Larry Kramer: July – August Portrait of the Month

Larry Kramer with Molly, 1989

Playwright, author, and political activist Larry Kramer was born in Bridgeport, CT, in 1935. He graduated from Yale University in 1957 with a degree in English. Kramer began his career editing scripts at Columbia Pictures and then United Artists, where he wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film Women in Love, earning him an Academy Award nomination.

Kramer’s first novel, Faggots, was published in 1978 and introduced a controversial and confrontational style. Although the book received mixed reviews, it provoked vehement denunciations from members of the gay community for his perspective on shallow, promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s.

Witnessing the spread of AIDS among his friends in 1980 prompted Kramer to co-found Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), now one of the world’s largest private organizations assisting people living with AIDS. Out of growing frustration with institutional inertia and apathy toward the AIDS crisis, he wrote the play The Normal Heart, which premiered at The Public Theater in New York in 1985 to critical acclaim. His political activism culminated in the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987. The influential protest organization aims to gain direct public action to fight the AIDS crisis and has been credited with affecting public health policy and raising awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases. In 1988, Kramer learned that he is HIV positive and has become a symbol for infected people who have lived long lives because of medical advances.

Kramer has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has received two Obie Awards for his play The Destiny of Me (1992). A television film adaptation of The Normal Heart debuted on HBO in 2014. Its screenplay was written by Kramer; it was directed by Ryan Murphy and starred Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Jonathan Groff, and Julia Roberts. Kramer’s ambitious latest novel, The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart (2015) thoroughly re-imagines American history with the author’s mix of fiery satire and heartbreaking vision.