Stephen Stucker

Stucker was born in Des Moines Iowa His family moved to Shaker Heights Ohio where he distinguished himself in school as a pianist and class clown He graduated from high school in 1965 Stucker made his screen debut costarring in the 1975 comedic sexploitation film Carnal Madness as Bruce Wilson a gay fashion designer who escapes from an insane asylum with two fellow inmates fleeing to an allgirls school He went on to perform in the 1977 earthquakeinLosAngeles comedy Cracking Up alongside Fred Willard Michael McKean and Harry Shearer In 1977 he appeared in the John Landis film The Kentucky Fried Movie based on the troupes sketches This led to his supporting role in the ZuckerAbrahamsZucker comedy Airplane which he reprised in Airplane II The Sequel For the initial film the writers gave Stucker the straight lines for his scenes and let him write his characters offthewall responses In 1982 he had a guest role in a threeepisode sequence in the TV series Mork Mindy and in 1983 had a small featured role in Landis Trading Places In 1984 he had a costarring role as the sexobsessed psychiatrist Dr Bender in the teen comedy film Bad Manners aka Growing Pains On July 12 1984 Stucker was diagnosed with AIDS He later publicly announced his illness making him one of the first actors to announce he was suffering from the disease Stucker had apparently suffered from many different types of cancerrelated symptoms as early as 1979 prior to public knowledge of what AIDS was He died from AIDSrelated complications on April 13 1986 at the age of 38 He is interred in the Chapel of the Chimes