Larry Kramer
Encyclopedia
Larry Kramer is an American playwright
, author
, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures
, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists
. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love
in 1969, earning an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his 1978 novel Faggots
, which earned mixed reviews but emphatic denunciations from the gay community for his portrayal of shallow, promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s.
Kramer witnessed the first spread of the disease that became known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) among his friends in 1980, and he co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis
(GMHC), which has become the largest private organization to assist people living with AIDS in the world. Not content with the social services GMHC provided, Kramer expressed his frustration with bureaucratic paralysis and the apathy of gay men to the AIDS crisis
by writing a play titled The Normal Heart
which was produced at The Public Theatre in New York City in 1985. His political activism extended to the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
(ACT UP) in 1987, a direct action
protest organization widely credited with changing public health policy and widespread perception of people living with AIDS (PWAs) and awareness of HIV
and AIDS-related diseases. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
for his play The Destiny of Me (1992), and has been a two-time recipient of the Obie Award
. Kramer currently lives in New York City
and Connecticut
.
, as a second child that his parents did not want. The family moved soon to Maryland where Kramer attended school, although they found themselves with a much lower income than Kramer's high school peers. His father pressed him to marry a woman with money, and insisted he become a member of Pi Tau Pi, a Jewish fraternity. Kramer had become sexually involved with a male friend in junior high school, but he dated girls in high school.
He enrolled at Yale University
in 1953, but did not adjust well. He was lonely and his grades were poorer than those to which he was accustomed. He tried to kill himself by overdosing
on aspirin
because he thought he was the "only gay
student on campus". The experience left him determined to explore his sexuality and set him on the path to fighting "for gay people's worth". The next semester, he had an affair with his German professor — his first requited romantic relationship with a man. When the professor was scheduled to study in Europe, he invited Kramer, but Kramer decided not to go. Yale had been a family tradition: his father, older brother Arthur, and two uncles were alumni. Kramer instead enjoyed the Varsity Glee Club while at Yale. He graduated in 1957 with a degree in English.
operator at Columbia Pictures, and agreed to the position only because the machine was across the hall from the president's office. Eventually, he won a position in the story department reworking scripts. His first writing credit was as a dialogue writer for Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, a teen sex comedy. He followed that with the 1969 Oscar
-nominated screenplay Women in Love
, an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence
's novel. He next penned what Kramer calls "the only thing in my life I'm ashamed of," the 1973 musical remake of Frank Capra
's Lost Horizon
, a notorious critical and commercial failure whose screenplay was based very closely on Capra's film
. Kramer has said that his well-negotiated fee for this work, skillfully invested by his brother, made him financially self-sufficient.
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".
The play was first produced in a theater set up in an old YMCA gymnasium on 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue called the Playwrights Horizon. 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."
Kramer next wrote A Minor Dark Age, though it failed to be produced. Frank Rich
, in the foreword to a Grove Press collection of Kramer's less-known works, wrote that "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.
In 1978 Kramer delivered the final of four drafts of a novel that he wrote about the fast lifestyle of gay men of Fire Island and 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. 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." 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." The book was called Faggots.
The novel caused an uproar in the community it portrayed; it was taken off the shelves of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore—New York's only gay bookstore, and Kramer was banned from the grocery store near his home on Fire Island. Reviewers found it difficult to believe that Kramer's accounts of gay relationships were accurate; both the gay and mainstream press panned the book. On the reception of the novel Kramer says, "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." Faggots, however, became one of the best-selling gay novels of all time.
In 2000, Reynolds Price
wrote that the novel's lasting relevance is that "anyone who searches out present-day responses on the Internet will quickly find that the wounds inflicted by Faggots are burning still". Although Kramer was rejected by the people he thought would be laudatory, the book has never been out of publication and is often taught in 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...."
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. The next year, they named themselves the Gay Men's Health Crisis
(GMHC), and became the primary organization to raise funds for and provide services to people stricken with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the New York area. Although Kramer served on its first board of directors, his view of how it should be run sharply conflicted with the rest of its members. While GMHC began to concentrate on social services for men who were dying, Kramer loudly insisted they fight for funding from New York City. Mayor Ed Koch
became a particular target for Kramer, as did the behavior of gay men before the nature of how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was transmitted was understood.
