Beloved West Hollywood Lesbian Activist Nadia Sutton Has Died

Nadia Sutton at the opening of Laurel Park (Photo by Karen Ocamb)

That fiery red hair! Those twinkling eyes! That broad smile that signaled ‘delicious, darling’ before uttering a word! Nadia Sutton’s charismatic, energetic joie de vivre – joy of life – preceded her into any space she entered in the world. And when she spoke, her seductive French accent coated her words with a light molasses so orders to take action seemed like a flirtatious invitation to dance.

Nadia Sutton, actress, lesbian, West Hollywood community activist, people and animal lover, died peacefully in her sleep late Oct. 31 as Halloween – All Hallows Eve – transitioned into el Día de los Muertos, Sunday, Nov. 1. She was 88.

“Nadia Sutton was, and always will be, an integral part of the fabric of West Hollywood. She was fierce, fearless, and fabulous,” says her friend, former West Hollywood City Councilmember Abbe Land. “Nadia was always there. She never backed away from the issues she cared about, and she always showed up for her friends, her beloved animals, and anyone who needed a helping hand.”

Abbe says she was “inspired by her courage, her perseverance, her curiosity, and love of learning — and, of course, her love of all things French.”

Nadia Sutton, left, next to Jimmy Palmeri with Ruth Tittle in sunglasses on the right. (Photo courtesy City of West Hollywood)

Ruth Tittle chuckles remembering her own delight watching Nadia find someone who spoke French and diving into an animated conversation as if no one else existed.

“She loved to be invited for things so any time I sponsored an event or a table for any fundraising activity, I always invited Nadia. I saved a seat for her,” Ruth, a renown WeHo philanthropist and founding Board member for the Foundation for the AIDS Monument, says by phone from her home in Lexington, Kentucky. “She was a social butterfly. I picture her now with a butterfly – a Monarch.”

Born July 19, 1938 in Brussels, Belgium as Nadia Alice Blitzstein, she enrolled as a teenager in the Université libre de Bruxelles – Free University of Brussels – a French-speaking research university which for several years had been under German occupation and had students involved in the Belgian Resistance. In 1956, at age 18, Nadia left to live on a kibbutz in Israel. A year later, she began hitchhiking through Europe, picking up new languages.

Nadia landed in Paris in the late 1950s just as the City of Lights became the center of a post-war cultural and social revolution. She studied theater, sold The New York Times in the streets and led tour groups through La Ville-Lumière – all while surrounded by milestones: Black American singer and dancer and French Resistance fighter Josephine Baker symbolized the possibility of a life racism-free; Beat Generation poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky turned the Hotel Rachou into the “Beat Hotel;” and 21-year-old Yves Saint Laurent marketed youth and revolutionized haute couture after taking over the House of Dior.

Nada also got caught up in Algeria’s civil unrest in the struggle to gain independence from France. She then moved to Southern Spain, despite the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, because she loved the poetry of Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Nadia’s next stop was England in 1967, where she lived for 12 years, working as an actor and getting into cause-related trouble, such as helping create a pirate radio station to protest censorship of a gay magazine by the government.

This was “the Summer of Love” in America; The Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band;” BBC radio was restructured to cater to the counter-culture movement, just as BBC TV started broadcasting in color. A law legalizing specific safe and legal abortion was passed – and homosexuality was partially decriminalized for consenting adult men over age 21. But partial legalization does not equal acceptance and gays continued to face harassment and censorship under obscenity laws.

Meanwhile offshore “pirate” radio stations that had broadcast popular countercultural music were shutdown for circumventing the BBC monopoly. Yup – and Nadia was part of this protest, too.

Nadia came to Los Angeles in 1979 “in search of palm trees and an acting career,” she writes in clip sentences in a short autobiography. She eventually moved to West Hollywood and it seemed all her past experienced surged into activism and her life forever changed.

In the mid-1980s, she was “losing the people I loved the most, my chosen family. In between, many days and nights at Cedars, holding our friends in my arms for comfort, got involved with ACT UP, protesting in the streets, demanding our rights for people living with AIDS including fast tracking medication. In 1989 co-founded PAWS LA [(Pets Are Wonderful Support] with friend Stan Rawlings, dedicated to help my friends living with AIDS keep their beloved pets.”

The founding of PAWS/LA was incredibly impactful. Even the late pioneering LGBTQ+ political activist David Mixner referenced Nadia and PAWS/LA in our 2019 interview marking the end of his 60 years of activism. He was no longer interested in going to bars and preferred to have a dinner party with friends.

“And then I realized I had no friends to do that with. I would guess that 85% of people my age died in the epidemic that I knew could share a history with,” Mixner told me. “I mean, it goes on and on and on and on. We needed to find homes for their pets. And there was that young woman that always we could turn to – Nadia with PAWS – to find homes for pets of people with AIDS. We’d call her and say, ‘someone has passed away and we’ve got this pet’ and she’d place them in a good homes.”

