Larry Kramer: 'Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite'

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:28pm

Larry Kramer’s anger at Barbra Streisand for acquiring the film rights to his play The Normal Heart but never making a movie is well known and surfaced again this week when Streisand issued a statement applauding the overturning of Proposition 8.

In a scathing post on the actup.org website, Kramer let loose on the Oscar-Grammy-Emmy winning star: “Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite. If she had made my play about aids, The Normal Heart, in 1976, when she first acquired the rights, only to sit on them for a full ten years without filming it, she could have done something for gay rights when we were really in the sewer of death.

But no, she chose to go off and make such vitally important and classic movies as Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces.

Barbra Streisand cares about gay rights as much as I care about spending a zillion dollars decorating a colony of houses in Malibu. As the mother of a son who is not only gay but hiv positive, she should be ashamed of herself.

Fortunately and at last, an exciting movie version is now being prepared by openly gay director-producer Ryan Murphy to star Mark Ruffalo. I hope it will prove that the best thing that happened for The Normal Heart is that Barbra Streisand didn’t make it. I think it is important for all her many gay fans around the world, which certainly had once included me, to know the above.”


So the movie version of his play would have been the answer to the AIDS crisis? Larry Kramer needs to get over himself just a little bit. Hasn't Streisand been a longtime financial supporter of The Trevor Project? This is a good way to get publicity for the upcoming Normal Heart movie, I guess.

Your ugly is showing, Larry

Updated On: 8/6/10 at 03:28 PM

[Tag]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:34pm

Her son has HIV?

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:36pm

I assume that is supposed to be 1986 and not 1976 ...

And, thanks for revealing private medical info about her son. It shows a lot of class.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:41pm

I think Jason Gould being HIV positive has sort of been an open secret for a long time. Or a persistent rumor.

He's been fuming about her not making the movie for years.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:41pm

She has kids? News to me...

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:49pm

I love NUTS. In fact, I'm going to watch it now.

[nealb1]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 3:55pm

Since when is Barbra in charge of making his plays, or anyone else's, into movies? If he's so important, why can't he do it himself?

Yes, she wanted to do a film version of "The Normal Heart" for many years, but, for whatever reason - it didn't happen. That happens in Hollywood - projects come and go due to financing, timing, other committments from actors/writers/producers/directors, etc.

How low is he to mention Barbra's son's PRIVATE life. That's private - certainly none of his business. Her son's health has absolutely nothing to do with the making of the film.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:01pm

To me, Larry Kramer has always come across as angry and bitter.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:03pm

Instead, Barbra should film "The Night Larry Kramer Dissed Me."

[Gothampc]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:26pm

He should be glad she didn't make it. That play does not have a good shelf life. It's not aged well.

Plus who wants to see an AIDS play about a neurotic Jewish female singer (cause you know she would have had the script rewritten to make the story about her)?

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:33pm

I think he was totally out of line in mentioning Jason's HIV status. From what I understand, he never publicly announced that he was positive. I remember hearing somewhere that she became very protective of him when she found out.

I am not the biggest fan of hers. I have a few of her albums. I lost a lot of respect for her when she blasted the ste of Colorado and called for a boycott over Amendment 2 when she had no clue what was going on here in the state.

[KneelBeeWon]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:33pm

Why would Barbra be in charge of making his movies? Just because she bought the film rights? That makes no sense.

If he really wanted a movie made he should have bought the rights back and made the movie himself. Or even better yet, if he really cares about people with AIDS he should be out there making a cure instead of writing stupid plays that nobody wants to make into movies.

He makes it sound like if Barbra had made his movie the issue of AIDS would have risen in the public's awareness and her own son might have been more careful. I doubt Jason is even hiv positive. Can he prove it? Just because it might have been written about in the papers doesn't make it true.

Kramer is a liar and Barbra hater. He is just jealous cause no movie of his dumb plays will ever be as good the glory that is HELLO, DOLLY - the movie.



Updated On: 8/6/10 at 04:33 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:34pm

Oh, Jesus F*CKing Christ.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:38pm

Boy what crappy sock puppets these days! How I long for the old view!

[Roscoe]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 4:40pm

I beg to differ, Goth. There was a brilliant revival of the play within the last few years, with Raul Esparza. It has held up extremely well.

I'm not sure how I feel about Barbra having the film rights. I'm not sure how much we're really missing by not having her film version of the play. If she did to NORMAL HEART what she did to PRINCE OF TIDES and the unspeakable ego trip MIRROR HAS TWO FACES, we may well have dodged a catastrophe of SHOWGIRLS proportions.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 5:13pm

"I beg to differ, Goth. There was a brilliant revival of the play within the last few years, with Raul Esparza. It has held up extremely well."

Let's see:

The Normal Heart, never made into a movie.

Angels in America, movie with Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Al Pacino, et al

As Is, tv movie starring Colleen Dewhurst

Let's face it, out of the AIDS genre, nobody was interested in making The Normal Heart.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 5:23pm

Well, the thing is, Larry is just not a very good writer. But Yale did what it often does with people of decidedly average ability: it gave him enormous self confidence (see also: George W. Bush).

If you're like me, and you've ever been trapped in a room as Larry read an excerpt from what he claimed to be his "In Search of Lost Time," ("The American People: A History") you'd know why that tome has also never seen the light of day, and Ms. Streisand had nothing to do with that.

Larry's really just Arthur Laurents with way less talent.

[DAME]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 5:24pm

He also is a bit of a bitter ass h*ole.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 5:27pm

A bit? Walk this way and I'll seat you in the Understatement Section.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 5:52pm

Streisand isn't "in charge" of making his movies, but she bought the rights to this play for a ten-year period and did nothing with it.

She basically "held it hostage" for ten years trying to decide what to do, which was her legal right. I know Evita, Fences, and Dreamgirls suffered similar fates. Eddie Murphy (of all people) bought the rights to Fences back in 1986, hoping to play the son. That's how long ago he optioned it.

Still, Kramer is way out of line with his remarks here. If he didn't want his play stuck potentially on a shelf for 10-years, he should have signed a different contract. Although a 10-year option is pretty standard.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 6:13pm

Let's see, what possible things might he have complained about had the picture been made? Hell, even if HE makes the picture:

There are no gay actors who would audition for the movie

The gay actors who auditioned for the movie just weren't good enough

There are no straight actors who would audition for the movie, it was just too much of a career risk though, to a man, each said what a brave and brilliant script it was and it just made no sense since everybody knows playing gay = Oscar

A closeted lesbian wanted to direct it and play the doctor in the wheelchair: A CLOSETED LESBIAN

No studio would touch the movie because they said "AIDS is over" well AIDS IS NOT OVER

The following list of rich closeted gay men with HIV REFUSED TO HELP FINANCE THE PICTURE (insert names here)

[nealb1]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 6:30pm

Best12bars, you are absolutely right. Nothing was done during that 10 year period. Many rumors were that Larry wanted too much money. Who knows?
Updated On: 8/6/10 at 06:30 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 6:38pm

Larry's really just Arthur Laurents with way less talent.

They were BFFs at one time. The Larry said "something unforgivable" to Arthur, who, well, never forgave him.

[KneelBeeWon]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 7:55pm

I have a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend that heard the rumor that Larry wanted too much money.

So it is all his fault that Barbra didn't make the movie after she bought the rights to the film. It is Kramer's greed that stopped the movie from happening even though he sold the rights to Barbra.

Barbra is the victim here.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 8/6/10 at 8:26pm

He wanted too much money for what? She already had the rights to the film.