Larry Kramer (born June 25, 1935), American dramatist, author and gay rights activist, was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was educated at Yale University (class of 1957). He lived in London 1961-70, where he co-produced and co-wrote the film Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. Image File history File links Larrykramer. ... June 25 is the 176th day of the year (177th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 189 days remaining. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Bridgeport (41n10, 73w12 EST) is the largest city by population in Connecticut, and is located in southeastern Fairfield County, Connecticut. ... Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7,421,328 and a metropolitan area population of between 12 and 14 million. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Kramer next produced and wrote the screenplay for Women in Love, based on the novel by D. H. Lawrence, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Kramer had far less luck on his next film, a musical version of James Hilton's Lost Horizon released in 1973. It became one of the most notorious flops of the decade. D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was one of the most important, prolific and controversial English writers of the 20th century, whose output spans novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... James Hilton (September 9, 1900 - December 20, 1954) was a popular English novelist of the first half of the 20th century. ... The cover of the 1961 paperback edition Lost Horizon is a fantasy adventure novel by James Hilton. ...

Kramer was a gay rights advocate from the early 1970s, but never an orthodox one. His 1978 novel, Faggots, was one of the best-selling gay-themed novels, but was heavily criticised by many gay activists for its negative portrayal of male homosexual lifestyles. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... Faggots is a novel by Larry Kramer, published in 1978. ...

Kramer was living in New York City when the AIDS epidemic began in 1981. He published a series of articles in the gay newspaper the New York Native, including the famous "1,112 and Counting," urging action in response to the new epidemic. He was one of the founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis, a New York-based AIDS advocacy organization, which is still the world's largest provider of services to gay men with AIDS. New York City, officially named the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States, the most densely populated major city in North America, and the largest financial center in the world. ... The Red Ribbon is the global symbol for solidarity with HIV-positive people and those living with AIDS. AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and is defined as a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the depletion of the immune system caused... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Gay Mens Health Crisis (GMHC) is a non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based organization that has lead the United States in the fight against AIDS. It was founded by Larry Kramer and Paul Popham. ...

In 1987, increasingly discontented with the response to AIDS by both the U.S. government and the gay male community, Kramer helped found the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), an AIDS advocacy and protest organization often engaged in civil disobedience. 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... ACT-UP, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals . ...

Kramer's 1985 play about the early years of AIDS, The Normal Heart, remains one of the most important cultural responses to the devastation of AIDS in the 1980s. It has had over 600 productions all over the world. Its New York production starred Brad Davis, who later died of AIDS. It is now used as a set text in many schools and universities. This article is about the year. ... The Normal Heart is a play written by Larry Kramer, dealing with the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City from 1981-1984, through the eyes of Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. ... Brad Davis (November 6, 1949 - September 8, 1991) American actor, was born in Tallahassee, Florida to Eugene Davis and Anne Creel, respected Southeners descended from Jefferson Davis. ...

His next play, Just Say No 1988, was an attack on the Reagan administration and the Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, over what Kramer saw as their hypocrisy and inertia in responding to AIDS. It was less successful than The Normal Heart, possibly due to its sharply political tone. 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ... Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch, LL.B (born December 12, 1924) was the Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. ...

In 1989 Kramer published a book of non-fiction, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist, a collection of his political writings from The York Times and other publications, which is an important record of the "heroic phase" of AIDS activism in the 1980s. 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

During the 1990s, following his own diagnosis with HIV infection, Kramer became increasingly preoccupied with treatment issues, although he continued to issue regular polemical attacks on governments and health authorities. In 1998, he founded the Treatment Data Project, a coalition of private sector donors and medical institures, designed to make AIDS treatment more readily available to people with HIV/AIDS. The human immunodeficiency virus, commonly called HIV, is a retrovirus that primarily infects vital components of the human immune system such as CD4+ T cells, macrophages and dendritic cells. ... 1998(MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

We Must Love One Another Or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer, an anthology of essays edited by Lawrence D. Mass, is an important source on Kramer's career and the issues he has worked on.

In April 2001, Yale formally accepted a donation of Kramer's literary and political papers, along with a one million dollar donation from Kramer's brother Arthur Kramer to endow a gay and lesbian studies program. Kramer had been discussing the donation with Yale for several years, and the University had rejected a similar donation in 1997. Commenting on the results of their donation, in 2004, Kramer said: "My own college, Yale, with $1 million of my own brother’s money to do just this, will not teach what I call gay history, unencumbered with the prissy incomprehensible gobbledygook of gender studies and queer theory." 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gender studies is a theoretical work in the social sciences or humanities that focuses on issues of sex and gender in language and society, and often addresses related issues including racial and ethnic oppression, postcolonial societies, and globalization. ... Queer theory is an anti-essentialist theory about sex and gender within the larger field of Queer studies. ...

In December 2001, Kramer underwent liver transplant surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He needed this transplant to survive liver disease caused by a chronic hepatitis B infection. The operation was successful, despite initial incorrect reports on the Internet that he had died. This was first high-profile organ transplant for a person with HIV in the United States. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Various notable people have had their death announced in error. ...

After the November 2004 elections, Kramer gave a widely covered speech declaring that gay rights were "officially dead" in America, that most homosexuals were too busy with drugs or sex to care about their future, and that AIDS was exploited as part of a long-range plan by the government to exterminate homosexuals. He also blasted Human Rights Campaign and other gay organizations for what he saw as timidity and selfishness. HRC logo The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is one of the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equal rights organization in the United States. ...

Kramer lives in New York and Connecticut with his lover, architect David Webster. He is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Award in Literature, and he is also the first openly gay person to be honored by a Public Service Award from Common Cause. Common Cause was founded in 1970 by John William Gardner, who was a United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. ...

Further Reading

"The Making of An AIDS Activist: Larry Kramer," Johansson, Warren and Percy, William A, from "Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence," Harrington Park Press, 1994.

External Links

On Bringing Homosexuality to the Forefront