Bill Sherwood

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Bill Sherwood (William Charles Patrick Sherwood) was born June 14, 1952 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan. He died February 10, 1990 in New York City from AIDS complications.

A talented violinist, Bill Sherwood attended the National Music Camp and graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan in 1970, where he majored in composition. He then moved to New York City, where he was a composition student of Elliott Carter at The Juilliard School. Discouraged by his progress and fascinated by the cultural and social upheavals going on in New York at the time, he discontinued his composition studies, eventually enrolling at Hunter College as a composition major, where he earned a degree and made several short films.

He had a promising career as a filmmaker, but died before he would be able to fulfill his potential. He is best known for his 1986 film Parting Glances, made for $310,000, a bittersweet romantic comedy that spans a 24 hour period in the upwardly-mobile New York gay scene. He wrote half a dozen screenplays and completed three short films in the six years before Parting Glances, and wrote two-and-a-half more screenplays in the four years after. They were never produced.