Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift national health policy in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Wednesday morning May 27 2020 in Manhattan. He was 84. His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia. Mr. Kramer had weathered illness for much of his adult life. Among other things he had been infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, contracted liver disease and underwent a successful liver transplant. An author, essayist and playwright — notably hailed for his autobiographical 1985 play, “The Normal Heart” — Mr. Kramer had feet in both the world of letters and the public sphere. In 1981 he was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization for H.I.V.-positive people, though his fellow directors effectively kicked him out a year later for his aggressive approach. He was then a founder of a more militant group, Act Up (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), whose street actions demanding a speedup in AIDS drugs research and an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians severely disrupted the operations of government offices, Wall Street and the Roman Catholic hierarchy. His breakthrough as a writer came with a screen adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love,” for which he had obtained the film rights with $4,200 of his own money. He also produced the film, which was a box-office hit when it was released in 1969. Four years later, Mr. Kramer wrote the screenplay for the ill-fated musical remake of the classic 1937 film “Lost Horizon.” Laurence David Kramer was born on June 25, 1935, in Bridgeport, Conn., the second son of George and Rea (Wishengrad) Kramer. George Kramer had earned undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University but was unable to make a decent living during the Depression. Rea Kramer supported the family by working in a shoe store and teaching English to immigrants. In 1941, George got a government job in Washington, and the family moved. His protective older brother, Arthur, was the scholar-athlete of the family, on his way to becoming a prominent lawyer. Larry read the Hollywood gossip columns. They shared an abiding affection until Arthur’s death in 2008. Arthur gave $1 million to Yale in 2001 to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, and his law firm became active in pro bono work for causes like same-sex marriage. In 1953, Mr. Kramer, like his father and brother before him, enrolled at Yale. He studied English literature, tried to commit suicide once and had a liberating affair with a male professor. After graduating in 1957 and serving a tour in the Army, he worked in New York, first for the William Morris Agency and then for Columbia Pictures. In 1961, Columbia sent him to London, where he worked as production executive on “Dr. Strangelove” and “Lawrence of Arabia.” He returned to the United States in 1972.