21 Facts About Nelson Sullivan

John Nelson Sullivan was an American videographer who chronicled life in Downtown Manhattan's arts and club scene from 1983 until his death.

Nelson Sullivan was born in Kershaw, South Carolina, on March 15,1948.

Nelson Sullivan was the younger of two sons in a family that was attached to a large cotton fortune.

When he was about five years old, Nelson Sullivan's family moved next-door to the family of another young boy, James Prioleau Richards III.

Nelson Sullivan ran his own hair salon, with a summer location on Fire Island.

Later, Nelson Sullivan became a cab driver in Manhattan and then a part-time music consultant at Joseph Patelson Music House, a classical music specialty store in the shadow of Carnegie Hall.

In 1981, Nelson Sullivan rented a creaky three-story house at 5 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District, which was then still many years away from its rebirth as a fashionable area.

Nelson Sullivan videotaped the rotating cast of characters who made their way to his home.

Nelson Sullivan sent video reports to Richards, who showed them as part of The American Music Show.

Nelson Sullivan began holding the camera at arm's length and pointing it at himself, and the focus and effect of his art changed.

Richards later credited Nelson Sullivan with introducing RuPaul to Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who would create the World of Wonder corporation that guided his career to superstardom.

Nelson Sullivan taught us about the West Village, about Fire Island, and he introduced us to Tennessee Williams movies.

Nelson Sullivan was our gay educator and taught us about our birthright, our cultural inheritance.

Nelson Sullivan quit his job at Joseph Patelson Music House, cashed out his retirement, and set out on the next phase of his life.

On July 2, Nelson Sullivan recorded the raw video he hoped to edit into the first episode of his TV show, centering the camera on himself as he walked from his neighborhood to Sheridan Square and the Stonewall Inn, site of the 1969 Stonewall Inn bar riot.

Nelson Sullivan's mood was darkened by the death of his friend Christina, a transgender woman who only recently had welcomed him and his camera into her bizarre rooms at the Chelsea Hotel.

Richards said he was told that because Nelson Sullivan was still alive when he reached the hospital, an autopsy was not required, and none was performed.

Nelson Sullivan's body was returned to Kershaw, South Carolina, where he was buried at Kershaw City Cemetery following a Presbyterian graveside service.

Shortly after the funeral, in accordance with their joint artistic agreement, Richards flew to New York and retrieved Nelson Sullivan's archive, shipping the more than 600 videotapes to the Atlanta house he shared with business partner Ted Rubenstein and life partner David Goldman.

When Nelson Sullivan turned his video camera on himself as flaneur of downtown, he found his own artistic, queer, postmodern voice.

Nelson Sullivan's videos were included in several episodes of the six-part documentary series "The Andy Warhol Diaries" on Netflix.