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
", printed in 1983 in the New York Native
, a gay newspaper. The essay discussed the spread of the disease, the lack of government response, and apathy of the gay community.
The essay was intended to frighten gay men, and anger them to respond to government indifference. Michael Specter
writes in The New Yorker, "it was a five-thousand-word screed that accused nearly everyone connected with health care in America — officials at the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, researchers at the National Institutes of Health
, in Washington, doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
, in Manhattan, and local politicians (particularly Mayor Ed Koch
) — of refusing to acknowledge the implications of the nascent 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.
Kramer's confrontational style proved to be an advantage, as it earned the issue of AIDS in New York media attention that no other individual could get. He found it a disadvantage when he realized his own reputation was "completely that of a crazy man". Kramer was particularly frustrated by bureaucratic stalling that snowballed when the people in charge of agencies that seemed to ignore AIDS were gay, but closeted. He confronted the director of a National Institute of Health agency about not devoting more time and effort toward researching AIDS because he was closeted; he threw a drink in Republican fundraiser Terry Dolan's face during a party and screamed at him for having affairs with men but using homosexuality as a reason to raise money for conservative causes; 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 board member on GMHC — split over Kramer's condemnations of the impotence of GMHC.
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 his 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". The GMHC ousted Kramer from the organization in 1983. Kramer's preferred method of communication was deemed too militant for the group.
.
Despite Kramer's promising never to write for the theater again, 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, the doctors puzzled and frustrated by having no resources to research it, and the unnamed organization Weeks is involved in and is eventually thrown out of. 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." The experience was overwhelmingly emotional for Kramer, as at one time during rehearsals he watched actor Brad Davis
hold his dying lover played by D.W. Moffett
on stage; Kramer went into the bathroom and sobbed, only moments later to find Davis holding him. The play is considered a literary landmark. It contended with the AIDS crisis when few would speak of the disease afflicting gay men, including gays themselves; it remains the longest-running play ever staged at the Public Theater
, running for a year starting in 1985. It has been produced over 600 times in the U.S., Europe (where it was televised in Poland), Israel, and South Africa. Actors following Davis who portrayed Kramer's alter ego Ned Weeks included Joel Grey
, Richard Dreyfuss
(in Los Angeles), Martin Sheen
(at the Royal Court
in London), Tom Hulce
and then John Shea
in the West End, Raul Esparza
in a highly acclaimed 2004 revival at the Public Theater, and most recently Joe Mantello
on Broadway at the 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...."
A review from Frank Rich at the New York Times states:
(ACT UP), a direct action
protest organization that chose government agencies and corporations as targets to publicize lack of treatment and funding for people with AIDS. ACT UP was formed at 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?" Their first target became the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), which Kramer accused in the New York Times of neglecting badly needed medication for HIV-infected Americans.
Getting many people 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 Wall Street
offices. Kramer was arrested dozens of times working with ACT UP, and the organization grew to hundreds of chapters in the US and Europe. Immunologist Anthony Fauci
states "ACT UP put medical treatment in the hands of the patients. And that is the way it ought to be... There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry. Playwright Tony Kushner
offered his opinion of why Kramer fought so restlessly: "In a way, like a lot of Jewish men of Larry's generation, the Holocaust is a defining historical moment, and what happened in the early 1980s with AIDS felt, and was in fact, holocaustal to Larry."
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."
, 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 crucifixion 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."
_-_foto_di_massimo_consoli_1989_vi_new_york.jpg)
First published in 1989, and later expanded and republished in 1994, Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist contains a diverse selection of the nonfiction 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.
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
(PWA’s) 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?" 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.
Kramer directly and deliberately defines AIDS
as a Holocaust because he believes the United States' government failed to respond quickly and expend the necessary resources to cure AIDS, largely because AIDS initially infected gay men, and, quite soon after, predominantly poor and politically powerless minorities. Through speeches, editorials, and personal, sometimes publicized, letters to figures such as politician Gary Bauer
, former New York Mayor Ed Koch
, several 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.
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 Lucille Lortel Theatre
by the Circle Repertory Company
. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
, was a double Obie Award
winner and received 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?" Kramer states in his introduction to the play:
Its recent 2002 London Finborough Theatre
production was the No. 1 Critics Choice in The Evening Standard.
