Other Significant Screenwriters

Other significant screenwriters include Larry Kramer, Derek Jarman, Harvey Fierstein, Craig Lucas, Paul Rudnick, Kevin Williamson, and Alan Ball.

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Writer and AIDS-activist Larry Kramer crafted the screenplay for Women in Love (1969), based on the D. H. Lawrence novel. Although the film has an ostensibly heterosexual plot, a palpable is evident throughout the film, especially in the famous wrestling scene, which contains full-frontal male nudity.

British filmmaker and activist Derek Jarman, whose work reveals a fascination with gay history and gay representation, wrote many of his most acclaimed films, including Sebastiane (1975), Caravaggio (1986), Queer Edward II (1991), and Wittgenstein (1993). A painter and set designer as well as director and writer, Jarman's works are always visually interesting and politically provocative.

Harvey Fierstein, the playwright and actor, wrote the screen adaptation of his award-winning Broadway play Torch Song Trilogy (1988), which concerns a New York drag queen's search for love and respectability.

Fierstein also wrote the scripts for the made-for-television movie Tidy Endings (1988), about a man coming to terms with the death of his lover from AIDS; The Sissy Duckling (1999), an animated television cartoon about an effeminate duckling taunted by his schoolmates; and the segment "Amos and Andy," about a father's eventual acceptance of his son's marriage to another man, in the anthology film Common Ground (2000), which also contains segments written by the lesbian playwright Paula Vogel ("A Friend of Dorothy's") and the noted gay writer Terrence McNally ("M. Roberts").

Playwright Craig Lucas, who wrote the screenplay for Longtime Companions (1990), also wrote the screen adaptations of his plays Prelude to a Kiss (1992), a fantasy romance about a young woman who inexplicably exchanges personalities with an elderly man she kisses at her wedding reception, and Reckless (1995), a darkly comic tale about a woman on the run from her husband who has contracted to have her killed.

Lucas also wrote the script for The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002), an adaptation of Jane Smiley's novella The Age of Grief, about a dentist's mounting suspicions of his wife's infidelities, and has completed his first film as writer/director, the screen version of his play The Dying Gaul (2004), an examination of the relationship between a gay male writer, a bisexual film producer, and the producer's wife.

Playwright, humorist, and screenwriter Paul Rudnick's film scripts include such comedies as Sister Act (1992), under the pseudonym Joseph Howard; The Addams Family (uncredited, 1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), both based on the cartoons of Charles Addams; Jeffrey (1995), adapted from his own off-Broadway play; In & Out (1997), about a high school teacher inadvertently outed by one of his former students; Isn't She Great (2000), on the life and career of novelist Jacqueline Susann; Marci X (2003), set in the world of hip-hop and rap music; and The Stepford Wives (2004), a broad satire on suburban conformity based on the novel by Ira Levin.

Out-director Kevin Williamson has written the scripts for the popular teen horror movies Scream (1996) and Scream 2 (1997), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), The Faculty (1998), and both wrote and directed the comedy-thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999). Williamson is also the creator of the popular television series of teenage angst Dawson's Creek (1998 to 2003).

Alan Ball got his start writing television situation comedies, but went on to garner praise and several prestigious awards for his screenplay of American Beauty (1999), a darkly comic study of suburban despair. He is also the creator of the critically acclaimed television series Six Feet Under (2001), which prominently features several gay and lesbian characters.

Combining elements of incongruity, theatricality, and exaggeration, camp is a form of humor that helps homosexuals cope with a hostile environment.

Since cinema began, Hollywood has been fascinated with finding ways of representing homosexuality.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual film directors have been a vital creative presence in cinema since the medium's inception over one hundred years ago.

Independent films that aggressively assert homosexual identity and queer culture, the New Queer Cinema can be seen as the culmination of several developments in American cinema.

Innovative Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman creates films that are at once experimental and personal and that often feature lesbian content.

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's gay and transsexual themed films present absurd situations framed by the trappings of everyday life.

The poster boy of radical and militant queer cinema, Gregg Araki disdains the ghettoizing label of "gay filmmaker."

Lesbian filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood, made films that convey the varieties of women's experiences and desires and the tenacity of women's relationships with other women.

A leading contemporary American playwright, Jon Robin Baitz produces works that are both morally serious and politically conscious.

Award-winning screenwriter, director, and producer Alan Ball, whose work frequently features glbtq characters, has had great success in both film and television.

Writer-director-producer Greg Berlanti has had a prolific career in television, successfully incorporating glbtq characters and storylines into prime time shows.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has quickly established himself as both an accomplished filmmaker and a committed activist.

Christopher Bram's novels address homosexual issues in a variety of periods and locales.

