LA Cares AIDS campaign (c.1984) starring Zelda Rubinstein
Zelda Rubinstein was a little person (the term she preferred) who began acting in her 40's. Her big break came in 1982 with her role as Tangina Barrons in the film Poltergeist.
In 1984, she was the the central figure in a series of advertisements, directed towards gay men specifically, promoting safer sex and AIDS awareness. Rubinstein did so at risk to her own career, especially so shortly after her rise to fame, and admitted later that she did "pay a price, career-wise." "I lost a friend to AIDS, one of the first public figures that died of AIDS," the actress said in an interview with The Advocate. "I knew it was not the kind of disease that would stay in anybody's backyard. It would climb the fences, get over the fences into all of our homes. It was not limited to one group of people." She attended the first AIDS Project Los Angeles AIDS Walk. (Source:Wikipedia)
I remember seeing a story in Time about those ads when they came out ("LA Cares … like a Mother") from across the country in Virginia.
I remember that first advert of 'Don't Forget Your Rubbers' during the beginnings of the Aids Epidemic in San Francisco. The first person I ever saw who (visibily) had AIDS was 1/2 of a real couple who were big pornstars at Falcon Studios at the time. One man was helping the other to walk at The Safeway on Market Street in San Francisco. Sadly both died soon after I saw them in 1979.