Larry Kramer

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people named Larry Kramer, see Larry Kramer (disambiguation).

Larry Kramer
Kramer in 2010
Kramer in 2010
BornLaurence David Kramer
(1935-06-25)June 25, 1935
Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.
DiedMay 27, 2020(2020-05-27) (aged 84)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Screenwriter
  • novelist
  • essayist
  • playwright
Education
Gay community
  • AIDS activism
    • Years active1960s–2020
    Spouse
    David Webster
    ​
    (m. 2013)​
    RelativesArthur Kramer (brother)

    Laurence David Kramer (June 25, 1935 – May 27, 2020) was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for

    Academy Award
    nomination for his work.

    In 1978, Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his novel Faggots, which earned mixed reviews and emphatic denunciations from elements within the gay community for Kramer's portrayal of what he characterized as shallow, promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s.

    Kramer witnessed the spread of the disease later known as

    Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which has become the world's largest private organization assisting people living with AIDS. Kramer grew frustrated with bureaucratic paralysis and the apathy of gay men to the AIDS crisis, and wished to engage in further action than the social services GMHC provided. He expressed his frustration by writing a play titled The Normal Heart, produced at The Public Theater
    in New York City in 1985.

    His political activism continued with the founding of the

    AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987, an influential direct action protest organization with the aim of gaining more public action to fight the AIDS crisis. ACT UP has been widely credited with changing public health policy and the perception of people living with AIDS, and with raising awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases.[1]

    Kramer was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Destiny of Me (1992), and he was a two-time recipient of the Obie Award.

    Early life

    Laurence David Kramer was born in

    Red Cross. His father, George Kramer, worked as a government attorney.[2] His older brother, Arthur Kramer was born in 1927. The family was Jewish.[3]

    Kramer was considered an "unwanted child" by his parents, who struggled to find work during the American

    junior high school. His father wanted him to marry a woman with money and pressured him to become a member of Pi Tau Pi, a Jewish fraternity.[5]

    Kramer's father, older brother Arthur, and two uncles were alumni of Yale University.[6] Kramer enrolled at Yale College in 1953, where he had difficulty adjusting. He felt lonely, and earned lower grades than those to which he was accustomed. He attempted suicide by an overdose of aspirin because he felt like he was the "only gay student on campus".[6][7] The experience left him determined to explore his sexuality and set him on the path to fight "for gay people's worth".[6] The next semester, he had an affair with his German professor – his first requited romantic relationship with a man.[8] Kramer enjoyed the Varsity Glee Club during his remaining time at Yale,[9] and he graduated in 1957 with a degree in English.[10] He served in the U.S. Army Reserve before beginning his film writing and production career.[11]

    Career

    Kramer at home in 2007, reviewing the new Grove Press editions of his work. His Wikipedia article is shown on the computer.

    Early writings

    According to Kramer, every drama he wrote derived from a desire to understand love's nature and its obstacles.

    Academy Award.[14] He next penned what Kramer later referred to as (the) "only thing I'm truly ashamed of",[15] the 1973 musical remake of Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, a notorious critical and commercial failure with a screenplay based very closely on Capra's film. Kramer later said that his well-negotiated fee for this work, skillfully invested by his brother, made him financially self-sufficient during the 1980s and 1990s.[15]

    Kramer then began to integrate homosexual themes into his work, and tried writing for the stage. He wrote Sissies' Scrapbook in 1973 (later rewritten and retitled as Four Friends), a dramatic play about four friends, one of whom is gay, and their dysfunctional relationships. Kramer called it a play about "cowardice and the inability of some men to grow up, leave the emotional bondage of male collegiate camaraderie, and assume adult responsibilities".[16] The play was first produced in a theater set up in an old YMCA gymnasium on 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue called the Playwrights Horizons. Live theater moved him to believing that writing for the stage was what he wanted to do. Although the play was given a somewhat favorable review by The New York Times, it was closed by the producer and Kramer was so distraught that he decided never to write for the stage again, later stating, "You must be a masochist to work in the theater and a sadist to succeed on its stages."[17]

    Kramer then wrote A Minor Dark Age, which was never produced. Frank Rich, in the foreword to a Grove Press collection of Kramer's lesser known works, wrote that the "dreamlike quality of the writing is haunting" in Dark Age, and that its themes, such as the exploration of the difference between sex and passion, "are staples of his entire output" that would portend his future work, including the 1978 novel Faggots.[17]