Tragedy was a speech and a call to arms that Kramer delivered five days after the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush
that he turned into a book. Kramer found it inconceivable that Bush was reelected on the backs of gay people when there were so many more pressing issues:
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 community he loves but that continues to disappoint him. Legendary drag artist Lady Bunny
wrote: "You are just too fucked by this election, and you're just too fucked UP with crystal, barebacking and apathy to confront your attackers, the conservative right.... That baton's been passed now, kids. You gonna drop it? Or come out swinging? Or go to the gym and cruise the steam room? Or shop for your next circuit party outfit? Or do another bump, girl?"
Kramer, again, had his detractors from the community. Writing on Salon.com, Richard Kim
felt that once again Kramer personified the very object of his criticism: homophobia.
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." 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." Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux
announced in September 2010 that it had acquired worldwide rights to the book and plans to publish it in two volumes beginning in 2012.
, to help realize a dream: he wanted to bequeath them several million dollars "to endow a permanent, tenured professorship in gay studies and possibly to build a gay and lesbian student center." 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. 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. . . ."
In 2001, both sides agreed to a five-year trial with seed money of $1 million Arthur Kramer endowed to Yale to finance the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The money would pay visiting professors and a program coordinator for conferences, guest speakers and other events. Kramer agreed to leave his literary papers and those chronicling the AIDS movement and his founding of GMHC and ACT-UP to Yale's 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." The program was closed down by Yale in 2006.
Kramer's relationship with his brother, Arthur Kramer
, founding partner of the white shoe law firm
Kramer Levin, exploded into the public sphere with Kramer's 1984 play, The Normal Heart
. In the play, Kramer portrays Arthur (as Ben Weeks) as more concerned with building his $2 million house in Connecticut
than in helping his brother's cause. Humorist Calvin Trillin
, a friend of both Larry and Arthur, once called The Normal Heart "the play about the building of [Arthur's] house." Anemona Hartocollis observed in the New York Times that "their story came to define an era for hundreds of thousands of theatergoers." Arthur, who had been his younger brother's protector against the parents they both disliked, couldn't find it in his heart to reject Larry, but also couldn't accept his homosexuality. This caused years of arguing and stretches of silence between the siblings. In the 1980s, Larry wanted Arthur's firm to represent the fledgling Gay Men's Health Crisis
, a nonprofit Larry organized. Arthur said he had to clear it with his firm's intake committee. Larry saw this as a cop-out — rightly, as Arthur said later. Larry called for a gay boycott of MCI
, a prominent Kramer Levin client, which Arthur saw as a personal affront. In 1992, Colorado
voters passed Amendment 2
, an anti-gay rights referendum, and Arthur refused to cancel a ski trip to Aspen
.
Throughout their disagreements, they still stayed close. Larry writes of their relationship in The Normal Heart: "The brothers love each other a great deal; [Arthur's] approval is essential to [Larry]."
In 2001, Arthur gave Yale a $1 million grant to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, a program focusing on gay history.
Kramer Levin went on to become one of the gay rights movement's staunchest advocates, helping Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on such high-profile cases as Lawrence v. Texas
before the U.S. Supreme Court and Hernandez v. Robles before the New York Court of Appeals
. Arthur Kramer retired from the firm in 1996 and died of a stroke in 2008.
's 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. The news prompted Newsweek
to announce Kramer was dying in June 2001, and the Associated Press
in December of the same year to claim Kramer had died. 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 (9) than any other facility in the world — accepted Kramer on its list. Kramer received a new liver on December 21, 2001.
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, author
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love
Women in Love (film)
Women in Love is a 1969 British film directed by Ken Russell. It stars Alan Bates , Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer from the novel of the same name by D. H. Lawrence....
in 1969, earning an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his 1978 novel Faggots
Faggots (novel)
Faggots is a novel by Larry Kramer, published in 1978.It is a portrayal of 1970's New York's most visible gay community in a time before AIDS.The novel's gay culture is one of nameless sex and recreational drugs.-Reception:...
, which earned mixed reviews but emphatic denunciations from the gay community for his portrayal of shallow, promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s.
Kramer witnessed the first spread of the disease that became known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) among his friends in 1980, and he co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis
Gay Men's Health Crisis
The Gay Men's Health Crisis is a New York City-based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization that has led the United States in the fight against AIDS.-1980s:...