“The community response to AIDS in the 80’s and early 90’s is hard to explain to those who were not eyewitnesses,” says former West Hollywood City Councilmember and current candidate John Duran. “It was constant crisis and chaos interwoven with horror, sickness and death. Every day felt like an emergency and warriors were lost constantly. Into that darkness, Nadia stepped forward to fill a hole in the response: ‘what was to be done with the animals left behind by those who died?’ After all, these were the equivalent of family members to so many.

“Nadia created PAWS – ‘Pets Are Wonderful Support’ – so that those who were dying could slip away without worrying what would become of the loved ones. Those animal companions did not have to be put down or abandoned because Nadia stepped in and filled that void.”

John also recalls another Nadia characteristic that was both oddly startling and secretly heartwarming – her cheeky French flirtations.

“Nadia was one of the activists who believed that we did not need to leave our sexuality and sensuality outside of the movement,” John says. “It was routine for her to come up to me and scream out loudly ‘Duran – you sexy thing!’ I used to turn beet red when it first happened – but then later I said it right back to her ‘Nadia – you sexy thing! You don’t even have to try because with that French accent – everything sounds sexy!’ We would both laugh, love and embrace one another. I will truly miss my friend and fellow AIDS warrior Nadia….”

“Through the years continued standing up with my brothers and sisters for marriage equality and succeeding,” Nadia says in her autobio snippets. “All these years later, still involved more passionately than ever, fighting for the rights of my LGBT community, Women’s rights and equality, reproductive rights, just people and animal rights. As we are more vulnerable than ever, as we need to care about each other and be seen.”

Nadia Sutton and Andy Sacher at An Evening With Women 2013 (Photo courtesy Andy Sacher)

Andy Sacher agrees. The founder of The Lavender Effect says he became aware of Nadia at a Rainbow Key Award celebration in 2012 where both were being honored. That night, Nadia agreed to join The Lavender Effect’s advisory board.

But Nadia didn’t just join – she got involved, introducing Andy to “dozens of movers and shakers without hesitation,” explaining The Lavender Effect’s mission. She also helped organize many of their Queer Culture Series events, like “Making Love Letters,” which celebrated letters sent to the producer of the groundbreaking movie Making Love,” Andy says.

Nadia “was a fearless advisor and loved to connect me with political leaders. In June of 2013, we went to one of Antonio Villaraigosa’s amazing LGBTQ+ garden parties.

Liliana Perez, Antonio Villaraigosa and Nadia Sutton 2013 (Photo courtesy Andy Sacher)

Nadia also sent him personal emails including one in 2014: “Andy treasure, I wish you a beautiful Valentine’s Day. Take time to treat yourself fabulously and do what makes you happy. Thank you for your delightful friendship. Purrs and hugs, Nadia and Barnaby cat. Click to play sound: Cat Purrs.”

On The Lavender Effect’s Oral Histories Committee, and knowing the organization’s limited funding, she “always prioritized other participants over herself,” Andy says. “I regret following her advice on that now. However, I will never forget her positive spirit and her love for both her community and animals.”

Nadia Sutton protests over Bill Cosby rape allegations 2016 (Photo screen shot of LA Times article photo)

Nadia Sutton protested on numerous issues and sat on numerous boards, committees, panels, forums – wherever she was asked to be to share her wisdom and kindness. And she’s received numerous honors and awards – including Hollywood NOW ‘s 2020 HERStory Award during Covid. The program was led by Karen Eyres, President of Hollywood Now, member of West Hollywood’s Women’s Advisory Board and a longtime friend of Nadia’s. (See Paulo Murillo’s report in the WeHo Times with lots of photos.)

In 2015, then-Rep. Adam Schiff named Nadia Sutton “28th Congressional District Woman of the Year” and read the recognition into the Congressional Record on March 16, 2015.

“It is an honor to pay homage to outstanding women who are making a difference in my Congressional District. I would like to recognize a remarkable woman, Nadia Sutton of West Hollywood, California,” Schiff said.

After reading about her life, her accomplishments, her causes and the boards she sat on, Schiff concluded with this:

Nadia with a feral cat at Catnippers (Photo via Nadia’s Facebook)

“A devoted animal lover, she co-founded PAWS LA (Pets Are Wonderful Support), an organization dedicated to helping people living with AIDS keep their beloved animal companions, where she is currently serving as a Board member, and is a volunteer with Catnippers, an association that helps spay and neuter feral cats and kittens. Nadia resides in West Hollywood with her cat, Barnaby.

I ask all Members to join me in honoring an exceptional woman of California’s 28th Congressional District, Nadia Sutton.”

“She’s a woman of incredible energy and passion,” Schiff told the Beverly Hills Press.

“As a father, Schiff said he wants his daughter to have positive women role models, such as Sutton,” the Beverly Hills Press reported.

“I want her to have every possibility to reach her full potential and not be inhibited in any way because she’s a woman. I’m very grateful to these women,” Schiff said.

Nadia Sutton – French Dyke (Photo courtesy City of West Hollywood)

“We are not involved because we are do-gooders. We do it because it’s about caring for and fighting for people that we love, that I love. There is no way that I could not be involved in activism,” Sutton said.

Nadia Sutton is survived by her cat Barnaby, who is the loving care of Karen Eyres.