Larry Kramer

1.1. Birth and Childhood

Laurence David Kramer was born on June 25, 1935, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was the younger of two children, his older brother, Arthur Kramer, having been born in 1927. His parents, Rea (née Wishengrad) and George Kramer, were Jewish. His mother worked various jobs, including shoe store employee, teacher, and social worker for the American Red Cross, while his father was a government attorney. The family faced financial struggles during the American Great Depression, leading Kramer to feel like an "unwanted child" by his parents. When the family relocated to Maryland, Kramer found himself in a significantly lower socioeconomic bracket compared to his high school peers. During junior high school, he became sexually involved with a male friend, though he dated girls in high school. His father pressured him to marry a wealthy woman and join Pi Tau Pi, a Jewish fraternity.

1.2. Education and Personal Exploration

Kramer's academic journey led him to Yale College in 1953, following in the footsteps of his father, older brother Arthur, and two uncles, all of whom were Yale alumni. However, Kramer found it difficult to adjust to life at Yale. He experienced profound loneliness and achieved lower grades than he was accustomed to. Feeling isolated as what he perceived to be the "only gay student on campus," he attempted suicide by overdosing on aspirin. This harrowing experience became a turning point, solidifying his determination to explore his sexuality and dedicate himself to fighting "for gay people's worth." The following semester, he began a romantic relationship with his German professor, marking his first reciprocated same-sex relationship. During his remaining time at Yale, Kramer found enjoyment in the Varsity Glee Club. He graduated in 1957 with a degree in English and subsequently served in the United States Army Reserve before embarking on his career in film writing and production.

2.1. Early Film and Literary Work

At the age of 23, Kramer entered the film industry as a teletype operator at Columbia Pictures, a position he accepted strategically because it was located across the hall from the president's office. He eventually secured a position in the story department, where he began reworking scripts. His first writing credit was for additional dialogue in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967), a teen sex comedy. This was followed by the critically acclaimed 1969 screenplay for Women in Love, an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's novel, which earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Kramer later expressed deep regret for his next project, the 1973 musical remake of Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, which he referred to as the "only thing I'm truly ashamed of." This film was a notorious critical and commercial failure, despite Kramer's screenplay being closely based on Capra's original. However, the substantial fee he negotiated for this work, skillfully invested by his brother, provided him with financial independence throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Following his film work, Kramer began to incorporate homosexual themes into his writing and explored writing for the stage. In 1973, he wrote Sissies' Scrapbook (later rewritten as Four Friends), a dramatic play about four friends and their dysfunctional relationships, one of whom is gay. Kramer described it as a play about "cowardice and the inability of some men to grow up, leave the emotional bondage of male collegiate camaraderie, and assume adult responsibilities." The play premiered at Playwrights Horizons, a theater established in an old YMCA gymnasium. Despite a somewhat favorable review from The New York Times, the producer closed the play, leaving Kramer so disheartened that he vowed never to write for the stage again, stating, "You must be a masochist to work in the theater and a sadist to succeed on its stages." He then wrote A Minor Dark Age, which was never produced. However, Frank Rich, in a foreword to a collection of Kramer's lesser-known works, praised the "dreamlike quality" of Dark Age and noted that its themes, such as the distinction between sex and passion, were "staples of his entire output" that foreshadowed his later work, including the novel Faggots.

2.2. Faggots: Controversy and Reception

In 1978, Kramer completed his novel Faggots, which depicted the fast-paced, promiscuous lifestyle of gay men in Fire Island and Manhattan. The primary character, modeled after Kramer himself, struggles to find love amidst a culture of drugs and emotionless sex in trendy bars and discos. Kramer stated his inspiration for the novel: "I wanted to be in love. Almost everybody I knew felt the same way. I think most people, at some level, wanted what I was looking for, whether they pooh-poohed it or said that we can't live like the straight people or whatever excuses they gave." During his research, Kramer interviewed many men and visited various establishments, frequently encountering the question, "Are you writing a negative book? Are you going to make it positive?" This led him to believe that "people must really be conflicted about the lives they're leading," acknowledging the guilt many felt about promiscuity and partying.

The novel ignited an uproar within the gay community it portrayed. It was removed from the shelves of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, then New York City's only gay bookstore, and Kramer was banned from the grocery store near his home on Fire Island. Reviewers, both in the gay and mainstream press, largely panned the book, finding Kramer's accounts of gay relationships difficult to believe. Kramer reflected on the reception, stating, "The straight world thought I was repulsive, and the gay world treated me like a traitor. People would literally turn their back when I walked by. You know what my real crime was? I put the truth in writing. That's what I do: I have told the fucking truth to everyone I have ever met." Despite the initial backlash, Faggots became one of the best-selling gay novels of all time and has remained continuously in print, often taught in gay studies classes. In 2000, author Reynolds Price noted its enduring relevance, stating that "anyone who searches out present-day responses on the Internet will quickly find that the wounds inflicted by Faggots are burning still." Andrew Sullivan wrote that Faggots "exuded a sense that gay men could do better if they understood themselves as fully human, if they could shed their self-loathing and self-deception."

