44 | JUNE 4 • 2020 

L

arry Kramer, one of the 
most important figures 
in the history of LGBTQ 
activism and a writer, died May 
27, 2020.
Kramer, who wrote the 
semi-autobiographical play A 
Normal Heart, died in Manhattan 
of pneumonia, his husband, 
David Webster, confirmed to the 
New York Times. He was 84.
He had undergone a liver 
transplant after contracting liver 
disease and was infected with 
HIV
, the virus that can turn into 
AIDS.
Kramer was a co-founder of 
the Gay Men’
s Health Crisis, now 
one of the biggest AIDS service 
organizations in the world, but 
was forced out because of his 

outspokenness and went on to 
found the AIDS Coalition to 
Unleash Power, or ACT UP
, a 
more militant group that took 
to the streets to protest for more 
AIDS drugs research and an end 
to discrimination against gay men 
and lesbians.
His worldview was shaped by 
his Jewish identity, the Jewish 
Telegraphic Agency wrote in 
2016.
“In a way, like a lot of Jewish 
men of Larry’
s generation, the 
Holocaust is a defining historical 
moment, and what happened in 
the early 1980s with AIDS felt, 
and was, in fact, holocaustal to 
Larry,
” Tony Kushner said in 
2005.
Kramer and Dr. Anthony 

Fauci, director of the National 
Institute of Allergy and Infectious 
Diseases, crossed paths as the 
AIDS crisis continued to kill gay 
men, with Kramer calling him 
a killer. Fauci told the New York 
Times that Kramer spurred him 
to break through the slow federal 
bureaucracy that held up AIDS 
research. They later became 
friends, according to the report.
In March, Kramer told a Times
reporter that he emailed Fauci 
to tell him he was sorry for how 
he is being treated as the public 
face of the efforts to combat the 
coronavirus.
Kramer wrote books, plays 

and screenplays, many with gay 
themes and some autobiographi-
cal. He was a Pulitzer Prize final-
ist for his play The Destiny of Me, 
which picks up where The Normal 
Heart leaves off. His book, Reports 
for the Holocaust: The Making of an 
AIDS Activist, is a collection of 
his essays on AIDS activism and 
LGBT civil rights.
In the weeks before his death, 
Kramer had started to write a 
play in response to the COVID-
19 outbreak.
He was a Yale University grad-
uate and enlisted in the Army. 
He began working for Columbia 
Pictures in the early 1960s 

Soul
of blessed memory

Prominent AIDS Activist 
Larry Kramer Dies at 84

MARCY OSTER JTA

CATHERINE MCGANN/GETTY IMAGES

American writer and 
gay rights activist Larry 
Kramer poses for a 
portrait at the open door 
of his New York City 
apartment, April 1993. 

