LGBTQ Icon, Playwright And Activist Larry Kramer Dies At 84
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — He was an icon in the LGBTQ community.
Larry Kramer has died at the age of 84.
His family says the cause was pneumonia.
Kramer was known as a Tony Award-winning playwright and AIDS activist, who roused thousands to militant protest in the early years of the AIDS epidemic.
Larry Kramer stood up for gay rights like a warrior, reported CBS2's Lisa Rozner.
HIV-positive himself, he organized protests demanding quicker medial research in the fight against AIDS, lower drug costs, and for an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
The actions disrupted government offices, Wall Street and Roman Catholic churches.
He founded historic groups - Gay Men's Health Crisis - and ACT UP, which stands for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.
"When people were dying and being ignored by the government, which some people relate to the time that we're in – Larry taught us that our lives were worth something and we deserve to live," said ACT UP member Brandon Cuicchi.
One person who felt Kramer's fury was Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In 2017, he acknowledged to CBS Sunday Morning the protest's impact to developing AIDS treatment.
"He loosened some of the restrictions but we never compromised our core scientific principles," Dr. Fauci said in the interview.
Kramer poured his heart onto the stage and screen. He wrote the Tony Award winning play The Normal Heart.
One of the lines from the play: "I'm trying to understand why nobody wants to hear that we're dying. Why nobody wants to help."
Joel Grey co-directed the play on Broadway.
"It was heavy because the facts of his life, of his bio, of his childhood and his whole sense of not being enough," Grey said. "Every night people came to the play and wept... and all over the theater were the names of people who have died."
It is said that Kramer was working on another play about the coronavirus crisis.
"For us at GLAAD, it is a sad, sad day," said GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. "At every turn Larry had the largest expectations for our community to be accepted, to be treated with respect, and humanity."
Kramer lived to see gay marriage a reality -- and got married himself in 2013 -- but never rested. He told the AP, "I'm married, but that's only part of where we are. AIDS is still decimating us and we still don't have protection under the law."
"We have lost a giant of a man who stood up for gay rights like a warrior. His anger was needed at a time when gay men's deaths to AIDS were being ignored by the American government," said Elton John in a statement.
Kramer lost his lover to acquired immune deficiency syndrome in 1984 and was himself infected with the virus. He also suffered from hepatitis B and received a liver transplant in 2001 because the virus had caused liver failure.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for "Women in Love," the 1969 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novel. It starred Glenda Jackson, who won her first Oscar for her performance.
He also wrote the 1972 screenplay "Lost Horizon," a novel, and several plays, including "The Destiny of Me," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
But for many years he was best known for his public fight to secure medical treatment, acceptance and civil rights for people with AIDS. He loudly told everyone that the gay community was grappling with a plague.
Tributes from the arts community flooded in Wednesday, with Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter saying "What an extraordinary writer, what a life."
Dan Savage wrote: "He ordered us to love ourselves and each other and to fight for our lives. He was a hero."
Kramer split with GMHC in 1983 after other board members decided to concentrate on providing support services to people with AIDS. It remains one of the largest AIDS-service groups in the country.
After leaving GMHC, Kramer wrote "The Normal Heart," in which a furious young writer — not unlike Kramer himself — battles politicians, society, the media and other gay leaders to bring attention to the crisis.
The play premiered at The Public Theater in April 1985. Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara called it an "angry but compelling indictment of a society as well as a subculture for failing to respond adequately to the tragedy."
A revival in 2011 was almost universally praised by critics and earned the best revival Tony. Two actors from it — Ellen Barkin and John Benjamin Hickey — also won Tonys. Joe Mantello played the main character of Ned Weeks, the alter ego of Kramer.
"I'm very moved that it moved so many people," he said at the time. Kramer often stood outside the theater passing out fliers asking the world to take action against HIV/AIDS. "Please know that AIDS is a worldwide plague. Please know there is no cure," it said.
The play was turned into a TV film for HBO in 2014 starring Mark Ruffalo, Jonathan Groff, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Joe Mantello and Julia Roberts. It won the Emmy for best movie. Kramer stood onstage in heavy winter clothing as the statuette was presented to director Ryan Murphy.
The 1992 play "The Destiny of Me," continues the story of Weeks from "The Normal Heart." Weeks, in the hospital for an experimental AIDS treatment, reflects on the past, particularly his relationship with his family. His parents and brother appear to act out what happened in the past, as does the young Ned, who confronts his older self.
Kramer never softened the urgency of his demands. In 2011, he helped the American Foundation for Equal Rights mount their play "8" on Broadway about the legal battle over same-sex marriage in California.
"The one nice thing that I seem to have acquired, accidentally, is this reputation of everyone afraid of my voice," he told The AP in 2015. "So I get heard, whether it changes anything or not."
One of his last projects was the massive two-volume "The American People," which chronicled the history of gay people in America and took decades to write.
"I just think it's so important that we know our history — the history of how badly we're treated and how hard we have to fight to get what we deserve, which is equality," he told The AP.
At the time of his death, Kramer was working on a play called "An Army of Lovers," which he was updating to include the pandemic.
At the 2013 Tonys, he was honored with the Isabelle Stevenson Award, given to a member of the theater community for philanthropic or civic efforts.
A few months later, Kramer married his longtime partner, architect David Webster, in the intensive care unit of NYU Langone Medical Center, where Kramer was recovering from surgery for a bowel obstruction.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