2.3. AIDS Activism and Advocacy

Kramer's career took a pivotal turn into relentless activism with the onset of the AIDS epidemic. His foundational work with key organizations and his confrontational advocacy were instrumental in raising awareness, demanding action, and fighting for the rights of people with AIDS.

2.3.1. Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC)

In the 1970s, while living on Fire Island, Kramer had no intention of engaging in political activism, often mocking political activists in New York City. However, his perspective shifted dramatically in 1980 when friends on Fire Island began falling ill with an unknown disease. In August 1981, despite his prior lack of involvement in gay activism, Kramer invited a group of prominent gay men from New York City to his apartment. A doctor explained that their friends' illnesses were connected and required research. The following year, this group formally established the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which became the primary organization for fundraising and providing services to people affected by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the New York area.

Kramer served on GMHC's first board of directors, but his vision for the organization sharply conflicted with that of other members. While GMHC focused on providing social services to dying men, Kramer vehemently insisted they fight for immediate funding from New York City. He particularly targeted Mayor Ed Koch and criticized the behavior of gay men before the transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was fully understood. When doctors suggested gay men cease sexual activity, Kramer strongly urged GMHC to disseminate this message widely. Upon their refusal, Kramer penned the incendiary essay "1,112 and Counting," published in the gay newspaper New York Native in 1983. The essay detailed the disease's spread, the lack of government response, and the gay community's perceived apathy. It aimed to alarm gay men and provoke them into protesting government indifference. Michael Specter of The New Yorker described it as a "five-thousand-word screed that accused nearly everyone connected with health care in America... of refusing to acknowledge the implications of the nascent AIDS epidemic." He noted that the article's "harshest condemnation was directed at those gay men who seemed to think that if they ignored the new disease, it would simply go away." Tony Kushner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, lauded the essay, stating, "With that one piece, Larry changed my world. He changed the world for all of us."

Kramer's confrontational style, while effective in drawing media attention to AIDS, also earned him a reputation as a "crazy man." He grew particularly frustrated by bureaucratic delays, especially when closeted gay men in charge of agencies appeared to ignore AIDS. He confronted the director of a National Institutes of Health agency for not dedicating more effort to AIDS research due to being closeted. He famously threw a drink in the face of Republican fundraiser Terry Dolan at a party, accusing him of having affairs with men while using homophobia to raise money for conservative causes. He labeled Ed Koch and various New York City media and government agencies as "equal to murderers." His personal life was also affected, as his relationship with his lover, also a GMHC board member, ended over Kramer's condemnations of GMHC's political apathy.

Kramer's past controversies, particularly the backlash from his novel Faggots, also complicated his message, as many saw his warnings as alarmist and anti-sex. Playwright Robert Chesley criticized Kramer's New York Native article, stating, "Read anything by Kramer closely, and I think you'll find the subtext is always: the wages of gay sin are death." Due to his militant communication style, GMHC ultimately ousted Kramer from the organization in 1983. In 1990, Kramer appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's film Positive, which documented the fight of activists in New York City for AIDS education and the rights of HIV-infected people.

2.3.2. AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)

In 1987, Kramer became the driving force behind the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), a direct action protest organization formed at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center in New York City. ACT UP's mission was to target government agencies and corporations to publicize the lack of treatment and funding for people with AIDS. During a well-attended speech that served as the catalyst for ACT UP's formation, Kramer began by asking two-thirds of the room to stand, telling them they would be dead in five years. He reiterated the urgent points from his "1,112 and Counting" essay: "If my speech tonight doesn't scare the shit out of you, we're in real trouble. If what you're hearing doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage, and action, gay men will have no future here on earth. How long does it take before you get angry and fight back?"

ACT UP's first target was the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which Kramer accused of neglecting desperately needed medication for HIV-infected Americans. A primary objective of ACT UP was to engage in civil disobedience that would lead to arrests, thereby drawing significant public attention to their cause. On March 24, 1987, 17 of 250 participants were arrested for blocking rush-hour traffic in front of the FDA's Wall Street offices. Kramer himself was arrested dozens of times while working with ACT UP, and the organization rapidly grew to hundreds of chapters across the U.S. and Europe. Immunologist Anthony Fauci famously stated, "In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry." Playwright Tony Kushner observed that for Kramer, like many Jewish men of his generation, the Holocaust was a defining historical moment, and the events of the early 1980s with AIDS felt, and were in fact, "holocaustal" to him.