    Faggots

    Main article: Faggots (novel)

    In 1978, Kramer delivered the final of four drafts of a novel that he wrote about the fast lifestyle of the gay men on Fire Island and in Manhattan. In Faggots, the primary character was modeled on himself, a man who is unable to find love while encountering the drugs and emotionless sex in the trendy bars and discos.[18] He stated his inspiration for the novel: "I wanted to be in love. Almost everybody I knew felt the same way. I think most people, at some level, wanted what I was looking for, whether they pooh-poohed it or said that we can't live like the straight people or whatever excuses they gave."[19] Kramer researched the book, talking to many men, and visiting various establishments. As he interviewed people, he heard a common question: "Are you writing a negative book? Are you going to make it positive? ... I began to think, 'My God, people must really be conflicted about the lives they're leading.' And that was true. I think people were guilty about all the promiscuity and all the partying."[19]

    The novel caused an uproar in the community it portrayed; it was taken off the shelves of the

    Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore – at the time New York City's only gay bookstore – and Kramer was banned from the grocery store near his home on Fire Island.[1] Reviewers found it difficult to believe that Kramer's accounts of gay relationships were accurate; both the gay and mainstream press panned the book.[20] On the reception of the novel Kramer said: "The straight world thought I was repulsive, and the gay world treated me like a traitor. People would literally turn their back when I walked by. You know what my real crime was? I put the truth in writing. That's what I do: I have told the fucking truth to everyone I have ever met."[1] Faggots, however, became one of the best-selling gay novels of all time.[21]

    In 2000,

    gay studies classes. "Faggots struck a chord," wrote Andrew Sullivan, "It exuded a sense that gay men could do better if they understood themselves as fully human, if they could shed their self-loathing and self-deception...."[22]

    Gay Men's Health Crisis

    Main article:
    Gay Men's Health Crisis

    While living on Fire Island in the 1970s, Kramer had no intention of getting involved in political activism. There were politically active groups in New York City, but Kramer noted the culture on Fire Island was so different that they would often make fun of political activists: "It was not chic. It was not something you could brag about with your friends ... Guys marching down Fifth Avenue was a whole other world. The whole gestalt of Fire Island was about beauty and looks and golden men."[23]

    However, when friends he knew from Fire Island began getting sick in 1980, Kramer became involved in gay activism. In 1981, although he had not been involved previously with gay activism, Kramer invited the "A-list" (his own term) group of gay men from the New York City area to his apartment to listen to a doctor say their friends' illnesses were related, and research needed to be done.

    Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was transmitted was understood.[25][26]

    When doctors suggested men stop having sex, Kramer strongly encouraged GMHC to deliver the message to as many gay men as possible. When they refused, Kramer wrote an essay entitled "1,112 and Counting", which appeared in 1983 in the

    AIDS epidemic. The article's harshest condemnation was directed at those gay men who seemed to think that if they ignored the new disease, it would simply go away.[28] Tony Kushner, who won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Angels in America about the impact of AIDS in the United States, described the essay as "With that one piece, Larry changed my world. He changed the world for all of us."[28]

    Kramer's confrontational style proved to be an advantage, as it earned the issue of AIDS the attention of the New York media that no other individual could get. He found it a disadvantage when he realized his own reputation was "completely that of a crazy man".[29] Kramer was particularly frustrated by bureaucratic stalling that snowballed in cases where gay but closeted men were the ones in charge of agencies that seemed to ignore AIDS. He confronted the director of a National Institutes of Health agency about not devoting more time and effort toward researching AIDS because he was closeted.[30] He threw a drink in the face of Republican fundraiser Terry Dolan during a party and screamed at him for having affairs with men but using the fear of homosexuality to raise money for conservative causes.[31][28] He called Ed Koch and the media and government agencies in New York City "equal to murderers". Even Kramer's personal life was affected when he and his lover – also a GMHC board member – split over Kramer's condemnations of the political apathy of GMHC.[29]

    Kramer's past also compromised his message, as many men who had been turned off by Faggots saw Kramer's warnings as alarmist, displaying negative attitudes toward sex. Playwright Robert Chesley responded to Kramer's New York Native article, saying, "Read anything by Kramer closely, and I think you'll find the subtext is always: the wages of gay sin are death".[1] The GMHC ousted Kramer from the organization in 1983. Kramer's preferred method of communication was deemed too militant for the group.[32]

    In 1990, Kramer appeared in Rosa von Praunheim 's award-winning film Positive about the fight of activists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people.