Actor-writer-director Charles Busch has distinguished himself through his virtuouso performances of "grand dame" characters and through his writing of dramatic vehicles for these roles.

Truman Capote's fiction and autobiographical works helped establish what might be called the quintessential homosexual writing style of the 1950s and 1960s.

Award-winning French director, screenwriter, and actor Patrice Chéreau has earned international renown for his visionary, often controversial, productions of opera, theater, and film

Filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko makes movies whose narrative motor is sexual attraction.

Having earned critical acclaim for his work on Gods and Monsters (1998), Chicago (2002), and Kinsey (2004), screenwriter and film director William "Bill" Condon has become a leading American filmmaker.

Playwright Mart Crowley deserves honor for having blazed the trail for gay-themed theater with his 1969 groundbreaking play The Boys in the Band.

Indian playwright, screenwriter, dancer, director, and actor Mahesh Dattani is an important figure in South Asian gay culture by virtue of his recurrent depiction of queer characters.

Although he spent only two years in Hollywood before his untimely death, James Dean became an enduring icon of American film, one whose brooding non-conformity helped challenge rigid notions of masculinity.

A versatile character actor, nightclub singer, and international cult star who generally performed his stage show and movie roles in drag, Divine became famous through his appearances in John Waters' films.

A fiercely comic playwright, as well as actor and screenwriter, Christopher Durang often incorporates gay themes and characters in his plays.

Although Brian Epstein created the public image and oversaw the career of the world's most famous rock group, at the peak of his success he suffered acute anxiety that his homosexuality might be exposed.

Award-winning Harvey Fierstein is one of the finest gay male playwrights currently working in the American theater.

Heralded as the savior of men's fashion, openly gay designer Tom Ford has both tapped into and assisted the fundamental change in men's attitude towards their appearance; he has since become a film director.

Jean Genet's work has left a powerful legacy to post-modernity and remains a provocation to questions of gay identity.

Actress Sara Gilbert, who became a favorite with lesbian audiences for her portrayal of tomboy Darlene on the long-running television series Roseanne, came out publicly as a lesbian in 2004.

Canadian director John Greyson is internationally recognized as an avant-garde filmmaker and video artist whose work confronts issues related to homosexuality, gay rights, and AIDS activism.

Prolific French journalist and novelist Hervé Guibert achieved fame because of his last three books, which recounted in semi-fictionalized form his struggle with the HIV virus.

Multi-talented Sam Harris is best known as a singer and actor; since coming out publicly in 1999, he has lent his voice to the cause of glbtq rights.

Although playwright, screenwriter, and director Moss Hart achieved great commercial success and popular acclaim, he suffered from severe depression and other emotional problems that were intensified, and possibly caused, by intense anxiety concerning his sexual orientation.

Since his 1991 film Poison won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, innovative filmmaker Todd Haynes has emerged as the leading figure of the New Queer Cinema.

Playwright Albert Innaurato's plays are as remarkable for the marginalizing ethnic identity, sexual orientation, and body image of their characters as they are for the author's refusal to adopt politically correct attitudes.

Though closeted, Henry James had a number of intimate relations with young men, and his sexual orientation imbued his fiction.

In both his films and his writings, Derek Jarman's explicit project was to celebrate gay sexuality and imagine a place for it in English culture.

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb are the musical poets of the poymorphous perverse; their works glorify the creativity inherent in sexual ambivalence and celebrate unorthodox forms of political activism.

Indian writer Firdaus Kanga has explored the intersection of two kinds of marginality: that based on being a member of a sexual minority and that based on being a disabled person.

Award-winning writer and director Moisés Kaufman specializes in theatrical works that explore watershed moments in glbtq history, such as the Wilde scandal, the murder of Matthew Shepard, and the experience of East Berlin transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.

Best known for his work as a writer and producer for the hit television show Frasier, Joe Keenan is also the author of richly comic gay-themed novels.

The most important sex researcher of the twentieth century, Alfred C. Kinsey contributed groundbreaking studies of male and female sexual behavior in America.

Controversial playwright, novelist, and essayist Larry Kramer has been a pioneer in the gay political response to AIDS in America.

Best known as a screenwriter, Gavin Lambert was also a novelist and biographer who captured the essence of life in the film community in a perceptive and witty fashion.

Playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and director, Arthur Laurents brought an independent sensibility to some of the most important works of stage and screen in the post-World War II era.

For his time, D. H. Lawrence was a maverick in his open and adventurous discussion of all sexual issues and especially homosexuality, both male and female.

Comedian, writer, actor, and producer Carol Leifer never anticipated that after the age of forty she would find personal fulfillment by recognizing her lesbianism, becoming a mother, and standing up for glbtq rights.

