Actress Activist Zelda Rubinstein in Failing Health

Zelda Rubinstein, who made a name for herself starring in the Poltergeist films and has long been a vocal supporter of gay rights and AIDS research, is in failing health after being hospitalized in Los Angeles for more than a month.

Sources close to the actress report to Advocate.com that the 76-year-old is in and out of consciousness and that both her kidneys and lungs are failing.

Rubinstein spoke to The Advocate earlier this year about a 1984 ad campaign she starred in urging gay men to wear condoms and practice safer sex. The actress appears as a mother figure in the ads, which predated Elizabeth Taylor's and Madonna's AIDS involvement by at least a year.

The ads found a second life earlier this year in an AIDS education campaign in Brazil.