    The Normal Heart

    Main article: The Normal Heart

    Astonished and saddened about being forced out of GMHC, Kramer took an extended trip to Europe. While visiting the Dachau concentration camp he learned that it had opened as early as 1933 and neither Germans nor other nations did anything to stop it. He became inspired to chronicle the same reaction from the American government and the gay community to the AIDS crisis by writing The Normal Heart, despite having promised never to write for the theater again.[33]

    The Normal Heart is a play set between 1981 and 1984. It addresses a writer named Ned Weeks as he nurses his lover, who is dying of an unnamed disease. His doctors are puzzled and frustrated by having no resources to research it. Meanwhile, the unnamed organization Weeks is involved in is angered by the bad publicity Weeks' activism is generating, and eventually throws him out. Kramer later explained, "I tried to make Ned Weeks as obnoxious as I could ... I was trying, somehow and again, to atone for my own behavior."

    first free election in the country since 1928.[36][37]

    Further information: LGBT history in Poland

    Actors following Davis who have portrayed Kramer's alter ego Ned Weeks include;

    Golden Theater. Upon seeing the production of The Normal Heart, Naomi Wolf commented, "No one else on the left at that time ... ever used the moral framework that is so much a part of Kramer's voice, and that the right has coopted so skillfully. Conscience, responsibility, calling; truth and lies, clarity of purpose or abandonment of one's moral calling; loyalty and betrayal ..."[38]

    In a review for The New York Times, Frank Rich said:

    He accuses the governmental, medical and press establishments of foot-dragging in combating the disease—especially in the early days of its outbreak, when much of the play is set—and he is even tougher on homosexual leaders who, in his view, were either too cowardly or too mesmerized by the ideology of sexual liberation to get the story out. "There's not a good word to be said about anyone's behavior in this whole mess", claims one character—and certainly Mr. Kramer has few good words to say about Mayor Koch, various prominent medical organizations, The New York Times or, for that matter, most of the leadership of an unnamed organization apparently patterned after the Gay Men's Health Crisis.[39]

    In 2014, HBO produced a

    Golden Globe Award for his performance), Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Julia Roberts, Joe Mantello, Jonathan Groff, and BD Wong.[40]

    ACT UP

    Main article: ACT UP

    In 1987, Kramer was the catalyst in the founding of the

    Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center in New York City. Kramer was asked to speak as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS. He began by having two-thirds of the room stand up, and told them they would be dead in five years. Kramer reiterated the points introduced in his essay "1,112 and Counting": "If my speech tonight doesn't scare the shit out of you, we're in real trouble. If what you're hearing doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage, and action, gay men will have no future here on earth. How long does it take before you get angry and fight back?"[41] Their first target became the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which Kramer accused of neglecting badly needed medication for HIV-infected Americans.[42]

    Engaging in civil disobedience that would result in many people being arrested was a primary objective, as it would focus attention on the target. On March 24, 1987, 17 people out of 250 participating were arrested for blocking rush-hour traffic in front of the FDA's

    Holocaust is a defining historical moment, and what happened in the early 1980s with AIDS felt, and was in fact, holocaustal to Larry."[45]

    Two decades later Kramer continued to advocate for social and legal equity for homosexuals. "Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal, which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you," he wrote in 2007. "You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you."[46]

    In later decades, Kramer also continued to argue for funding research into cures for AIDS, contending that existing treatments disincentivized the pharmaceutical industry from developing cures. This distrust of the industry was demonstrated in Kramer's final public statement about curing AIDS, via a question posed to Joe Biden at a town hall during the 2020 presidential campaign, in which he accused pharmaceutical companies of "profit[ing] irrationally from HIV-positive Americans who depend on the medications forever," and asking "as president, how would you finance a CURE and scale back the avarice of pharmaceutical companies."[47]

    Just Say No, A Play about a Farce

    Main article: Just Say No (play)

