Harvey Fierstein

Harvey Fierstein is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor born on June 6, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for writing and starring in Torch Song Trilogy and for writing the book of the musical La Cage aux Folles.

Fierstein studied painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and began performing in downtown Manhattan theatre and drag revues in the early 1970s, including a small role in Andy Warhol's only play, Pork. He turned to playwriting later in the decade, drawing on his experience as an openly gay man in New York for a sequence of one-act plays that he combined under the title Torch Song Trilogy.

The full trilogy opened off-Broadway in 1981 and transferred to Broadway in 1982, where it won the 1983 Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play. The following year he won a third Tony for the book of La Cage aux Folles, a musical adaptation of the French stage comedy with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. He later won a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Edna Turnblad in Hairspray in 2003 and a fifth Tony as a producer of Kinky Boots in 2013.

His film and television work includes a screen adaptation of Torch Song Trilogy, the comedy Mrs. Doubtfire, and recurring voice roles. He has continued to write plays and books for musicals into the 2020s and has been a long-standing public advocate for LGBT rights.

The name Harvey is from a Breton personal name Haerviu, composed of elements meaning battle and worthy, traditionally interpreted as battle worthy. He has used this masculine name throughout his theatrical career.