Larry Kramer, playwright and AIDS activist, dead at 84

Larry Kramer, the famed playwright and AIDS activist, has died. He was 84.

Kramer died on Wednesday in Manhattan, according to The New York Times. Kramer's husband, David Webster, told The Times that he died of pneumonia.

Kramer, who wrote "The Normal Heart," was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for “Women in Love,” the 1969 adaptation of a D.H. Lawrence novel. It starred Glenda Jackson, who won her first Oscar for her performance.

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In addition, he also wrote the 1972 screenplay “Lost Horizon”; a novel, “Faggots”; and the plays “Sissies’ Scrapbook,” “The Furniture of Home,” “Just Say No” and “The Destiny of Me,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993.

But for many years he was best known for his public fight to secure medical treatment, acceptance and civil rights for people with AIDS.

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Tributes came pouring in for Kramer following the news. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote: "Don’t know a soul who saw or read The Normal Heart and came away unmoved, unchanged. What an extraordinary writer, what a life. Thank you, Larry Kramer."

Mark Ruffalo wrote: "Rest in Power, King! #LarryKramer."

Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted: "Larry Kramer was an American original who got loud, acted up, and saved many LGBTQ lives. His unrelenting efforts won’t be forgotten and should be held up as an example of a timeless truth: 'the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.'"

In a statement obtained by The Associated Press, Elton John said: "We have lost a giant of a man who stood up for gay rights like a warrior. His anger was needed at a time when gay men’s deaths to AIDS were being ignored by the American government."

In 1981, when AIDS had not yet acquired its name and only a few dozen people had been diagnosed with it, Kramer and a group of his friends in New York City founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis, one of the first groups in the country to address the epidemic.

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Kramer lost his lover to AIDS in 1984 and was himself infected with the virus. He also suffered from hepatitis B and received a liver transplant in 2001 because the virus had caused liver failure.

After leaving GMHC, Kramer wrote “The Normal Heart" and in 1987, he also founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, which he later relinquished a leadership role.

In 2014, Kramer's "The Normal Heart" was turned into a TV film for HBO starring Mark Ruffalo, Jonathan Groff, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Joe Mantello and Julia Roberts. It won the Emmy for best movie with Kramer in attendance.

One of his last projects was the massive two-volume “The American People,” which chronicled the history of gay people in America and took decades to write.

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“I just think it’s so important that we know our history — the history of how badly we’re treated and how hard we have to fight to get what we deserve, which is equality,” he previously told The Associated Press.

At the 2013 Tonys, he was honored with the Isabelle Stevenson Award, given to a member of the theater community for philanthropic or civic efforts.

At the time of his death, Kramer was working on a play called “An Army of Lovers,” which he was updating to include the pandemic.

The Associated Press contributed to this report