PROVINCETOWN — People may have thought that Tim McCarthy was fearless. But he wasn’t. He just had a different way of approaching fear.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from Tim about fear, it’s that he always said, ‘Courage is action with fear,’ ” said his friend and mentee Luke Hadley. “I’d say, ‘Are you nervous to jump out of a plane?’ and he’d say, ‘Hell yes, but that’s why I have to do it.’ ”

That was McCarthy’s advice to Hadley right before they tandem skydived.

McCarthy, 61, died on Friday, Oct. 19 in Rhode Island. Determination of the cause of death is pending an autopsy report, said his sister Maureen Thai of San Diego, Calif.

McCarthy’s passion left people in awe. He was a tireless activist for LGBTQ rights and for cannabis, as well as a man who always had a video camera in his hand.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand passion,” said Hadley. “I think people shy away from it. He was so passionate about bringing people together, being involved in the community, and seeing the best in people and the best in him. He’s the most passionate person I’ve ever known. It’s also that same passion that has driven me up a wall. But it was his passion that kept his fire going.”

Hadley, 25, first met McCarthy when he was a16-year-old Provincetown High School student delivering a speech at an event held by the town’s No Place for Hate Committee. No surprise: McCarthy was there with his camera.

“Afterwards, he smiled at me and introduced himself,” said Hadley. “He said, ‘I’m a gay video historian; I’ve been to 91 countries.’ He shook my hand and I thought he was one of the coolest, craziest, wackiest people I had ever met. With his spikey hair and smelling like peppermint and marijuana. I was overwhelmed by his presence. But that’s just who he is. His presence and his energy are intoxicating.”

McCarthy’s extensive video library documenting LGBTQ events has been used in several productions including the 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague” about ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group, two front-line activist organizations that fought for better treatment for AIDS patients.

“I’ve never met anyone in my life who smoked more pot than Tim,” said McCarthy’s friend Steve Desroches. “I remember when he went to the Academy Awards and on the way he smoked in the car. There were all these limos pulling up to the red carpet, and here comes Tim in his beat-up car. He opened the door and smoke billowed out. That was Tim. He didn’t care. He was sweet, kind and rebellious. He had an attitude of ‘Don’t let people tell you what to do.’ He fit into Provincetown quite nicely.”

The documentary, which focused on his time exploring the LGBTQ community in Uganda, was perhaps one of McCarthy’s biggest endeavors. Hadley spent six weeks with McCarthy documenting footage. He also worked closely with Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

“We went around Uganda in a car and it was probably the scariest, most exciting time of my life,” said Hadley. “Here we were in a Toyota driving along the hills in Uganda, interviewing real Ugandans who identified as LGBTQ. Tim wanted to know about their jobs, their lives, everything. In Uganda people are being killed for simply being who they are and because of who they love. He wanted to recognize them and that they’re human beings just like anyone else. He wanted to spread that across the country and world.”

Emmy winner Charlotte Robinson, who hosted the online LGBTQ news network “Outtake Voices,” met McCarthy at the Provincetown Film Festival. They talked about his documentary “Voices of the Abasiyazzi: Combating Homophobia in Uganda.”

She said she was devastated by his death.

“Of all the crazy things he’s done and all the dangerous trips to Uganda where he came back safe, and now he’s dead,” she said. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking. It’s a real light that has gone out in my life.”

McCarthy was born in July 1957, the fifth of seven children, and grew up in the Worcester area. His father, the late Charles McCarthy, was a truck driver and the family moved often, according to his sister Thai.

“He was a bad boy growing up,” Thai said. “He got in a lot of fights when the kids were teasing him about being gay,” she said, adding that he came out at age 13. He quit high school and joined the U.S. Army, where he got his GED.

McCarthy began doing computer work in the 1970s when computers were just being developed, his sister said. The government offered him a job “to do computers at the Pentagon,” and he began programming for the government, Thai said.

He eventually started his own computer business — his sister could not recall the name. He sold it when he was diagnosed with AIDS, she said, and moved to Provincetown shortly after.

Besides his LGBTQ activism, McCarthy supported the legalization of cannabis. He became business partners with Dave DeWitt for the Outer Cape Cannabis Connection and was also a member of the High Dune Craft Cooperative.

“He was our cheerleader,” said DeWitt. “A very vocal cheerleader. He filmed everything we did. Every meeting we had. He decided from the beginning that we were making history. That we would be the first state to have a craft cooperative license in the country, and he saw it was a historic moment. We are going to keep the cameras rolling. That’s what he would want us to do. He will be sorely missed.”

What will become of McCarthy’s video archives that stretch back decades is a big question.

“His video collection is insanity,” Desroches said. “It’s the kind of collection an NYU or Harvard archive would be interested in.”

McCarthy was predeceased by his parents Anne and Charles and his sister Kathleen. Survivors include his fully biological siblings as well as siblings that were later discovered to be his father’s and mother’s from other relationships, Thai said. Besides Thai, he is survived by his sisters Beth of Massachusetts and Colleen of Oregon, and his brothers Mike and Charles “Chicky” of Massachusetts, Gary of New Mexico, Bob and Patrick.

A celebration of his life is being planned for early November. Details will be announced soon. The family asks that memorial donations go to a cause that will better the world.