Bill Loud

A ten-year update on the Loud family and their reflections on becoming the first reality TV stars. Their experience of becoming media celebrities and the parents' subsequent divorce changed them in many ways. Each family member explains how they were affected by these dramatic life events.

Eldest son Lance, of the Loud family profiled on PBS in 1973, became the first openly gay man on television and a gay icon for his generation. When Lance entered hospice in 2001 with a terminal HIV and hepatitis C co-infection, he asked original filmmakers Susan and Alan Raymond to film a final episode of the series. Lance reflects upon his days with Andy Warhol, his band The Mumps, a career as a writer and the experience of being the first reality TV star. It is a celebration of life and a cautionary tale.

Originally intended as a chronicle of the daily life of the Louds — an upper-middle-class family in Santa Barbara, California — the groundbreaking program documented the break-up of the family via the separation and subsequent divorce of parents Bill and Pat Loud.