[3][4][5][6] Kearns attended the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles in 1972, where he has maintained a successful mainstream film and television career alongside an extensive theatrical involvement for over 25 years.

[4] His activism is deeply integrated into his theatre works, and he has received grants from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the Brody Foundation, and PEN Center USA West.

[6] In 1984, along with playwright James Carroll Pickett, he co-founded Artists Confronting Aids (ACA), and is a current commissioner of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

In a March 2013 appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM Radio, Kearns admitted to affairs with actor Rock Hudson and Barry Manilow.

Also in '06, Kearns directed Lan Tran's Elevator Sex (Off Broadway), The Tina Dance (throughout Los Angeles), and the twentieth anniversary production of Robert Chesley's Jerker.

[1][22][23] The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department awarded Kearns with a COLA Fellowship to create a new work,[24] Make Love Not War, that premiered in 2005.

[27] In addition to other solo performance pieces (including The Truth Is Bad Enough, Attachments, Rock),[20][21] and Tell Tale Kisses, Kearns has written several full-length plays: Myron, Mijo, Robert's Memorial, Who's Afraid of Edward Albee?, Blessings, Barriers, and the lyrics for Homeless, A Street Opera.

[7] He directed the Los Angeles premieres of Robert Chesley's Night Sweat and Jerker, Rebecca Ranson's Warren, Eric Bentley's Round Two, Clark Carlton's Self Help, Syd Rushing's We Are One, Melanie DuPuy's Heroine and Doug Holsclaw's Life Of The Party.

[3] Kearns has both directed and appeared in Jerker (Los Angeles, San Diego, Des Moines),[23][32] and originated the role of Christopher, on stage and on video, in Pickett's Dream Man (which has played New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, L.A., Portland, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Edinburgh, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, and London).

[4] He subsequently made television history in 1991 by announcing on Entertainment Tonight that he was HIV positive,[5] and then in 1992, as an openly HIV-impacted actor, guesting on a segment of ABC TV's Life Goes On in which he played a character who had the virus.

[4] Other television and film credits include Cheers, Murder, She Wrote, The Waltons, L.A. Tool & Die, Knots Landing, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Fall Guy, A River Made to Drown In, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Brian De Palma's Body Double.