Dr. Fauci Inspired a Main Character in a Steamy Bestselling 1991 Romance Novel, Says Author: ‘I Fell in Love With Him’

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Sally Quinn, author of the steamy 1991 bestseller Happy Endings, revealed that the “sexy” scientist her protagonist, a widowed First Lady, falls in love with is inspired by none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Quinn told Washingtonian magazine that she first met Fauci while at a function in Washington D.C., where the two sat next to each other as dinner partners.

“I just fell in love with him,” Quinn said. “Usually those dinners, you make polite conversation, and that’s it. But we had this intense conversation, personal conversation. I thought, ‘Wow, this guy is amazing.’”

Quinn’s fictional NIH scientist Michael Lanzer discovered a therapy for AIDS, which once again links back to Fauci’s true accomplishments fighting the spread of the virus as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Lanzer is introduced into the novel as a doctor caring for the president, who secretly has AIDS. This is how he meets former First Lady Sadie Grey, who pledged to help fight the AIDS epidemic to help her friend, the current First Lady.

Grey immediately begins to lust after Lanzer, but he is hesitant at first, because he is married and Jewish, while she is neither. These obstacles ultimately fail to prevent a passionate love affair that unwinds throughout the novel.

Quinn describes Lanzer’s voice as “low, melodious, sexy, almost hypnotic,” while he recites science-based yet romantic lines such as, “You are like a tumor in my brain which is getting larger and larger each day.”

Fauci apparently knew that he was the inspiration for Quinn’s forbidden love story and was “a little embarrassed,” but mainly, “just thought it was funny.”