In Tens: Our 10 Favorite Actors in 'Positive' Roles

[ 10 ] Chad Lowe in his Emmy'winning role as teen Jesse McKenna (1991'1993), who gets the girl and prompts his town's residents to rethink their attitudes about AIDS, in the TV series Life Goes On.[ 9 ] Mark Harmon as Dr. Robert Caldwell (1983'1986), a workplace Romeo who was the first recurring character with HIV in a TV series, in St. Elsewhere.[ 8 ] Rosario Dawson as spitfire Mimi Marquez, a heroin addict who was infected through needle sharing, in the film version of the Broadway smash Rent (2005). [ 7 ] Kimberly McCullough in her two-time Emmy-winning role as Robin Scorpio (1985'present), daughter of Robert and Anna from the Luke and Laura era, as an HIV-positive doctor, in the soap opera General Hospital.[ 6 ] Bruce Davison in his Oscar-nominated role as David, an HIV-positive man who tenderly cares for his dying lover before succumbing to the disease himself, in Longtime Companion (1990). [ 5 ] Gloria Reuben (pictured above) in her Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated performance as HIV-positive physician assistant Jeanie Boulet (1995'1999, 2008), in the TV series ER.[ 4 ] Angelina Jolie in her Emmy-nominated role as rough-edged '80s-era American supermodel Gia Carangi, who recovered from heroin abuse but only after contracting HIV, which took her life at 26, in the TV film Gia (1998). [ 3 ] Queen Latifah in her Golden Globe'winning performance as Ana, based on a real-life HIVer and Brooklyn outreach worker, in the HBO film Life Support (2007). [ 2 ] Aidan Quinn in the nonvictimized role as Michael Pierson, a man dealing with telling his family he's dying in the prime of his life, in the TV film An Early Frost (1985). [ 1 ] Tom Hanks in his Oscar-winning role as Andrew Beckett, the fired attorney who wins his AIDS discrimination case in court against his employers, in the film Philadelphia (1993).