(GMHC), which has become the largest private organization to assist people living with AIDS in the world. Not content with the social services GMHC provided, Kramer expressed his frustration with bureaucratic paralysis and the apathy of gay men to the AIDS crisis
HIV/AIDS in the United States
[[File:New HIV Cases 22 States 2006 CDC.svg|thumb|300px|Estimated Number of New HIV Cases—22 States 2006...
by writing a play titled The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...
which was produced at The Public Theatre in New York City in 1985. His political activism extended to the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international direct action advocacy group working to impact the lives of people with AIDS and the AIDS pandemic to bring about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and...
(ACT UP) in 1987, a direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
protest organization widely credited with changing public health policy and widespread perception of people living with AIDS (PWAs) and awareness of HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
and AIDS-related diseases. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for his play The Destiny of Me (1992), and has been a two-time recipient of the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
. Kramer currently lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
.
Early life
Kramer was born in Bridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
, as a second child that his parents did not want. The family moved soon to Maryland where Kramer attended school, although they found themselves with a much lower income than Kramer's high school peers. His father pressed him to marry a woman with money, and insisted he become a member of Pi Tau Pi, a Jewish fraternity. Kramer had become sexually involved with a male friend in junior high school, but he dated girls in high school.
He enrolled at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1953, but did not adjust well. He was lonely and his grades were poorer than those to which he was accustomed. He tried to kill himself by overdosing
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
on aspirin
Aspirin
Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...
because he thought he was the "only gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
student on campus". The experience left him determined to explore his sexuality and set him on the path to fighting "for gay people's worth". The next semester, he had an affair with his German professor — his first requited romantic relationship with a man. When the professor was scheduled to study in Europe, he invited Kramer, but Kramer decided not to go. Yale had been a family tradition: his father, older brother Arthur, and two uncles were alumni. Kramer instead enjoyed the Varsity Glee Club while at Yale. He graduated in 1957 with a degree in English.
Career
Early writings
According to Kramer, every drama he has written derives from a desire to understand love's nature and its obstacles. Kramer became involved with movie production at 23 years old by taking a job as a TeletypeTeletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
operator at Columbia Pictures, and agreed to the position only because the machine was across the hall from the president's office. Eventually, he won a position in the story department reworking scripts. His first writing credit was as a dialogue writer for Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, a teen sex comedy. He followed that with the 1969 Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-nominated screenplay Women in Love
Women in Love (film)
Women in Love is a 1969 British film directed by Ken Russell. It stars Alan Bates , Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer from the novel of the same name by D. H. Lawrence....
, an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
's novel. He next penned what Kramer calls "the only thing in my life I'm ashamed of," the 1973 musical remake of Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
's Lost Horizon
Lost Horizon (1973 film)
Lost Horizon is a 1973 musical film directed by Charles Jarrott and starring Peter Finch, John Gielgud, Liv Ullmann, Michael York, Sally Kellerman, Bobby Van, George Kennedy, Olivia Hussey, James Shigeta and Charles Boyer....
, a notorious critical and commercial failure whose screenplay was based very closely on Capra's film
Lost Horizon (film)
Lost Horizon is a 1937 American drama-fantasy film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the 1933 novel of the same title by James Hilton....
. Kramer has said that his well-negotiated fee for this work, skillfully invested by his brother, made him financially self-sufficient.
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".
The play was first produced in a theater set up in an old YMCA gymnasium on 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue called the Playwrights Horizon. 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."
Kramer next wrote A Minor Dark Age, though it failed to be produced. Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
, in the foreword to a Grove Press collection of Kramer's less-known works, wrote that "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.
Faggots
Faggots (novel)
Faggots is a novel by Larry Kramer, published in 1978.It is a portrayal of 1970's New York's most visible gay community in a time before AIDS.The novel's gay culture is one of nameless sex and recreational drugs.-Reception:...
, 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. 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." 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." The book was called Faggots.
The novel caused an uproar in the community it portrayed; it was taken off the shelves of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore—New York's only gay bookstore, and Kramer was banned from the grocery store near his home on Fire Island. Reviewers found it difficult to believe that Kramer's accounts of gay relationships were accurate; both the gay and mainstream press panned the book. On the reception of the novel Kramer says, "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." Faggots, however, became one of the best-selling gay novels of all time.
