"A Nightmare on AIDS Street" would have made a great title for Mark Patton's documentary "Scream Queen," a film about being a gay male horror movie star in Hollywood during the 1980s. Patton is best known for his role as Jesse Walsh in "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge." Many consider the role unusual for the time period because he was the first male protagonist in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series and for that reason he is regarded by many to be the first male "Scream Queen" in Hollywood. A label that took on a double meaning when he came out as gay and later HIV positive.
Like many gay men that came of age in the 80s he isn't sure exactly how he got HIV. He was diagnosed in 1999 and he has been hospitalized over the years for everything from pneumonia to bad drug interactions. He is currently living in Mexico with his husband Hector Morales Mondragon where they own a business in Puerto Vallarta.
Patton is originally from Kansas City, Missouri and goes back there often. He spends a lot of time traveling and going to horror conventions.
Over the decades Nightmare on Elms Street 2 has become a cult favorite in the gay community which considers it pretty much the gayest horror film of all time. Screenwriter David Chaskin had intentionally inserted a number of homo-erotic lines that at times blamed Patton for. Ironic since at the time of its release, Patton couldn't even promote it with gay media outlets because of his closet status, homophobia in Hollywood, and the AIDS epidemic at that time. The remained true when he played a gay character in the 1987 film Jimmy Dean.
After having enough of acting he became an interior designer and has also done art work like making hand bags for his art store in Mexico.