Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer was an American playwright, author, screenwriter, film producer, public‑health advocate, and gay‑rights activist whose career spanned more than five decades. Born Laurence David Kramer on June 25, 1935, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he grew up in a modest Jewish family and attended Yale University, where he struggled with isolation and attempted suicide before discovering his sexual identity. After graduating in 1957, he entered the film industry as a teletype operator at Columbia Pictures, eventually moving to United Artists in London where he co‑wrote the acclaimed screenplay for Women in Love (1969), earning an Academy Award nomination. Throughout the 1970s he published the controversial novel Faggots (1978), a stark portrayal of promiscuous gay life that provoked both fierce criticism and lasting acclaim, becoming a seminal work in gay literature. His literary output also includes nonfiction works such as Reports from the Holocaust and the ambitious two‑volume The American People. 

In the early 1980s, as AIDS began to devastate his community, Kramer co‑founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and later catalyzed the formation of ACT UP in 1987, employing confrontational tactics that reshaped public policy and media attention on the epidemic. His seminal play The Normal Heart (1985) dramatized the crisis and earned a Tony Award for its revival; The Destiny of Me (1992) was a Pulitzer finalist. Kramer married his longtime partner David Webster in 2013, and despite health challenges—including a liver transplant and living with HIV—he remained an outspoken activist until his death from pneumonia on May 27, 2020. His legacy endures in theater, literature, and LGBTQ history.