Larry Kramer, the pioneering New York AIDS activist who used pamphlets, novels, Broadway plays and ire to spread his lifesaving message, died Wednesday. He was 84.
His husband, David Webster, told the New York Times that Kramer, who had been HIV positive since 1988, had been suffering from pneumonia.
Although Kramer is thought of foremost as an activist, with his legacy honored by the 2012 documentary “How To Survive A Plague,” Kramer first stretched his writing muscles penning screenplays. His script for the movie “Women In Love,” starring Glenda Jackson, got him an Oscar nomination in 1969.
It was his 1978 novel “Faggots,” a critique of New York’s fun-forward gay community, that established the man as a controversial, highly-opinionated figure and an occasional pariah. Kramer’s righteous anger became his calling card, causing him to be ostracized, and celebrated many years later.
Kramer, who lived in Manhattan for decades, co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1981 to address what was then being called a “gay cancer.” He butted heads with the members, however, who didn’t react well to his brash tactics, and left the group in 1983.
A writer at heart, his activism began to take new forms.
In 1985, Kramer wrote the play “The Normal Heart,” a fictionalized retelling of his time spent with GMHC, which premiered at the Public Theater. It has since become a modern classic, and won the Tony Award for best revival of a play in 2011. His follow-up 1992 play “The Destiny of Me” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In 1987, he started the protest organization ACT UP, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, to end the AIDS pandemic. The group forcibly advocated for the sick, and paved the way for an eventual treatment.
Kramer was also famous for his feuds.
He lived in the same Washington Square apartment building as retired Mayor Ed Koch, who led the city during the height of the AIDS crisis. One day, while out walking his dog Molly, Kramer ran into Hizzoner.
“He was trying to pet my dog Molly and he started to tell me how beautiful it was,” Kramer told The New Yorker. “I yanked her away so hard she yelped, and I said, ‘Molly, you can’t talk to him. That is the man who killed all of Daddy’s friends.’”
Kramer had a more innocent tiff with Barbra Streisand, who had optioned “The Normal Heart” for film in 1986, but dragged her feet. Eventually, Ryan Murphy directed the movie for HBO.
“I will always regret not having the experience of working with you on something,” he emailed Streisand. “But I feel totally blessed that Ryan Murphy has come into my life to take your place.”
When The Post’s Michael Riedel obtained the email, he called up Kramer for comment.
“Overnight this is going in the press?”, the playwright asked. “This will make her mad. But she had every opportunity to make the movie.”
One early target became a great friend — Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country,” Fauci told the New Yorker in 2002. “And he helped change it for the better. When all the screaming and the histrionics are forgotten, that will remain.”
