Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer was an author, screenwriter, award-winning playwright, and passionate AIDS activist, whose work often dealt with issues relating to the LGBT community. Although he began his career as a Hollywood screenwriter, having earned an Oscar nomination for penning 1969's "Women in Love," by the late '70s Kramer started injecting his work with more personal themes and ideas. Having known he was homosexual since childhood, Kramer began devoting his life and work to drawing attention to the burgeoning AIDS crisis beginning with his highly-acclaimed 1985 play "The Normal Heart." Kramer followed the success of "The Normal Heart" with "Just Say No, A Play About a Farce" and "The Destiny of Me," both of which tackled similar themes. In 2014 Kramer adapted "The Normal Heart" to an HBO movie, directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Mark Ruffalo, Jim Parsons and Taylor Kitsch. Although it had been nearly 30 years since "The Normal Heart" first debuted on a New York stage, his gripping adaptation proved to be just as powerful, thus signaling that Larry Kramer was still one of the country's most influential writers of LGBT themes.