    Continuing his commentary on government indifference toward AIDS, Kramer wrote Just Say No, A Play about a Farce in 1988. In the dramatic work he highlighted the sexual hypocrisy in the

    First Lady, her gay son, and the closeted gay mayor of America's "largest northeastern city". Its New York production, starring Kathleen Chalfant, Tonya Pinkens, and David Margulies, was prized by the few who came to see it after its negative review by The New York Times. Social critic and writer Susan Sontag wrote of the piece, "Larry Kramer is one of America's most valuable troublemakers. I hope he never lowers his voice."[48]

    Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist

    Main article:
    Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist
    Further information: AIDS–Holocaust metaphor

    First published in 1989, and later expanded and republished in 1994, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist contains a diverse selection of the non-fiction writings of Larry Kramer focused on AIDS activism and LGBT civil rights, including letters to the editor and speeches, which document his time spent at

    Gay Men's Health Crisis, ACT UP, and beyond, with the updated edition being organised chronologically from 1978 to 1993.[49]

    The central message of the book is that gay men must accept responsibility for their lives, and that those who are still living must give back to their community by fighting for People With AIDS and LGBT rights, for, as Kramer states, "I must put back something into this world for my own life, which is worth a tremendous amount. By not putting back, you are saying that your lives are worth shit, and that we deserve to die, and that the deaths of all our friends and lovers have amounted to nothing. I can't believe that in your heart of hearts you feel this way. I can't believe you want to die. Do you?"[50] The first publication provides a portrait of Kramer as activist, and the 1994 edition contains commentary written by him that reflects on his earlier pieces and provides insight into Larry Kramer as writer.[51]

    Kramer directly and deliberately defines AIDS as a

    New York Times reporters, and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, Kramer personally advocates for a more significant response to AIDS. He implores the government to conduct research based on commonly accepted scientific standards and to allocate funds and personnel to AIDS research. Kramer ultimately states that the response to AIDS in America must be defined as a holocaust because of the large number deaths that resulted from the negligence and apathy that surrounded AIDS in the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and early Bill Clinton presidencies.[53]

    The Destiny of Me

    Main article: The Destiny of Me

    The Destiny of Me picks up where The Normal Heart left off, following Ned Weeks as he continues his journey fighting those whose complacency or will impede the discovery of a cure for a disease from which he suffers. The play opened in October 1992 and ran for one year off Broadway at the

    Lortel Award for Outstanding Play of the Year. The original production starred John Cameron Mitchell, "a young actor who dominates the show with a performance at once ethereal and magnetic", according to The New York Times reviewer Frank Rich. Most powerful, Rich wrote, was the thematic question Kramer posed to himself: "Why was he of all people destined to scream bloody murder with the aim of altering the destiny of the human race?"[54]
    Kramer states in his introduction to the play:

    This journey, from discovery through guilt to momentary joy and toward AIDS, has been my longest, most important journey, as important as—no, more important than my life with my parents, than my life as a writer, than my life as an activist. Indeed, my homosexuality, as unsatisfying as much of it was for so long, has been the single most important defining characteristic of my life.[55]

    Its 2002 London

    The Evening Standard.[56]

    The Tragedy of Today's Gays

    Main article: The Tragedy of Today's Gays

    Tragedy was a speech and a call to arms that Kramer delivered five days after the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush and later published as a book.[45] Kramer believed that Bush was re-elected largely because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, and found it inconceivable that voters would respond so strongly to that issue when there were so many more pressing ones:

    Almost 60 million people whom we live and work with every day think we are immoral. "Moral values" was top of many lists of why people supported George Bush. Not Iraq. Not the economy. Not terrorism. "Moral values". In case you need a translation that means us. It is hard to stand up to so much hate.[57]

    The speech's effects were far-reaching and had most corners of the gay world once again discussing Kramer's moral vision of drive and self-worth for the LGBT community.

    Kramer even stated: "Does it occur to you that we brought this plague of AIDS upon ourselves? I know I am getting into dangerous waters here but it is time. With the cabal breathing even more murderously down our backs it is time. And you are still doing it. You are still murdering each other."[58]

    Kramer, again, had his detractors from the community. Writing for Salon.com, Richard Kim felt that once again Kramer personified the very object of his criticism: homophobia.

