He traveled overseas to find them, then tried them out on himself. Woodroof constantly kept tabs on what new treatments were in the pipeline. But he does remember that Woodroof was trying to be part of the solution. Nightingale says he didn't approve of people who were untrained treating the very sick with unapproved drugs. Woodroof's Dallas Buyers Club was in full swing by the time Nightingale met him in 1988. He also had, says Nightingale, 'a very, very bad disease.' Stephen Nightingale, who was the medical director of the AIDS clinic at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, says Woodroof was all Texas - complete 'with a pickup truck and a shotgun.' He'd greet you with a white shirt and a red tie and stories to tell,' says Cascino. He cursed like four sailors,' says Minutaglio.Ĭhicago attorney Michael Cascino represented Woodroof in a case against the Food and Drug Administration. According to people who knew him, the real Ron Woodroof was very much like the character played by Matthew McConaughey in the new movie Dallas Buyers Club.īill Minutaglio - who wrote about Woodroof for The Dallas Morning News - describes him as 'salty.' Randy Eli Grothe/Dallas Morning News/Corbisįeisty. His Dallas Buyers Club, which acquired experimental AIDS treatments, is the subject of a new film in which Woodroof is portrayed by Matthew McConaughey. Ron Woodroof holds a vial of Compound Q - a drug that, in 1989, the FDA hadn't evaluated.
