Larry Kramer (fwd)

[Peter Giordano]

Author Name:         Kramer, Larry

Nationality:         American
Year of Birth:       1935
Place of Birth:      Bridgeport, CT

Personal Information: Family: Born June 25, 1935, in Bridgeport, CT; son of
        George L. (an attorney) and Rea W. (a social worker; maiden name,
        Wishengrad). Education: Yale University, B.A., 1957. Military/Wartime
        Service: U.S. Army, 1957. Addresses: Home and Office: New York, NY.

Career:               Screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. Associated with
        training programs in New York City, for William Morris Agency, 1958,
        and for Columbia Pictures, 1958-59; Columbia Pictures, assistant story
        editor in New York City, 1960-61, and production executive in London,
        1961-65; assistant to the president of United Artists, 1965; associate
        producer of motion picture Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1967;
        producer of motion picture Women in Love, 1969. Cofounder of Gay Men's
        Health Crisis in New York City, 1981; founder of ACT UP (AIDS
        Coalition to Unleash Power), 1988.

Award(s): Academy Award nomination for best screenplay from the Academy of
        Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and nomination from the British Film
        Academy for best screenplay, both 1970, both for Women in Love;
        Dramatists Guild Marton Award, City Lights Award for best play of the
        year, Sarah Siddons Award for best play of the year, and nomination
        for Olivier Award for best play, all 1986, all for The Normal Heart;
        named Man of the Year, Aid for AIDS, Los Angeles, 1986; Arts and
        Communication Award from the Human Rights Campaign Fund, 1987.

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

        (And producer) Women in Love (screenplay; adapted from the novel by D.
        H. Lawrence), United Artists, 1969.

        Faggots (novel), Random House, 1978.

        The Normal Heart (two-act play; first produced Off- Broadway at Public
        Theater, April, 1985), introduction by Andrew Holleran and foreword by
        Joseph Papp, New American Library, 1985.

        Just Say No (play), first produced Off-Broadway at WPA Theater,
        October 16, 1988.

        Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist
        (non-fiction), St. Martin's (New York City), 1989, updated and
        expanded, St. Martin's, 1994.

        The Destiny of Me (play), Plume (New York City), 1993.

        Reforming the Civil Justice System, New York University Press (New
        York City), 1996.

        Brilliant Windows: Poems, Miami University Press, 1998.

        Also author of Off-Off-Broadway play Sissies' Scrapbook and two-act
        play The Furniture of Home, 1989.

        Contributor of political writings to various periodicals, including
        theNew York Times and Village Voice.

"Sidelights"Larry Kramer is largely-known for his controversial works dealing
        with the difficulties homosexual males face in their everyday lives.
        Containing subject matter derived from his own experiences, his
        writings address such topics as the lifestyle of New York City's gay
        community and the tragic, fast-spreading epidemic of acquired immune
        deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, among homosexuals. Kramer's
        screenplayWomen in Love , his novel Faggots, and his stage plays such
        asThe Normal Heart have stirred strong reactions from audiences and
        critics whose adjectives describing Kramer's works range from
        "sensitive" and "intelligent," "seedy" and "grotesque," to "angry,"
        "gripping," and "forceful."

        Kramer's first work to confront the complexities of homosexuality is
        the 1969 Women in Love, a film based on D. H. Lawrence's 1921 novel of
        the same title. Some forty years after a film adaptation of the book
        was proposed but never fulfilled, Kramer obtained the rights to the
        novel and was urged by United Artists to enlist Ken Russell as the
        film's director. Critiquing the film for the New York Times, one
        reviewer observed that much of the film was taken directly from
        Lawrence's work: "Ken Russell, the director, and Larry Kramer, the
        screenwriter, seem almost to have used the novel as a screenplay." The
        critic praised this tactic, declaring that it "results in a very
        `literary' movie." Timothy M. Johnson, in Magill's Survey of Cinema,
        agreed, remarking that Russell and Kramer's "sensitive interpretation"
        is a "splendid cinematic equivalent of Lawrence's writing, and the
        necessary condensation of the book is well done. The result is a dense
        but not overburdened example of film art on many levels."

