NEW YORK, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. actor Sean Penn says he thinks gay activist Harvey Milk would have saved lives by drawing attention to the AIDS epidemic had he not been slain in 1978.
Penn, who plays the late San Francisco city supervisor in the new movie "Milk," told reporters in New York this week that he thinks the real-life Milk would have campaigned to get former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to do more to prevent the spread of AIDS and help those suffering from the disease when the number of AIDS cases were on the rise in the 1980s.