larry-kramer

​Why We Need The Normal Heart

Rich Juzwiak · 05/24/14 12:13PM

"Did you know that it was an openly gay Englishman who's responsible for winning World War II?" asks Mark Ruffalo's Ned Weeks during one of many emotional high points in Ryan Murphy's HBO movie adaptation of The Normal Heart. "His name's Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code. After the war was over, he committed suicide because he was so haunted for being gay. Why don't they teach any of that in schools? A gay man is responsible for winning World War II. If they did maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are."

Gay Icon Barbra Streisand Finds Gay Sex Distasteful, Says Larry Kramer

Rich Juzwiak · 05/21/14 10:08AM

It took almost 30 years for Larry Kramer's acclaimed play The Normal Heart to be adapted into a movie—Ryan Murphy's take on Kramer's autobiographical account of the early days of AIDS will premiere Sunday on HBO. In a rare interview with the New York Times, the now frail former Gay Men's Health Crisis/ACT UP activist Kramer explained his version of why Barbra Streisand's adaptation never got off the ground: She didn't want to portray gay men fucking.

Happy Birthday

cityfile · 06/25/09 07:07AM

Chef, restaurateur, author, and cable fixture Anthony Bourdain turns 53 today. Judge (soon-to-be Justice) Sonia Sotomayor is turning 55. Burlap bag promoter and social fixture Lauren Bush is 25. Director Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon) turns 85. Carly Simon is turning 64. Publicist Desiree Gruber is 42. Ricky Gervais of the UK version of The Office is 48. Angela Kinsey of the American version is turning 38. Gay rights activist Larry Kramer turns 74. Architect Alex Gorlin is 54. And George Michael celebrates his 46th birthday today.

Larry Kramer

cityfile · 01/30/08 01:27PM

Still shrill after all these years, the indefatigable Kramer is the author the 1978 book Faggots and the play The Normal Heart, and helped found the Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP.

Kara Swisher's plan for the Journal has more "promiscuity"

Owen Thomas · 08/01/07 09:20AM

Now that News Corp. appears to have locked up Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, every journalist on the planet is volunteering to be an unpaid consultant to Rupert Murdoch. I'm sure he appreciates the free advice. The News Corp. CEO is so known for taking it, after all. First up, there's Kara Swisher's tabloid-headlined call for more "promiscuity," which I was about to get behind. Talk about a paper that needs sexing up! But then I discovered that the word, in Swisher's hands, has gone entirely limp. Her deflated meaning?

Owen Thomas · 07/30/07 05:07PM

Larry Kramer, founder of the MarketWatch stock-news site now owned by Dow Jones, has joined Polaris Venture Partners as a senior advisor. The firm's portfolio includes online-media companies like JibJab and Heavy. [LinkedIn]

Larry Kramer Rallies The Gay Mafia

Emily Gould · 02/13/07 10:44AM

We've always had a thing for playwright, AIDS activist, and general homo-rabblerouser Larry Kramer. Seriously, how can you not love the author of Faggots? So we were delighted to learn that Larry is up to his old tricks—and this time, he's rallying his troops to take on the most homophobic, bigoted magazine in your dentist's waiting room: US News & World Report.