Decades later, Kramer continued to advocate for social and legal equity for homosexuals. In 2007, he wrote, "Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal, which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you." He also persistently argued for increased funding for AIDS research, contending that existing treatments discouraged the pharmaceutical industry from developing cures. This distrust was evident in his final public statement about curing AIDS, a question posed to Joe Biden at a 2020 presidential campaign town hall, where he accused pharmaceutical companies of "profit[ing] irrationally from HIV-positive Americans who depend on the medications forever," and asked how, as president, Biden would "finance a CURE and scale back the avarice of pharmaceutical companies."

2.4. Later Literary and Historical Works

Kramer continued his prolific writing career with later plays and ambitious historical projects, extending his critical examination of society and history.

2.5. Academic and Educational Initiatives

Kramer also engaged with academia, notably through his efforts to establish LGBTQ+ studies programs, reflecting his commitment to advancing academic understanding of LGBTQ+ history and culture.

In 1997, Kramer approached Yale University with an offer to donate several million dollars to "endow a permanent, tenured professorship in gay studies and possibly to build a gay and lesbian student center." At the time, gender, ethnic, and race-related studies were viewed cautiously by academia. The then-Yale provost, Alison Richard, stated that gay and lesbian studies was too narrow a specialty for a program in perpetuity. Kramer's rejected proposal specified that the money be used solely for "1) the study of and/or instruction in gay male literature, by which I mean courses to study gay male writers throughout history or the teaching to gay male students of writing about their heritage and their experience. To ensure for the continuity of courses in either or both of these areas tenured positions should be established; and/or 2) the establishment of a gay student center at Yale."

In 2001, both parties reached an agreement to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, which would include visiting professors and a program of conferences, guest speakers, and other events. His older brother, Arthur Kramer, endowed the program at Yale with 1.00 M USD to support a five-year trial. Kramer agreed to leave his literary papers and those chronicling the AIDS movement and his founding of GMHC and ACT UP to Yale's Beinecke Library. Kramer noted that "A lot has changed since I made my initial demands. I was trying to cram stuff down their throat. I'd rather they fashion their own stuff. It may allow for a much more expandable notion of what lesbian and gay studies really is." The five-year program concluded in 2006.

In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kramer began writing a new play titled An Army of Lovers Must Not Die.

3.1. Family and Relationships

3.1.1. Brother, Arthur Kramer

Larry and his older brother, Arthur Kramer, had an eight-year age difference. Arthur was a founding partner of the law firm Kramer Levin. Their complex relationship was famously portrayed in Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart (1984), where Arthur (as Ben Weeks) is depicted as more concerned with building his 2.00 M USD house in Connecticut than assisting his brother's cause. Humorist Calvin Trillin, a friend of both brothers, once called The Normal Heart "the play about the building of [Arthur's] house." Anemona Hartocollis observed in The New York Times that "their story came to define an era for hundreds of thousands of theatergoers."

Arthur, who had protected his younger brother from their mutually disliked parents, found himself unable to fully reject Larry or completely accept his homosexuality, leading to years of arguments and periods of silence between them. In the 1980s, Arthur refused Larry's request for Kramer Levin to represent the fledgling Gay Men's Health Crisis, citing the need to clear it with his firm's intake committee. When Larry called for a boycott of MCI, a prominent Kramer Levin client, Arthur took it as a personal affront. In 1992, after Colorado voters endorsed Amendment 2, an anti-gay rights referendum, Larry supported a boycott of the state, while Arthur refused to cancel a ski trip to Aspen. Despite their disagreements, the two remained close. In The Normal Heart, Larry wrote: "The brothers love each other a great deal; [Arthur's] approval is essential to [Larry]." In 2001, Arthur endowed a 1.00 M USD grant for Yale University to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, a program focusing on gay history. Kramer Levin LLP later became a staunch advocate for the gay rights movement, assisting the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on high-profile cases such as Lawrence v. Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and Hernandez v. Robles before the New York Court of Appeals. Arthur Kramer retired from the firm in 1996 and died from a stroke in 2008.

3.2. Health

In 1988, the stress from the early closing of his play Just Say No aggravated a congenital hernia, forcing Kramer into the hospital. During surgery, doctors discovered liver damage due to hepatitis B, which led Kramer to learn that he was HIV positive. By 2001, at the age of 66, Kramer was in dire need of a liver transplant but was initially rejected by Mount Sinai Hospital's organ transplant list. At the time, people living with HIV were routinely considered inappropriate candidates for organ transplants due to complications from HIV and perceived short lifespans. Out of 4,954 liver transplants performed in the United States, only 11 were for HIV-positive individuals. News of his critical condition led Newsweek to announce Kramer was dying in June 2001, and the Associated Press mistakenly reported his death in December of the same year.

