For the 2011 Broadway premiere of the play "The Normal Heart", Playwright Larry Kramer wrote a flyer called "Please Know" (which he often handed out to exiting audience members himself). "Please Know" explained that most of the events and characters in the play were based on real events, and people. Some of the real people he said his characters were based on included: Paul Popham, one of the founders of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (the basis for Bruce); Dr. Linda Laubenstein, an early AIDS researcher (the basis for Emma); and Rodger McFarlane, a gay rights activist and the creator of the crisis hotline that was the precursor to the GMHC (the basis for Tommy). Like McFarlane, Tommy is a Southerner (McFarlane was born and raised in South Alabama). Like Laubenstein, Emma uses a wheelchair (Laubenstein was left paraplegic after a childhood bout with polio). Although this was not mentioned in Kramer's handout, the character of Felix also had a real-life inspiration: John Duka, who, during the early 1980s, wrote a column in the New York Times's Thursday Style section titled "Notes on Fashion". Duka had been openly gay while working at New York Magazine, but upon his move to the Times in 1980, he felt he needed to re-closet himself because of the Times' then-more-conservative attitudes. Also like Felix, he also had a brief marriage to a woman. The character of Ned is based on Kramer himself.

Film

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