In 2000, Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...
wrote that the novel's lasting relevance is that "anyone who searches out present-day responses on the Internet will quickly find that the wounds inflicted by Faggots are burning still". Although Kramer was rejected by the people he thought would be laudatory, the book has never been out of publication and is often taught in gay studies classes. "Faggots struck a chord," wrote Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
, "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...."
Gay Men's Health Crisis
Initially, 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 notes 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."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. The next year, they named themselves the Gay Men's Health Crisis
Gay Men's Health Crisis
The Gay Men's Health Crisis is a New York City-based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization that has led the United States in the fight against AIDS.-1980s:...
(GMHC), and became the primary organization to raise funds for and provide services to people stricken with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the New York area. Although Kramer served on its first board of directors, his view of how it should be run sharply conflicted with the rest of its members. While GMHC began to concentrate on social services for men who were dying, Kramer loudly insisted they fight for funding from New York City. Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
became a particular target for Kramer, as did the behavior of gay men before the nature of how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was transmitted was understood.
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
1,112 and Counting
1,112 and Counting is an essay written by novelist and playwright Larry Kramer in 1983. Published in the gay newspaper the New York Native, it was perhaps the first essay written about the then newly identified AIDS crisis. It begins with a summary of HIV's toll thus far and ends with a call to...
", printed in 1983 in the New York Native
New York Native
The New York Native was a fortnightly Pre-Immunization Revolution newspaper published in New York City from December 1980 until January 13, 1997. It was the only paper in New York City during the early part, and pioneered the notion of cancer in combination with AIDS, when most others ignored it...
, a gay newspaper. The essay discussed the spread of the disease, the lack of government response, and apathy of the gay community.
The essay was intended to frighten gay men, and anger them to respond to government indifference. Michael Specter
Michael Specter
Michael Specter is an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998...
writes in The New Yorker, "it was a five-thousand-word screed that accused nearly everyone connected with health care in America — officials at the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, researchers at the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
, in Washington, doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center is a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital...
, in Manhattan, and local politicians (particularly Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
) — of refusing to acknowledge the implications of the nascent 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.
Kramer's confrontational style proved to be an advantage, as it earned the issue of AIDS in New York media attention that no other individual could get. He found it a disadvantage when he realized his own reputation was "completely that of a crazy man". Kramer was particularly frustrated by bureaucratic stalling that snowballed when the people in charge of agencies that seemed to ignore AIDS were gay, but closeted. He confronted the director of a National Institute of Health agency about not devoting more time and effort toward researching AIDS because he was closeted; he threw a drink in Republican fundraiser Terry Dolan's face during a party and screamed at him for having affairs with men but using homosexuality as a reason to raise money for conservative causes; 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 board member on GMHC — split over Kramer's condemnations of the impotence of GMHC.
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
Robert Chesley
Robert Chesley was a playwright, theater critic and musical composer....
responded to his 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". The GMHC ousted Kramer from the organization in 1983. Kramer's preferred method of communication was deemed too militant for the group.
The Normal Heart
Astonished and saddened about being forced out of GMHC, Kramer took an extended trip to Europe. While visiting 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 HeartThe Normal Heart
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...
.
Despite Kramer's promising never to write for the theater again, 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, the doctors puzzled and frustrated by having no resources to research it, and the unnamed organization Weeks is involved in and is eventually thrown out of. 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." The experience was overwhelmingly emotional for Kramer, as at one time during rehearsals he watched actor Brad Davis
Brad Davis (actor)
Robert Creel "Brad" Davis was an American actor, known for starring in the 1978 film Midnight Express.-Early life:...
hold his dying lover played by D.W. Moffett
D.W. Moffett
Donald Warren Moffett is an American actor known for the recurring role of Joe McCoy on the NBC series Friday Night Lights since 2008, and as Dean Winston on The WB series, For Your Love.-Early life:...
on stage; Kramer went into the bathroom and sobbed, only moments later to find Davis holding him. The play is considered a literary landmark. It contended with the AIDS crisis when few would speak of the disease afflicting gay men, including gays themselves; it remains the longest-running play ever staged at the Public Theater
Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...
, running for a year starting in 1985. It has been produced over 600 times in the U.S., Europe (where it was televised in Poland), Israel, and South Africa. Actors following Davis who portrayed Kramer's alter ego Ned Weeks included Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
, Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
(in Los Angeles), Martin Sheen
Martin Sheen
Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...