The case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who gained notoriety for the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy in 1924, has since become a staple of popular culture, inspiring numerous books, films, and plays.

Liberace was for many the epitome of flamboyant camp, yet he was also a gay man who steadfastly refused to acknowledge publicly his sexual identity.

Craig Lucas, a leading contemporary American playwright, integrates high-spirited, kaleidoscopic storytelling with provocative explorations of love in all its varieties.

Texas-reared Terrence McNally, whose first play, And Things That Go Bump in the Night, was one of the great scandals of the 1964 New York season, emerged in the 1990s as America's most important gay playwright since Tennessee Williams.

Although actor Sal Mineo was twice nominated for an Academy Award, and enjoyed success as a stage director and recording artist, he is remembered chiefly for his performance in Rebel without a Cause.

While he had already achieved recognition as an actor, the multiple talents of performer, writer, and filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell came to wide public notice in 2001 with the release of his prize-winning film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Director and screenwriter Tommy O'Haver has drawn on his own experiences as a gay man in creating films and has also demonstrated his versatility by working on a variety of other cinematic projects.

Thanks to the critical and commercial success of most of his films, Turkish-born Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek has challenged the celluloid closet that silenced or marginalized queerness in Italian film.

One of the most important cultural figures to emerge from post-World War II Italy, Pier Paolo Pasolini was a versatile man-of-letters, but he was foremost a filmmaker.

In his personal life, American actor Anthony Perkins often seemed as tortured as the troubled characters he played on film, hiding--and perhaps despising--his true nature while desperately seeking happiness and "normality."

One of Germany's leading gay activists and chroniclers of queer life, filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim makes films intended to foster self-examination by gay people and to advance gay rights.

One of the most significant and influential American movie directors of the twentieth century, Nicholas Ray created characters and situations that continue to resonate with queer viewers.

Transsexual tennis player Renee Richards successfully sued the United States Tennis Association when it barred her from competing in the U.S. Women's Open, establishing an important precedent for the rights of transsexual athletes.

Because his writing stresses liberation, the French "boy-poet" Arthur Rimbaud, whose art is based solely on his individual creativity, is a progenitor of modern gay poetics.

Screenwriter and director Don Roos has won plaudits for films that feature gay and lesbian characters and that also give strong roles to women.

Out American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Paul Rudnick brings a gently subversive wit to all of his projects.

Though dealing forthrightly with lesbian and gay subjects, the novels and criticism of Jane Rule are deliberately nonpolitical in their commitment to diverse communities and a range of experiences.

Best known for his groundbreaking play Bent, iconoclastic playwright and screenwriter Martin Sherman has created an impressive body of work.

Playwright and screenwriter Del Shores explores the intersection of Southern culture and glbtq culture with empathy and humor; he has also been active in championing equal rights.

Twenty-year-old Brandon Teena was brutally murdered on December 31, 1993 on account of gender non-conformity.

German filmmaker Monika Treut consistently explores challenging and controversial issues surrounding minority sexual and gender identities.

Film director Rose Troche has helped to make lesbians more visible onscreen, not as women tortured by their sexuality, but as individuals for whom female homosexuality is comfortable and, indeed, normal.

One of the most idiosyncratic talents to have emerged from the independent cinema over the past decade and a half, Gus Van Sant is not only matter-of-fact about his sexual orientation, but in his work he also represents homosexuality matter-of-factly.

The poetry of Paul Verlaine celebrates both heterosexual and homosexual activity, including lesbian relationships.

The multifaceted Gore Vidal is important in the gay literary heritage because of the straightforwardness with which he pursued gay themes and included gay characters in his work.

The arc of the film career of Luchino Visconti, the most contradictory and varied of the major Italian filmmakers, mirrors his increasing openness about his homosexuality.

In her work, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel has tackled difficult topics, including AIDS, incest, and prostitution.

A director, writer, producer, and photographer, John Waters became well known in the early 1970s through his filmic collaboration with actor--and drag queen--Divine.

Director James Whale is best remembered for his stylish horror films and for being one of the few openly gay Hollywood figures of the 1930s.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.

Screenwriter-producer-director Kevin Williamson is best known as the writer of clever, self-referential horror films and as the creator of the groundbreaking television series Dawson's Creek.

Conflicted over his own sexuality, Tennessee Williams wrote directly about homosexuality only in his short stories, his poetry, and his late plays.

The works of award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and librettist Doug Wright often focus on the unconventional lives of society\'s outsiders.

Filmmaker Alice Wu broke ground with her first feature-length motion picture, Saving Face (2004), a multi-generational portrait of Chinese-American women who transgress traditional sexual taboos.