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Harvey Fierstein
One of America's first few openly gay major celebrities, actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein combined a semi-experimental, in-your-face approach with the nostalgia, the heart-tugging showmanship, and the conventional formats of the tearjerker, the drag revue, and the sitcom. In the process, he proved to be a key figure in promoting the idea that contemporary LGBT life could be a viable subject matter for contemporary drama distributed through fairly widespread venues.