(at the Royal Court
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
in London), Tom Hulce
Tom Hulce
Thomas Edward "Tom" Hulce is an American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie Amadeus and his role as "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe...
and then John Shea
John Shea
John Victor Shea III is an American actor and director who has starred on stage, television and in film. He is best known for his role as Lex Luthor in the 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and also starred in the short lived 1990s TV series WIOU as Hank Zaret...
in the West End, Raul Esparza
Raúl Esparza
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American stage actor, singer, and voice artist noted for his award winning performances in Broadway shows...
in a highly acclaimed 2004 revival at the Public Theater, and most recently Joe Mantello
Joe Mantello
Joseph Mantello is an American actor and director best known for his work on Broadway productions of Wicked, Take Me Out and Assassins, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America...
on Broadway at the Golden Theater
John Golden Theatre
The John Golden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 252 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Designed in a Moorish style along with the adjacent Royale Theatre by architect Herbert J. Krapp for Irwin Chanin, it opened as the Theatre Masque on February 24 1927 with the play Puppets of Passion...
. Upon seeing the production of The Normal Heart, Naomi Wolf
Naomi Wolf
Naomi Wolf is an American author and political consultant. With the publication of The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokesperson of what was later described as the third wave of the feminist movement.-Biography:...
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...."
A review from Frank Rich at the New York Times states:
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.
ACT UP
In 1987, Kramer was the catalyst in the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash PowerAIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international direct action advocacy group working to impact the lives of people with AIDS and the AIDS pandemic to bring about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and...
(ACT UP), a direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
protest organization that chose government agencies and corporations as targets to publicize lack of treatment and funding for people with AIDS. ACT UP was formed at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population of New York City and nearby communities.- History :...
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?" Their first target became the Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
(FDA), which Kramer accused in the New York Times of neglecting badly needed medication for HIV-infected Americans.
Getting many people 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 Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
offices. Kramer was arrested dozens of times working with ACT UP, and the organization grew to hundreds of chapters in the US and Europe. Immunologist Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci
Anthony S. Fauci is an immunologist who has made substantial contributions to research in the areas of AIDS and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .-Education and career:Anthony Stephen Fauci was born on...
states "ACT UP put medical treatment in the hands of the patients. And that is the way it ought to be... There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry. Playwright Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...
offered his opinion of why Kramer fought so restlessly: "In a way, like a lot of Jewish men of Larry's generation, the Holocaust is a defining historical moment, and what happened in the early 1980s with AIDS felt, and was in fact, holocaustal to Larry."
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."
Just Say No, A Play about a Farce
Continuing his commentary on government indifference toward AIDS, Kramer wrote Just Say No, A Play about a Farce in 1988. He highlights the sexual hypocrisy in the Reagan and Koch administrations that allowed AIDS to become an epidemic; it concerns a First LadyFirst Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
, 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 crucifixion by the New York Times. Social critic and writer Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
wrote of the piece, "Larry Kramer is one of America's most valuable troublemakers. I hope he never lowers his voice."
Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist
Gay Men's Health Crisis
The Gay Men's Health Crisis is a New York City-based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization that has led the United States in the fight against AIDS.-1980s:...
, ACT UP, and beyond.
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
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
(PWA’s) 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?" 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.
Kramer directly and deliberately defines AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
as a Holocaust because he believes the United States' government failed to respond quickly and expend the necessary resources to cure AIDS, largely because AIDS initially infected gay men, and, quite soon after, predominantly poor and politically powerless minorities. Through speeches, editorials, and personal, sometimes publicized, letters to figures such as politician Gary Bauer
Gary Bauer
Gary Lee Bauer is an American politician notable for his ties to several evangelical Christian groups and campaigns.-Biography:...
, former New York Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
, several New York Times reporters, and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health , an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services...
, Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci
Anthony S. Fauci is an immunologist who has made substantial contributions to research in the areas of AIDS and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .-Education and career:Anthony Stephen Fauci was born on...
, 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
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, George H.W. Bush, and early Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
Presidencies.
The Destiny of Me
The Destiny of MeThe Destiny of Me
The Destiny of Me is a play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on Ned Weeks, a character introduced in The Normal Heart, as he checks into the National Institutes of Health to undergo an experimental treatment for AIDS...
