American writer and activist Larry Kramer was BOTD in 1935. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut to a middle-class Jewish family, he was raised in Maryland and Washington, D.C. He studied at Yale University, attempting suicide in his first semester over anxieties about his homosexuality, though completing his degree with the help of a psychoanalyst. After serving in the US Army Reserves, he worked in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency, moving to Columbia Pictures as a copywriter. Relocating to Columbia’s London office in 1961, he was a production assistant on films including David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. He rose to fame with his screenplay for Ken Russell‘s 1969 film of D. H. Lawrence‘s novel Women in Love, memorably featuring a nude wrestling match between its stars Alan Bates and Oliver Reed. A critical and commercial success, he earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay, with Glenda Jackson winning for her (also frequently nude) lead performance. His screenplay for the 1973 musical remake of Lost Horizon was poorly received, though his Hollywood earnings allowed him to write full-time. Returning to New York, he spent several years unsuccessfully writing plays. Switching to fiction, he had a controversial success with his 1978 novel Faggots, a ruthless satire of the excesses of 1970s gay New York. His graphic descriptions of drug-taking, orgies and S&M sex managed to offend both conservatives and liberal-minded gays, who condemned Kramer for betraying his own community. In 1981, he became a central figure in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, co-founding the Gay Men’s Health Crisis to support AIDS patients, and angrily protesting the Reagan administration’s failure to resource healthcare and research. His 1985 play The Normal Heart dramatised the early days of AIDS activism and his expulsion from the GMHC. In 1987 he co-founded AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), leading a series of public protests against the prohibitive cost of AIDS treatment and targeting the Catholic Church and other conservative organisations. He went public with his own HIV diagnosis in 1988. His other writings include the play The Destiny of Me and the two-volume historical study The American People, in which he claimed that politicians George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln and Herbert Hoover were gay or bisexual. Kramer lived to see a more tolerant era for homosexuality in America, including a well-received 2014 television film of The Normal Heart, directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. He remained a controversial and divisive figure, credited with helping change public health policy and popular opinion towards HIV/AIDS, but criticised for his aggressive take-no-prisoners style, exclusion of female colleagues and his condemnation of gay sexual promiscuity. He lived with his partner David Webster from 1991 until his death in 2020, aged 84.