        Like the novel, the film depicts "an intensely romantic love story
        about four people and their curiously desperate struggles for sexual
        power," wrote Vincent Canby of the New York Times. In England around
        the time of World War I, two sisters, Ursula and Gudren Brangwen,
        develop relationships with Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich
        respectively. Rupert, noted Canby, seeks "`pure' relationships both
        with woman and man." He thus directs his conventional love towards
        Ursula while advocating the virtues and importance of spiritual
        intimacy between males to Gerald. Accordingly, the film reproduces a
        scene in the novel where Rupert and Gerald engage in a nude wrestling
        match, physically demonstrating their male compatibility. Rupert and
        Ursula eventually marry, and the film's focus switches to the
        tumultuous relationship of Gudren and Gerald. The two couples decide
        to take a ski vacation in the Alps, where Gudren proceeds to deride
        Gerald for his possessive--hence destructive--nature in love. She then
        purposely irritates him by sparking an affair with Loerke, a bisexual
        German artist. Tormented, angry, and jealous, Gerald attempts to
        strangle Gudren before he wanders off into the mountains and dies.
        "The film ends," Johnson, related "with Ursula and Rupert in their
        cottage in England discussing love: `You can't have two kinds of love.
        Why should you?' Ursula says. `It seems as if I can't,' Rupert
        responds. `Yet I wanted it.'"

        Kramer's Women in Love was well-received by critics. Judging the film
        "a loving, faithful, intelligent, visual representation" of the novel,
        Canby observed that "the movie. . . capture[s] a feeling of nature and
        of physical contact between people, and between people and nature,
        that is about as sensuous as anything you've probably ever seen in a
        film." He further praised the film for picking up on Lawrence's
        underlying theme of homosexual love: "Also faithful . . . is the
        feeling that the relationship between the two men, who though
        unfulfilled, is somehow cleaner, less messy, than the relationships of
        the men with their women." Canby proclaimed the wrestling scene
        between Gerald and Rupert "the movie's loveliest sequence--there is a
        sense of positive grace in the eroticism."

        Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in his review of Women in Love forVogue,
        however, disagreed on the mastery with which Kramer and Russell
        handled Lawrence's intentions. "This sharper homosexual emphasis . . .
        seems an obvious response to the preoccupations of our own time,"
        claimed the critic. He further noted that the film "can not be claimed
        as a success" but conceded that "it is a fascinating and intelligent
        try." Johnson was more enthusiastic about the film, affirming that it
        "is not only a masterpiece of visual stylization but also a fully
        realized dramatic narrative."

        Less subtle in its portrayal of homosexuality is Kramer's first
        novel,Faggots. Set in the 1970s, the book delineates the lifestyle of
        the male gay community on New York's Fire Island, often labeled as a
        haven for promiscuous sex and frequent drug use among its members.
        Specifically, the book follows the escapades of a forty-year-old
        homosexual, Fred Lemish. He regularly visits discotheques and
        bathhouses, witnessing much hedonistic behavior, while at the same
        time searching for some kind of love and stability in his life.
        Barbara G. Harrison in the Washington Post Book World explained that
        Lemish considers himself part of a privileged elite but is also
        looking for someone to blame for his "condition;" he, like the other
        "faggots" in the novel, is both narcissistic and self-loathing.

        Deeming Faggots an "extraordinary new novel," Samuel McCracken
        ofCommentary interpreted the work as a satire, "written like all good
        ones, from the inside." Many critics, however, were less favorable in
        their assessment of Kramer's novel. Martin Duberman in the New
        Republic reported that although the book was "announced as a searing
        indictment of the giddy Fire Island set" and is supposedly chiding
        gays for confusing promiscuity with liberation, Faggots is "foolish,
        even stupid" in that it merely exemplifies the lifestyle. He concluded
        that the book is a "plastic, trashy artifact of the worst aspects of
        [the] scene." Harrison found the book "revolting," noting that it's
        graphic descriptions leave "nothing to the imagination." She voiced
        the opinion of a number of reviewers who believed the book to be "the
        work of a cynic who has done the homosexual community an enormous
        disservice." Kramer, the critic added, "is in fact writing about a
        peculiarly ugly . . . subculture in which love does not exist--a
        culture that homosexuals have been at pains to say is not
        representative of homosexual life."

        Despite its poor reception initially, Faggots remained in print over
        the next decade, eventually becoming a best-seller. Upon its
        republication in 1987, the book was hailed as a work of historical
        importance, significant for its unsparingly honest portrayal of gay
        life. This candid depiction was, as Kramer explained to Richard
        Christiansen in the Chicago Tribune, the purpose behind writing the
        novel: "I never read a book that reflected homosexuality as I was
        living it. The novel became a personal odyssey for me." "I purposely
        made the chief characters in my book intelligent, educated, and
        affluent men who should be role-models for the rest of us," explained
        Kramer. "Instead they're cowardly and self-pitying persons who retreat
        into their own ghetto because they feel the world doesn't want them. .
        . . Most of these men have everything to live for, yet they spend much
        of their life saying, `Poor me! Nobody loves me! The world hates me!'
        It just seems that we should be angry at our own cowardice instead of
        the world's cruelty. We should be examining what we're doing and why
        we're doing it. We should be coming to terms with ourselves."'

