“He did not even want to be Hector anymore,” said Jose Disla, a close friend and fellow Xtrava who Hector eventually decided was his “biological cousin.” “He wanted to be grandfather.”

Also: He loved hearing regularly that he looked great for his age.

To earn money, he continued to work retail jobs, scraping together spare coins for balls and lending assistance to Xtravaganzas like Manuel Torres, whom he helped transition from pornography to nursing.

Even when money got tight and Hector moved to a smaller place in the Bronx, he exuded sunshine and optimism. A pier queen Dr. Seuss, his pearls of wisdom included “don’t treat a peep like a punk from the street” and “don’t read the child, teach the child.”

The man could barely contain his excitement when he was asked two years ago to consult on “Pose.”

His motto on set, said Jennie Livingston, who also worked as a consultant on “Pose,” was “‘let me help the kids,’ and ‘let me promote the scene,’ and ‘let me not get into a lot of gossip and drama that obviously attends the whole world but the ball world in some very particular ways.’”

It was hard to completely avoid it. His disinclination toward conflict could frustrate the Xtravaganza’s current father, Mr. Gutierez, especially when Hector sat on a judges’ panel at a ball and didn’t stand up forcefully for a house kid who got “chopped.”

In November 2018, shortly after Hector and the Xtravaganzas were profiled in New York, Hector was honored at an AIDS benefit and was incorrectly credited as the founder of the House of Xtravaganza.