Kramer became a symbol for infected people who had new leases on life due to advances in medicine. He stated in an interview, "We shouldn't face a death sentence because of who we are or who we love." In May 2001, the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, which had performed more transplants for HIV-positive patients than any other facility in the world, accepted Kramer as a potential transplant recipient. He received a new liver on December 21, 2001. In April 2019, he suffered a broken leg.

3.3. Residence and Social Connections

Kramer divided his time between a residence in Manhattan, near Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, and Connecticut. A notable resident of Kramer's Manhattan complex was his longtime nemesis, Ed Koch, who had served as Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. The two saw each other infrequently due to living in different towers. In 1989, when Kramer saw Koch looking at an apartment in the building, Kramer reportedly told him, "Don't move in here! There are people here who hate you!" On another occasion, Koch attempted to pet Kramer's Wheaten Terrier dog, Molly, in the building's mail area, but Kramer snatched the dog away, telling her that Koch was "the man who killed all of Daddy's friends."

5.1. Overall Assessment

Kramer's career as a writer, activist, and public intellectual was characterized by an unwavering commitment to challenging societal norms and advocating for marginalized groups. His dramatic works, particularly The Normal Heart, served as powerful indictments of governmental and societal inaction during the AIDS crisis, forcing uncomfortable truths into public discourse. As an activist, he was known for his confrontational and often abrasive style, which, while alienating to some, proved highly effective in galvanizing communities and demanding attention from powerful institutions. He was a pivotal figure in transforming the public and political response to AIDS, shifting it from neglect to a more active engagement. His later historical writings, though controversial, reflected his deep-seated belief in uncovering hidden truths and challenging conventional narratives, particularly regarding the history of homosexuality in America. Kramer's work consistently highlighted the urgent need for empathy, responsibility, and collective action in the face of injustice.

5.2. Criticism and Controversy

Throughout his life, Kramer's methods and writings frequently drew criticism and controversy. His novel Faggots was widely condemned by segments of the gay community for its provocative portrayal of what he characterized as shallow and promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s. Reviewers found his accounts difficult to accept, and the book was even removed from shelves in some gay bookstores. Critics accused him of internalizing and perpetuating homophobia, with some interpreting his warnings about the AIDS crisis as a moralistic judgment against gay sexual liberation.

His confrontational style, while effective in gaining media attention for AIDS, also earned him a reputation as a "crazy man" and led to his expulsion from GMHC. His public condemnations of government officials, medical institutions, and even members of the gay community were often seen as overly aggressive and alienating. For instance, his provocative statements suggesting that gay men bore some responsibility for the AIDS epidemic due to their sexual behavior generated significant backlash. Richard Kim of Salon.com argued that Kramer's rhetoric often recycled homophobic tropes, portraying gay men as "buffoonish, disengaged Peter Pans dancing, drugging and fucking their lives away." Despite these criticisms, Kramer maintained that he was simply "telling the fucking truth" and that his confrontational approach was necessary to cut through apathy and demand urgent action.

5.3. Social and Human Rights Impact

Kramer's concrete contributions to social justice and human rights are undeniable. His relentless advocacy played a crucial role in transforming the public health response to AIDS. By co-founding GMHC, he helped establish the first major organization dedicated to supporting people with AIDS. His subsequent founding of ACT UP revolutionized AIDS activism through direct action and civil disobedience, successfully pressuring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other government agencies to accelerate drug approval processes and increase funding for research and treatment. ACT UP is widely credited with changing public health policy and significantly improving the perception of people living with AIDS, while raising global awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases.

His play The Normal Heart became a powerful cultural touchstone, educating audiences about the devastating human cost of the early epidemic and the political indifference that exacerbated it. The play's unflinching portrayal of the crisis helped to break the silence surrounding AIDS and fostered greater empathy and understanding. Through his essays, books like Reports from the Holocaust, and public speeches, Kramer consistently articulated a moral imperative for action, holding institutions and individuals accountable. He was a fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, pushing for legal and social equality for homosexuals long after the initial peak of the AIDS crisis. His initiative to establish lesbian and gay studies at Yale University further demonstrated his commitment to advancing academic understanding and historical recognition of LGBTQ+ lives and experiences. Kramer's legacy is that of a tireless fighter who, through his art and activism, profoundly influenced public discourse, public health, and the ongoing struggle for human rights.