Harvey Fierstein

Harvey Fierstein (born June 6, 1954, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) is an American comedian, author, and playwright who was best known as the author of The Torch Song Trilogy, which centres on gay families. He often spoke out about gay rights issues.

Fierstein was born into a strict Jewish family. He graduated from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, with a bachelor of fine arts degree (1973) and soon made a career in New York theatre and playwriting. Having already won a part at age 16 in Andy Warhol’s play Pork (1971; staged at La MaMa), Fierstein went on to perform in more than 60 productions, in which he often played roles in drag.

In the late 1970s Fierstein wrote a trilogy of plays (The International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First), eventually performed together as Torch Song Trilogy. Seen all at once on Broadway (1982), in a production starring the author himself, the trilogy proved to be a powerful, profoundly moving statement that took audiences into the then little-known world of gay families and their struggle for self-acceptance and love. After winning Tony Awards for acting and writing, Fierstein went on to appear in the 1988 screen version of Torch Song Trilogy with Anne Bancroft and Matthew Broderick. Fierstein’s Tony-winning book for the 1983 musical La Cage aux folles (adapted from Jean Poiret’s play) continued to move gay issues into the mainstream.

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In 2003 Fierstein elicited rave reviews on Broadway for his exuberant cross-dressing performance in the hit stage musical version of John Waters’s camp film Hairspray. For his role as teen heroine Tracy Turnblad’s doting mother, Edna, Fierstein won his fourth Tony Award. He later appeared in Broadway revivals of Fiddler on the Roof, in 2005–06, and La Cage aux folles, in 2011. In addition, he wrote the librettos for the musicals A Catered Affair (2007), in which he also starred; Newsies, the Musical (2011); and Kinky Boots (2012). All three works were based on films. Fierstein also wrote and produced Casa Valentina (2014), a play based on the true story of a group of heterosexual married men in the early 1960s who met on the weekends at a rundown resort in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where they could freely indulge in their shared desire to dress and act like women. He then wrote and starred in Bella Bella, which debuted in 2019. The monologue play was about U.S. politician Bella Abzug.

Beyond Broadway, gay rights activists welcomed Fierstein’s commentaries in the early 21st century on the public television documentary series In the Life. His other film credits include small roles in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Independence Day (1996). Fierstein also wrote the children’s book The Sissy Duckling (2002), a spin-off of his prizewinning animated made-for-TV film of the same name (1999). His memoir, I Was Better Last Night, was published in 2022.