Richard Locke – A Swirling Dervish!
I was hoping I could do this work in a chronological order, but things happen, so I will improvise now and then.
Since I wrote my previous post, I got in touch with Richard Locke´s brother, Robert Locke, who is an actor and an author.
We met in 2014, and he told me about Richard, and took me to his grave.
I asked Robert to correct me if something was wrong, and he pointed out that it is called Whirling Dervish, but he wrote: “But I rather prefer “Swirling Dervish” because that is so like what Richard might have said.”, so I don´t change it.
When I interviewed Richard in 1987 – and that was a wild interview that I will write about later – he told me that AIDS was behind him… He had become an activist, trying to smuggle medicines from Mexico. He wanted to fight, he wanted to raise hell, and become a Swirling Dervish!
Robert Locke has written an interesting and moving text about his brother:
A Biographical Fragment of Robert and Richard Locke.”Robert Locke´s account of his brother Richard Locke´s struggle with AIDS.”:
http://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/extext/living.html
.