Larry Kramer Dead - 'Normal Heart' Playwright & AIDS Activist Dies at 84

Larry Kramer, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, playwright, author, gay rights and AIDS activist who wrote Broadway’s The Normal Heart, has tragically passed away at the age of 84.

He passed away on Wednesday (May 27) in Manhattan of pneumonia, his husband David Webster confirmed to the New York Times.

Larry was best known for The Normal Heart, which chronicled 1981-84 during the AIDS crisis. In 2011, the Normal Heart won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. In 2013, he won a special Tony Award for his contribution to humanitarian causes. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for Women in Love in 1970.

He also founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987 to fight against AIDS. He himself contracted HIV in the late 1980s.

RIP.