Miami Herald - Tuesday, December 9, 1997
Paul Brinkley-Rogers, Herald Staff Writer

Lying in his sickbed, the veteran Fort Lauderdale theater director and longtime AIDS activist knows that death is waiting for him -- perhaps jealous of the sheer will he is exerting to stay alive until Christmas Day.

That's the way you keep going, one day at a time, says this man hooked up to an oxygen tank. McCord is bone thin, less than 90 pounds now, his energy sapped by his medical problems. His doctor has told him he could go at any time.

With death that palpable, he says, you get busy. You make your own funeral arrangements, telling everyone not to wear black. You pick the music, but you don't tell your friends what it is, because if you did, it would not be a surprise. With your parish priest, you walk that final mile together in prayer.

"You are living with a little thief," McCord, 42, says of the process of dying. He does not sound exasperated, just knowledgeable.

"Every week, it steals away another part of me. I am continually adjusting. I am continually saying things like, `OK, you can't stand up in the shower any more. What are you going to do? OK, you'll get a shower chair.' "

He's no longer able to walk a great distance. A cane will do. Going out to dinner or the theater is no longer an option. He stays home.

"So you think. You think, `How am I going to be at peace and know that everyone else in my life is at peace?' You make plans. You make arrangements. That's what's neat about dying slowly like this -- you have time to do that. It's not like being shot on the South Florida highways, where you are suddenly snatched away."

Being bedridden, terminal, is not easy for a man who was dance captain for West Side Story on Broadway in 1980, a demanding job that made him responsible for keeping the dancing first-rate. It's not easy for a man who directed critically acclaimed productions of Evita, Li'l Abner and Sweet Charity with the Fort Lauderdale Players. A man who enjoyed steak, vodka and an eight-year relationship with his companion, actor Jeff Marroll, who, last week of all weeks, was told that his mother had died.

The first hint of McCord's lethal illness came Sept. 17, 1987.

That was the day, in Fort Lauderdale, in the middle of rehearsals, when he thought he had the flu but instead was told by his doctor that he had a fungal lung infection.

He was having such a difficult time breathing that the hospital told family members that McCord might not make it through the night.

"They all came to the bed and sat with me," McCord said of this first of several near-death crises brought on by the HIV infection. "They touched me." Perhaps because of that contact, by the next day, he was sitting up and eating.

Told that he had AIDS, his first reaction was not fear. Instead, it was "to keep working, to go on with the show."

As late as July, with his weight dropping to 100 pounds, he was firing up The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for the Fort Lauderdale Players.

"Dying?" he said. "It's the thing we all have to do, whether it's AIDS, cancer, a heart attack. Hopefully, it's at the end of a long and fruitful life. You can't cheat death. But as my doctor said, it is amazing what the human spirit can do."

Those who counseled, doctored and worked with McCord know what he means.

"People tried to tell him to take it easy," said J.R. Davis, 45, who danced with McCord back in 1980 in New York City and worked with the director in several summer productions in Fort Lauderdale. "He would not. He was driven. He bounced back from near death several times, and in each case, it was the will to live."

McCord's physician, Dr. Frank Tomaka, said: "This man was working 80 hours a week even as late as September. It was a schedule I would have trouble keeping. We'd talk about that schedule, but it was clear it was that which kept him going mentally, emotionally, and when he couldn't keep going, then he was ready to die."

The Rev. John McLaughlin, pastor of Oakland Park's Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, says he has seen many parishioners succumb to AIDS. "What made Michael special," he said, talking about McCord's decision a year ago to reconnect with the church of his childhood, "was his focus. He's really an inspiration to deal with spiritually."

SUPPORTIVE FRIENDS: The cast from a production of Steel Magnolias surrounds Michael McCord in November 1996. McCord, now dying of AIDS, has been active with the Fort Lauderdale Players.

CAPTION: photo: Michael McCord (a)
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