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 Lucille Lortel Theatre
Lucille Lortel Theatre
The Lucille Lortel Theatre is an off-Broadway playhouse located at 121 Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.The venue was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse...
by the Circle Repertory Company
Circle Repertory Company
The Circle Repertory Company, originally named the Circle Theater Company, was a theatre company in New York City that ran from 1969 to 1996. It was founded on July 14, 1969, in Manhattan, in a second floor loft at Broadway and 83rd Street by director Marshall W...
. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, was a double Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
winner and received the Lortel Award
Lucille Lortel Awards
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986...
for Outstanding Play of the Year. The original production starred John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell is an American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.- Early life:...
, "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?" 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.
Its recent 2002 London Finborough Theatre
Finborough Theatre
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
production was the No. 1 Critics Choice in The Evening Standard.
The Tragedy of Today's Gays
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
that he turned into a book. Kramer found it inconceivable that Bush was reelected on the backs of gay people when there were so many more pressing issues:
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.
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 community he loves but that continues to disappoint him. Legendary drag artist Lady Bunny
Lady Bunny
The Lady Bunny is an American drag queen originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has lived in New York since the 1980s. She is the founder of the annual Wigstock event and is well-known as a nightclub DJ, promoter and celebrity...
wrote: "You are just too fucked by this election, and you're just too fucked UP with crystal, barebacking and apathy to confront your attackers, the conservative right.... That baton's been passed now, kids. You gonna drop it? Or come out swinging? Or go to the gym and cruise the steam room? Or shop for your next circuit party outfit? Or do another bump, girl?"
Kramer, again, had his detractors from the community. Writing on Salon.com, Richard Kim
Richard Kim
Richard Kim was an American karate teacher. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, he began studying judo as a child in the early 1920s, under Kaneko. Around the same time, he also began studying karate under Arakaki Ankichi. Before World War II, his service in the merchant marines took him to east Asia...
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.
The American People: A History
Since about 1981, Kramer has been researching and writing a manuscript called The American People: A History, an ambitious historical work that begins in the Stone AgeStone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
and continues into the present. For example, there is information relating to Kramer's assertion that Abraham Lincoln was gay
Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln
The sexual orientation of Abraham Lincoln is a topic of debate based on speculation of circumstantial events, a poem open to interpretation, common figures of speech used by Lincoln, his courting of several women, his marriage and children, and other information, with nothing conclusive to confirm...
. 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." 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." Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...
announced in September 2010 that it had acquired worldwide rights to the book and plans to publish it in two volumes beginning in 2012.
Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies
In 1997 Kramer approached Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, to help realize a dream: he wanted to bequeath them several million dollars "to endow a permanent, tenured professorship in gay studies and possibly to build a gay and lesbian student center." At that time, gender, ethnic and race-related studies were viewed warily by academia. The then Yale provost, Alison Richard
Alison Richard
Dame Alison Fettes Richard, DBE, DL was the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. She was the first female Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge since the post became full-time...
, stated that gay and lesbian studies was too narrow a specialty for a program in perpetuity. 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. . . ."
In 2001, both sides agreed to a five-year trial with seed money of $1 million Arthur Kramer endowed to Yale to finance the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The money would pay visiting professors and a program coordinator for conferences, guest speakers and other events. Kramer agreed to leave his literary papers and those chronicling the AIDS movement and his founding of GMHC and ACT-UP to Yale's 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." The program was closed down by Yale in 2006.
Relationship with his brother
Arthur Kramer
Arthur Kramer was the founding partner of influential law firm Kramer Levin. Kramer retired from the firm in 1996. He was found alone by a ski patrol in Sun Valley, Idaho on January 13, 2008 and then died from a stroke on January 26...
, founding partner of the white shoe law firm
White shoe firm
White shoe firm is a phrase used to describe the leading professional services firms in the United States, particularly firms that have been in existence for more than a century and represent Fortune 500 companies...
Kramer Levin, exploded into the public sphere with Kramer's 1984 play, The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...
. In the play, Kramer portrays Arthur (as Ben Weeks) as more concerned with building his $2 million house in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
than in helping his brother's cause. Humorist Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin
Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...
