West Hollywood activist Nadia Sutton, who helped found PAWS/LA during the AIDS crisis, died peacefully in her sleep late Saturday, Oct. 31, at 88, journalist Karen Ocamb wrote in a remembrance published by WeHo Times on Monday. WEHOonline also reported her death. “We started PAWS/LA so that people who have lost everything can at least keep their pets,” Sutton said in 2015, according to the Beverly Press.
Ocamb remembered her as an “actress, lesbian, West Hollywood community activist, people and animal lover.” “Nadia’s legacy is one of compassion, service, and unwavering commitment to others,” Mayor John Heilman said at Monday night’s City Council meeting, according to WEHOonline. The outlet reported that the council adjourned in her memory without objection.
Heilman had one more request. “And if it is possible for us to lower our flags, to honor Nadia, I would request that we do that,” he said.
From a Brussels Childhood to Pirate Radio in England
Sutton’s life began in Brussels on July 19, 1938, according to WEHOonline. “Born in Brussels, Belgium, Nadia has led an interesting life both as an actress and an activist,” then-Rep. Adam Schiff wrote in a March 2015 tribute in the Congressional Record.
At 18 she moved to a kibbutz in Israel, and theater studies in Paris came later, according to WEHOonline and The Lavender Effect, an LGBTQ+ history group she advised from its start. “Passionate about civil rights, she began her activism career by supporting the Algerian independence cause while in France,” Schiff wrote.
During 12 years in England, she helped put a pirate radio station on the air to fight the government’s censoring of a gay magazine, and in 1979 she moved to Los Angeles, WEHOonline reported. “As an actress, Ms. Sutton has worked in theater, radio, television and film,” the tribute says.
Why Nadia Sutton Co-Founded PAWS/LA in 1989
Through the 1980s she went to see sick friends in the hospital up to four times a week, the Beverly Press reported. “We were losing everyone that we loved, everyone that mattered to me,” Sutton said.
“She worked with Sally Fisher’s AIDS Mastery workshops to help people with HIV/AIDS live fuller lives,” her Lavender Effect bio says. In a short autobiography quoted by Ocamb, Sutton wrote that by the mid-1980s she was “losing the people I loved the most, my chosen family.” She got involved with ACT UP, and in 1989 she started Pets Are Wonderful Support/Los Angeles, better known as PAWS/LA, with Stan Rawlings, WEHOonline reported.
The group says on its website that it formed in response to “the companion animal-related crises” facing Los Angeles County residents left sick and short on money by HIV/AIDS. PAWS/LA got its start in West Hollywood and later relocated downtown, the Beverly Press reported in 2011, and its clients now also include low-income seniors and low-income people with disabling, life-threatening illnesses. “PAWS/LA is dedicated to preserving the human-animal bond,” its mission statement says.
Her Years on West Hollywood’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board
Schiff’s tribute credits her with 12 years on the city’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, and July 2010 minutes list her among members present with the activist Ivy Bottini. “Nadia Sutton spoke about the importance of maintaining awareness of LGBT issues abroad, including Ghana and the Middle East,” the minutes say.
She later joined the city’s Women’s Advisory Board and its Older Adults Advisory Board, WEHOonline reported. “She’s a woman of incredible energy and passion,” Schiff said in 2015, when he named her his district’s Woman of the Year, according to the Beverly Press.
In 2020 she received the HERStory Award from Hollywood NOW, WEHOonline reported. “Nadia Sutton was, and always will be, an integral part of the fabric of West Hollywood. She was fierce, fearless, and fabulous,” former Councilmember Abbe Land told Ocamb.
Monday’s Council Tributes and a Cat Named Barnaby
Councilmember John Erickson told Monday’s meeting he’d learned of her death late Saturday. “I remember stopping dead in my tracks,” Erickson said.
He used to give her rides home from Women’s Advisory Board meetings, WEHOonline reported. “I don’t think I can drive past that place right now, because it’s really sad,” he said.
Councilmember Chelsea Byers remembered “a physicality about the way she loved you and took care of you.” “I really hope that more of us behave and act like Nadia, grabbing hold of each other, pulling us in close,” Byers said.
Heilman singled out Karen Eyres, Rick Watts and other community members who’d helped Sutton through her final years. “She was living in a second floor walk up, no elevator access, and living alone,” Watts said, pressing for more housing, including accessible homes for seniors and people with disabilities.
“She loved West Hollywood almost as much as she loved cats,” former Mayor Steve Martin said. Schiff’s tribute noted she was “a volunteer with Catnippers, an association that helps spay and neuter feral cats and kittens.”
WEHOonline said late Monday that it hadn’t seen a memorial announced, and that Sutton’s cat, Barnaby, is in the care of her friend Karen Eyres.
