, writing and acting in such fan favorites as Shakespeare's Plan 12 from Outer Space and "Babylon 5: The Gathering." In real life, he didn't push the guard Hamid ("the bear") to his death by coat hook.

In fact, the prison guard was killed by a recently released prisoner, whose family Hamid insulted while beating the prisoner, years before Hayes' actual escape.

No word on whether or not he really said "no" to that handsome Swede who tenderly made out with him in the shower (Chandler's favorite scene, btw) - only that:

Billy Hayes never claimed to be raped by his Turkish wardens or that he ever suffered any sexual violence. He engaged in consensual sex, but the film depicts Hayes rejecting the advances of a prisoner, and the warden.

On June 30, 2010, the National Geographic channel aired "Locked Up Abroad: The Real Midnight Express."