LK
Larry Kramer
American screenwriter, novelist, essayist, playwright
1935 – 2020aged 84
A playwright and activist who forced AIDS onto the American political agenda when institutions on all sides were content to ignore it. He co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1981 to provide services the government wasn't, then, frustrated by its caution, founded ACT UP in 1987, whose confrontational direct-action protests are widely credited with speeding the FDA's approval of AIDS treatments. His 1985 play The Normal Heart dramatized the crisis's early years; he was Oscar-nominated for his earlier screenplay for Women in Love.