Larry Kramer
Lawrence David "Larry" Kramer (June 25, 1935 – May 27, 2020) was an American playwright, author, film producer, 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 the film Women in Love (1969) and received an Academy Award nomination for his work. Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his novel Faggots (1978), 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 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) among his friends in 1980. He co-founded the 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.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.
Kramer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the younger of two children of Rea (Wishengrad), who worked at a shoe store and taught, and George Kramer, who had earned law degrees. His family was Jewish. He was considered an "unwanted child" by his parents, who struggled to find work during the American great depression. When the family moved to Maryland they found themselves in a much lower socioeconomic bracket than that of Kramer's high school peers. Kramer had become sexually involved with a male friend in junior high school, but he dated girls in high school. His father wanted him to marry a woman with money and thus pressed him to become a member of Pi Tau Pi, a Jewish fraternity.
Kramer enrolled at Yale University 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". The experience left him determined to explore his sexuality and set him on the path to fight "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 to accompany him, but Kramer opted not to go
Yale had been a family tradition: Kramer's father, older brother Arthur, and two uncles were alumni. Kramer enjoyed the Varsity Glee Club during his remaining time at Yale, and he graduated in 1957 with a degree in English
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