    He recycles the kind of harangues about gay men (and young gay men in particular) that institutions like the Times so love to print – that they are buffoonish, disengaged Peter Pans dancing, drugging and fucking their lives away while the world and the disco burn down around them.[59]

    The American People: A History

    Around 1981,[60] Kramer began researching and writing a manuscript called The American People: A History, an ambitious historical work that begins in the Stone Age and continues into the present. For example, there is information relating to Kramer's assertion that Abraham Lincoln was gay. In 2002, Will Schwalbe, editor-in-chief of Hyperion Books – the only man to have read the entire manuscript to that date – said, "He has set himself the hugest of tasks," and he described it as "staggering, brilliant, funny, and harrowing."[1] In 2006, Kramer said of the work, "[It is] my own history of America and of the cause of HIV/AIDS ... Writing and researching this history has convinced me that the plague of HIV/AIDS has been intentionally allowed to happen."[60]

    The book was published as a novel by

    Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2015. In The New York Times Book Review, Dwight Garner wrote, "I wish I could report that The American People, Volume 1 had power to match its scope. It does not. As a work of sustained passion, it is formidable. As a work of art, it is very modest indeed. The tone is talky and digressive; few real characters emerge; one feels lashed to the mast after only 50 pages or so." In the book, Kramer writes that in addition to Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Richard Nixon were gay.[61][62] The second volume, 880 pages, was published in 2020.[63]

    Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies

    In 1997, Kramer approached

    gay studies and possibly to build a gay and lesbian student center."[6] At that time, gender, ethnic and race-related studies were viewed warily by academia. The then Yale provost, Alison Richard, stated that gay and lesbian studies was too narrow a specialty for a program in perpetuity.[6] Kramer's rejected proposal read: "Yale is to use this money solely for 1) the study of and/or instruction in gay male literature, by which I mean courses to study gay male writers throughout history or the teaching to gay male students of writing about their heritage and their experience. To ensure for the continuity of courses in either or both of these areas tenured positions should be established; and/or 2) the establishment of a gay student center at Yale."[6]

    In 2001, both sides settled upon establishing the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, which would include visiting professors and a program of conferences, guest speakers and other events. Arthur Kramer endowed the program at Yale with $1 million to support a five-year trial.

    Beinecke Library. "A lot has changed since I made my initial demands," said Kramer. "I was trying to cram stuff down their throat. I'd rather they fashion their own stuff. It may allow for a much more expandable notion of what lesbian and gay studies really is."[64] The five-year program ended in 2006.[65]

    An Army of Lovers Must Not Die

    In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kramer began to write a play titled An Army of Lovers Must Not Die.[63]

    Personal life

    Relationship with his brother

    See also: Arthur Kramer

    Larry and

    Gay Men's Health Crisis, blaming the need to clear it with his firm's intake committee.[6] When Larry called for a boycott of MCI, a prominent Kramer Levin client, Arthur took it as a personal affront. In 1992, after Colorado voters endorsed Amendment 2, an anti-gay rights referendum, Larry supported a boycott of the state, while Arthur refused to cancel a ski trip to Aspen.[4]

    Throughout their disagreements, the two remained close. In The Normal Heart, Larry wrote: "The brothers love each other a great deal; [Arthur's] approval is essential to [Larry]."[66]

    In 2001, Arthur endowed a $1 million grant for Yale University to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, a program focusing on

    gay history.[18]

    Kramer Levin LLP would later become a staunch advocate for the gay rights movement, assisting the

    Hernandez v. Robles before the New York Court of Appeals.[67] Arthur Kramer retired from the firm in 1996 and died from a stroke in 2008.[4]

    Health

    In 1988, stress over the closing of his play Just Say No, only a few weeks after its opening, forced Kramer into the hospital after it aggravated a congenital

    HIV positive.[68]

    In 2001, at the age of 66, Kramer was in dire need of a

    organ transplant list. People living with HIV were routinely considered inappropriate candidates for organ transplants because of complications from HIV and perceived short lifespans. Out of the 4,954 liver transplants performed in the United States, only 11 were for HIV-positive people.[12] The news prompted Newsweek to announce Kramer was dying in June 2001; the Associated Press in December of the same year mistakenly reported Kramer's death.[69] Kramer became a symbol for infected people who had new leases on life due to advances in medicine. "We shouldn't face a death sentence because of who we are or who we love", he said in an interview. In May 2001, the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, which had performed more transplants for HIV positive patients than any other facility in the world, accepted Kramer as a potential transplant recipient.[12] Kramer received a new liver on December 21, 2001.[70] In April 2019 he suffered a broken leg.[63]