        In his next work, the 1985 drama The Normal Heart, Kramer not only
        expresses anger about gays' inability to deal with their sexuality,
        but, as Frank Rich of the New York Times conveyed, "the playwright
        starts off angry, soon gets furious and then skyrockets into sheer
        rage." Through his work concerning the presently incurable disease,
        AIDS--a malady that destroys the body's natural immunity to infection
        and is prevalent among homosexual males--the author directs his rage
        at several sources. "What gets Mr. Kramer mad," stated Rich, "is his
        conviction that neither the hetero- nor homosexual community has fully
        met the ever-expanding crisis posed by [AIDS]. He accuses the
        Governmental, medical and press establishments of foot-dragging in
        combating the disease--especially in the early days of its outbreak,
        when much of the play is set--and he is even tougher on homosexual
        leaders who, in his view, were either too cowardly or too mesmerized
        by the ideology of sexual liberation to get the story out."

        The Normal Heart is one of the first stage productions to deal with
        AIDS. It relates the struggle of activist Ned Weeks, a homosexual who
        embarks on a campaign to arouse public concern for AIDS sufferers and
        to curb further spread of the disease. He reprimands his fellow gays
        for being unnecessarily promiscuous, and he develops an organization
        designed to help the victims of AIDS as well as to promote safe sex
        among gays. Abrasive and fanatical in his preaching, though, Weeks is
        expelled from the group. Soon thereafter, his lover dies from the
        disease. Emotionally motivated to investigate the causes of the
        harmful spread of AIDS, Weeks verbally lashes out at the New York
        Times for not taking advantage of their media power to alert the
        public of the disease when it was first documented; he accuses New
        York Mayor Ed Koch of being indifferent to the suffering of AIDS
        patients; and he scolds the gay community for not coming to terms with
        the disease--or their sexuality--and organizing politically to make
        the government accountable.

        The actions of the fictional Ned Weeks closely parallel those of
        Kramer, who in addition to ardently campaigning to control the spread
        of AIDS, was a founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Writing The
        Normal Heart as an autobiographical account, Kramer, moreover, wrote
        the drama as a message play. Samuel G. Freedman quoted the author in
        his Chicago Tribune critique: "I got involved in the AIDS mess early
        on--I lost two friends and someone I was in love with--and I knew it
        was the saddest thing I'd ever know. And it was obscenely difficult to
        get anyone to pay attention to AIDS. There's a line in the play in
        which the young man who's dying says, `There's not a good word to be
        said for anybody in this entire mess.' It seems to me that was what
        had to be said."

        Considered Kramer's most successful work, The Normal Heart has been
        staged worldwide and is generally considered a forceful and deeply
        felt political document; upon its release, Rich deemed it "the most
        outspoken play around." But "is it a good [play]?" asked Dan Sullivan
        in the Los Angeles Times. "No. It almost doesn't have time to be one,
        so intent is it on imparting its rage at the Establishment and in
        inspiring gays in the audience to stop playing victim--and to stop
        killing themselves." Because of the extensive scientific, political,
        and sociological information included in the drama, some reviewers
        found it exhausting and repetitive. Furthermore, "some of the author's
        specific accusations are questionable, and, needless to say, we often
        hear only one side of inflammatory debates," noted Rich. But "there
        are also occasions," he continued, "when the stage seethes with the
        conflict of impassioned, literally life-and-death argument." In his
        review of the play for theChicago Tribune, Christiansen added: "The
        anger . . . produces eloquence; the confrontations are truly dramatic;
        the battles produce light as well as heat. . . . There are many
        stirring moments in this play." Kramer's work was hailed not only for
        its intensity but for its timeliness in confronting a presently
        fast-spreading disease. Mel Gussow in the New York Times called the
        play a "rarity" for its "immediate and responsive stand on issues of
        great. . . consequence." Sullivan concluded: "As an AIDS documentary,
        [The Normal Heart] is. . . already something of a period piece, thank
        God: The causes of the disease have been more clearly pinpointed now."

        In The Destiny of Me, a sequel to The Normal Heart, Kramer takes his
        autobiographical protagonist, Ned Weeks, back to his childhood and
        teen years to explore Ned's difficult early years and his complex,
        troublesome relationship with his parents and siblings. The story is
        told in flashbacks from Ned's hospital room--Ned having developed
        full-blown AIDS and seeking experimental treatment to stay alive.
        While not as critically acclaimed or as popular as The Normal Heart,
        the play once again reflects Kramer's preoccupation with the tragedy
        of AIDS and the difficulty of growing up gay.

