Eleven Gay Historical Figures Worthy of the "Milk" Treatment

Sylvester

Who he was: The outrageous and dragalicious diva launched his career singing Bessie Smith songs as part of San Francisco’s legendary Cockettes, but he’s best known for disco classics like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Do You Wanna Funk.” Sylvester marched to his own drum in a most determined fashion — when record label executives talked about his need to butch up his image, Sylvester would show up to meetings in full drag.

Potential film plot points: His outrageous performances in the trippy San Francisco of the late ’60s and 70s . . . Sylvester’s meeting with collaborator Patrick Cowley, the synthesizer wiz who helped create the singer’s definitive sound . . . His 1985 meeting with Aretha Franklin, contributing back-up vocals to her Who’s Zoomin’ Who? album . . . The singer’s tragic death from AIDS complications in 1988 at the age of 40.

Dream director: Mark Christopher, getting a second chance to direct the definitive disco movie after Harvey Weinstein slashed his 54 (1998) to ribbons.

Dream actor: Jennifer Hudson (proving her acting chops with an opposite gender role)

Harveys: 3.5. The seventies are big right now and Sylvester's music holds up suprisingly well.

Larry Kramer

Who he is: Every movement needs a voice of anger and righteousness, and when the AIDS pandemic hit, the gay community was lucky to have Kramer, whose editorials (collected in Reports from the Holocaust) and plays (particularly The Normal Heart) demanded that the government take action and that gay men take responsibility for their health and their very lives. A fascinating author and a rabble-rouser in the best sense, Kramer continues to be a vital and often infuriating presence in the culture.

Potential film plot points: Kramer segues from being an executive at United Artists to becoming an acclaimed screenwriter with his Oscar-nominated adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love . . . Becoming the subject of gay acrimony (not for the last time) upon the publication of his satirical novel Faggots . . . Kramer takes the huge paycheck he got for writing the famously awful musical remake of Lost Horizon and applies himself to playwriting and then activism ... Co-founding — and then being kicked out of — Gay Men’s Health Crisis . . . Founding ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power . . . Battling Barbra Streisand over the never-produced screen adaptation of The Normal Heart ... Getting a liver transplant in his late 60s and continuing to rage against societal injustice and the apathy of the gay community.