    Relationships

    Kramer and his partner, architectural designer David Webster, were together from 1991 until Kramer's death. Webster's ending of his relationship with Kramer in the 1970s had inspired Kramer to write

    NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City while Kramer recovered from surgery.[71][63]

    Residence

    Kramer divided his time between a residence in

    Wheaten Terrier dog, Molly, in the building's mail area, and Kramer snatched the dog away, telling her that Koch was "the man who killed all of Daddy's friends."[72]

    Death

    Kramer died of pneumonia on May 27, 2020, at age 84, less than a month short of his 85th birthday.[73][74]

    Bibliography and works

    Drama

    Fiction

    • Faggots (1978)
    • The American People Volume 1, Search for My Heart (2015)
    • The American People: Volume 2, The Brutality of Fact (2020)

    Nonfiction

    Screenplays

    Speeches

    • The Tragedy of Today's Gays, November 10, 2004.[77]
    • We are not crumbs, we must not accept crumbs, remarks on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of
      better source needed
      ]

    Articles

    Awards and recognition

    See also

    In the media

    • Kramer's early activism is featured in the second episode of the fifth season of the podcast Fiasco, hosted by Leon Neyfakh.[99]

    References

    1. ^ a b c d e f g Specter, Michael (May 13, 2002), "Larry Kramer, the man who warned America about AIDS, can't stop fighting hard-and loudly", The New Yorker, p. 56
    2. ^ "Larry Kramer obituary". The Guardian. May 28, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
    3. ^ Timeline Theatre Company (2013), Timeline Theatre Company; The Normal Heart Study Guide (PDF), retrieved May 30, 2014
    4. ^ a b c d Hartocollis, Anemona (June 25, 2006). "Gay Brother, Straight Brother: It Could Be a Play". The New York Times.
    5. ^ Mass, p. 26.
    6. ^ a b c d e f g Arenson, Karen W (July 9, 1997), "Playwright Is Denied A Final Act; Writing Own Script, Yale Refuses Kramer's Millions for Gay Studies", The New York Times, retrieved September 23, 2007
    7. ^ Marcus, p. 32.
    8. ^ Mass, p. 27.
    9. ^ Holland, Bernard (February 9, 1986). "Yale Glee Club Plans an All-Day Birthday Party". The New York Times. p. 68. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    10. ^ Schudel, Matt (May 27, 2020). "Larry Kramer, writer who sounded alarm on AIDS, dies at 84". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    11. ^ Lewis, Daniel (May 27, 2020). "Larry Kramer, Playwright and Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    12. ^ a b c d France, David (June 11, 2001). "The Angry Prophet Is Dying". Newsweek. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
    13. ^ Mass, p. 28.
    14. ^ "Larry Kramer, playwright and AIDS activist, dies at 84". CBC CA.
    15. ^ a b Rotter, Joshua (October 30, 2017). "Larry Kramer 'Did Not Set Out to Be an Activist At All'". SF Weekly. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    16. ^ Mass, p. 34.
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      ISBN 0-8021-3916-7
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    25. ^ Leland, John (May 19, 2017). "Twilight of a Difficult Man: Larry Kramer and the Birth of AIDS Activism". The New York Times. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
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    36. ^ "FilmPolski.pl". FilmPolski (in Polish). Retrieved March 11, 2018.
    37. ^ "Człowiek, który rzucił wyzwanie AIDS". e-teatr.pl. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
    38. ^ Foreword to The Tragedy of Today's Gays, p. 3
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    42. ISBN 978-0-3043-3171-0
      . Many of us who live in daily terror because of the AIDS epidemic cannot understand why the Food and Drug Administration has been so intransigent in the face of this monstrous tidal wave of death. ... There is no question on the part of anyone fighting AIDS that the FDA constitutes the single most incomprehensible bottleneck in American bureaucratic history — one that is actually prolonging this roll call of death.
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    50. ISBN 0-312-11419-2
      .
    51. ISBN 978-0-3043-3171-0
      . To give a sense of the historical context I've appended notes to most of the pieces, detailing the occasion that led me to write or other relevant facts.
    52. ISBN 978-0-3043-3171-0
      .
    53. ISBN 0-312-11419-2
      .
    54. ^ a b Rich, Frank (October 21, 1992), "The Destiny of Me; Larry Kramer Tells His Own Anguished Story", The New York Times, retrieved September 23, 2007
    55. ISBN 0-8021-3692-3