, a friend of both Larry and Arthur, once called The Normal Heart "the play about the building of [Arthur's] house." Anemona Hartocollis observed in the New York Times that "their story came to define an era for hundreds of thousands of theatergoers." Arthur, who had been his younger brother's protector against the parents they both disliked, couldn't find it in his heart to reject Larry, but also couldn't accept his homosexuality. This caused years of arguing and stretches of silence between the siblings. In the 1980s, Larry wanted Arthur's firm to represent the fledgling Gay Men's Health Crisis
Gay Men's Health Crisis
The Gay Men's Health Crisis is a New York City-based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization that has led the United States in the fight against AIDS.-1980s:...
, a nonprofit Larry organized. Arthur said he had to clear it with his firm's intake committee. Larry saw this as a cop-out — rightly, as Arthur said later. Larry called for a gay boycott of MCI
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
, a prominent Kramer Levin client, which Arthur saw as a personal affront. In 1992, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
voters passed Amendment 2
Romer v. Evans
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with civil rights and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to deal with LGBT rights since Bowers v...
, an anti-gay rights referendum, and Arthur refused to cancel a ski trip to Aspen
Aspen
Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...
.
Throughout their disagreements, they still stayed close. Larry writes of their relationship in The Normal Heart: "The brothers love each other a great deal; [Arthur's] approval is essential to [Larry]."
In 2001, Arthur gave Yale a $1 million grant to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, a program focusing on gay history.
Kramer Levin went on to become one of the gay rights movement's staunchest advocates, helping Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on such high-profile cases as Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by proxy, invalidated sodomy laws in the thirteen other states where they remained in existence, thereby making same-sex sexual activity legal in...
before the U.S. Supreme Court and Hernandez v. Robles before the New York Court of Appeals
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the U.S. state of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the Governor to 14-year terms...
. Arthur Kramer retired from the firm in 1996 and died of a stroke in 2008.
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 hernia. While in surgery, doctors discovered liver damage due to Hepatitis B, prompting Kramer to learn that he was HIV positive. In 2001, at the age 66, Kramer was in dire need of a liver transplant, but he was turned down by Mount Sinai HospitalMount Sinai Hospital, New York
Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. In 2011-2012, Mount Sinai Hospital was ranked as one of America's best hospitals by U.S...
's organ transplant
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
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. The news prompted Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
to announce Kramer was dying in June 2001, and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
in December of the same year to claim Kramer had died. 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
Thomas Starzl
Thomas E. Starzl is an American physician, researcher, and is an expert on organ transplants. He performed the first human liver transplants, and has often been referred to as "the father of modern transplantation."-Life:...
at the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
— which had performed more transplants for HIV positive patients (9) than any other facility in the world — accepted Kramer on its list. Kramer received a new liver on December 21, 2001.
Awards
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, Award in Literature
- Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
finalist for The Destiny of Me in 1993. - Winner of two ObieObie AwardThe Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s for The Destiny of Me, 1993. - Public Service Award from Common CauseCommon CauseCommon Cause is a self-described nonpartisan, nonprofit lobby and advocacy organization. It was founded in 1970 by John W. Gardner, a Republican former cabinet secretary under Lyndon Johnson, as a "citizens' lobby" with a mission focused on making U.S. political institutions more open and...
- The Normal Heart, named as one of the Hundred Best Plays of the Twentieth century by the Royal National TheatreRoyal National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
of Great Britain - Academy Award for Writing Adapted ScreenplayAcademy Award for Writing Adapted ScreenplayThe Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
nomination, Women in LoveWomen in Love (film)Women in Love is a 1969 British film directed by Ken Russell. It stars Alan Bates , Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer from the novel of the same name by D. H. Lawrence....
(1970) - for his screenplay adaptation of the novel by D.H. LawrenceWomen in LoveWomen in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow , and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an...
Speeches
- The tragedy of today's gays, 10 November 2004
- We are not crumbs, we must not accept crumbs - Remarks on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of ACT UP, NY Lesbian and Gay Community Center, March 13, 2007
Articles
- Be Very Afraid POZ Magazine, October 2000
Further reading
- "The Making of an AIDS Activist: Larry Kramer," pp. 162–164, Johansson, Warren and Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. New York and London: Haworth Press, 1994.
- "Public Nuisance, Larry Kramer the man who warned America about AIDS, can't stop fighting hard and loudly." Michael Specter, The New Yorker, May 13, 2002.
- http://www.michaelspecter.com/ny/2002/2002_05_13_kramer.html by Michael Specter