        In addition to his fictional works, Kramer is well known for his
        essays and columns devoted to the topic of AIDS. Many of these are
        collected inReports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS
        Activist. The work contains pieces previously published in periodicals
        such as The New York Times, The Village Voice, and the New York Native
        as well as letters and newly written essays "dealing with Kramer's own
        sexual odyssey, his feelings about the gay male community and the
        epidemic that he sees as a gay holocaust," explained Nation reviewer
        Gregory Kolovakos. Some critics viewed the collection unfavorably.
        Kolovakos, for instance, took issue with the author's "meanspirited
        and exclusionary" diatribes against those who disagree with him,
        remarking, "While Kramer quickly admits that he is not a good
        follower, not a good board member, he fails to understand that in a
        political process it is not enough to sputter and rage and
        occasionally threaten never to speak out again." While admitting
        Kramer's sometimes "infuriating" words, however, New Statesman 
        &Society reviewer Richard Canning commented, "His judgment may be
        questionable, his tone full of Hollywood self-regard. . . . But his
        collected polemics cannot fail to move."

        Kramer once told CA: "All of my concerns and writings now are devoted
        to fighting the AIDS epidemic, which has taken so many of my friends
        and acquaintances from me. Starting with The Normal Heart and
        continuing with Reports from the Holocaust--a collection of all my
        political writings that have appeared over the past ten years, mostly
        in the gay press around the world but also in the New York Times and
        the Village Voice--all of my energies are focused here. My new
        play,The Furniture of Home , is a companion play to The Normal Heart.
        I have already begun work on a very long novel that starts
        whereFaggots left off. The interesting thing about Faggots has been
        that, although it was excoriated in some quarters, it was also a
        best-seller and has remained in print continuously since its first
        publication in 1978; it is now considered an important book and still
        continues to sell well. This has, of course, been gratifying to me.
        It's not often in a writer's lifetime that the pendulum swings so
        markedly.

        "But with Faggots, my political journalism, and my writing about gay
        issues, I've discovered it's difficult not to say things that aren't
        considered controversial by someone. Even harder has been to learn to
        somehow find the tenacity to carry on saying what I want to say in the
        face of criticism and opposition. That's why the lesson I learned from
        the reception of Faggots was so important to me: the original anger
        turned into supportive acceptance. It's a good lesson for writers to
        learn: say what you must say and hope that the world will eventually
        come around to your way of thinking, but try not to be defeated while
        waiting for it to do so.

        "My play Just Say No is a farce about sexual hypocrisy in high
        places--about people who make the rules that they insist the rest of
        us live by, and then don't live by these rules themselves. It takes
        place in the capital city, Georgetown, of the mythical country of New
        Columbia. The leading characters, among others, are Mrs. Potentate,
        the wife of the Potentate in Chief, their gay son, Junior, and the gay
        Mayor of Appleberg, which is New Columbia's largest northeastern city.
        The play is by far the most controversial thing I have ever written; I
        have no idea if the play will or will not be a success, but it is
        going to attract attention."

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:BOOKS

        Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 42, Gale, 1987.

        Magill's Survey of Cinema, Volume VI, Salem Press, 1981.

        Mass, Lawrence D., ed., We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and
        Legacies of Larry Kramer, St. Martin's Press, 1997.

        PERIODICALS

        Advocate,  November 2, 1993; March 22, 1994; June 14, 1994; May 2,
        1995, p. 60.

        Chicago Tribune,  January 15, 1979; April 11, 1985; May 6, 1985.

        Commentary,  January, 1979.

        Daily News,  April 22, 1985.

        Los Angeles Times,  December 5, 1985; December 13, 1985; January 7,
        1990, p. 14.

        Nation,  May 1, 1989, p. 598.

        New Republic,  January 6, 1979.

        New Statesman &Society,  April 21, 1995, p. 39.

        New York Post,  May 4, 1985.

        New York Theater Critics' Review,  Vol. XLVI, No. 8.

        New York Times,  March 26, 1970; March 29, 1970; April 22, 1985; April
        28, 1985.

        New York Times Book Review,  April 2, 1989, p. 29.

        Rolling Stone,  March 9, 1990.

        Times (London), March 27, 1986.

        Village Voice,  September 11, 1990.

        Vogue,  March 1, 1970.

        Washington Post Book World,  December 17, 1978.*

Source:               Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 1999.

Source Database:     Contemporary Authors

PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000055833