    56. ^ Off West End's history of the Finborough Theatre, archived from the original on September 28, 2007, retrieved September 23, 2007
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    58. ^ "Larry Kramer Speech at Cooper Union – Towleroad". November 10, 2004.
    59. ^ Kim, Richard (May 7, 2005), "Sex panic", Salon.com, archived from the original on March 9, 2007, retrieved April 22, 2007
    60. ^ a b Kramer, Larry. "Nuremberg Trials for AIDS". Archived July 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. September–October 2006.
    61. ^ "Review: 'The American People, Volume 1' by Larry Kramer Retells History With Passion". The New York Times. March 27, 2015.
    62. ^ Helmore, Edward (April 11, 2015). "Were Lincoln and Nixon gay? The 'history' book that is dividing America". The Guardian.
    63. ^ a b c d Leland, John (March 29, 2020). "Larry Kramer, AIDS Warrior, Takes on Another Plague". The New York Times. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
    64. ^ a b Arenson, Karen W (April 2, 2001), "Gay Writer And Yale Finally Agree on Donation", The New York Times, retrieved September 23, 2007
    65. ^ "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies". Yale University. Archived from the original on May 28, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2020. From 2001–2006, a generous gift from a donor allowed LGBTS to establish and oversee the Larry Kramer Initiative, which hosted a wide array of public programs on LGBT issues and strengthened LGBTS at Yale.
    66. ^ Kramer, Larry (2000), The Normal Heart, Grove Press, p. 31
    67. ^ Adcock, Thomas (March 16, 2007), "Conversation with Jeffrey S. Trachtman", New York Law Journal
    68. ^ Mass, p. 56.
    69. ^ Stryker, Jeff (January 8, 2002). "Writer Chuckles Over Report of His Demise". The New York Times. p. 8.
    70. ^ Snowbeck, Christopher (December 25, 2001). "Man with HIV gets new liver". Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
    71. ^ Healy, Patrick (July 25, 2013). "Larry Kramer Is Married in Hospital Ceremony". The New York Times. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
    72. ^ Harris, Elizabeth A. (February 1, 2013). "Koch Was a Renter to the End". The New York Times.
    73. ^ "Larry Kramer, author known for his AIDS activism, dead at age 84". Reuters. May 27, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
    74. ISSN 0140-6736
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    75. ^ Kramer, Larry (October 21, 2013). "Sissies' Scrapbook". PEN America. PEN American Center. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
    76. ^ Green, Jesse (December 21, 2009). "4,000 Pages and Counting". New York. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
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    79. ^ "1,112 and Counting - A historic article that helped start the fight against AIDS". indymedia.org.uk.
    80. ^ "Be Very Afraid". POZ. October 1, 2000.
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    83. ^ "93". Obie Awards. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
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    87. ^ "NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century". Royal National Theatre. Archived from the original on September 20, 2007. Retrieved April 19, 2007.
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    91. ^ "Larry Kramer, Writer: 2012 Winter". The Montgomery Fellows Program, Dartmouth College. 2012. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    92. ^ "2013 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a Master American Dramatist". PEN America. July 25, 2013.
    93. ^ "Emmys Winners 2014 — Full List". Variety. August 25, 2014. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    94. ^ "Larry Kramer Accepts Inaugural Activism Award With Rousing Speech". IndieWire. March 24, 2015. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
    95. ^ Glasses-Baker, Becca (June 27, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor unveiled at Stonewall Inn". metro.us. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
    96. ^ Rawles, Timothy (June 19, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
    97. ^ "New honorees named for Nat'l LGBTQ Wall of Honor at Stonewall Inn". Windy City Times. June 30, 2020. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
    98. ^ Laird, Cynthia. "Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall". The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R. Inc. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
    99. ^ Episode 2: How to Have Sex in an Epidemic.

    Further reading

    External links

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