Harvey Fierstein: History of Transvestites in the Catskills Inspiring "Casa Valentina" 

When I grew up there was no gay people in the media to look up to until Harvey came! I was 16 when I heard from him and 21 when I saw TST! What an amazing person. He makes me proud of being gay.

We will never have another genius like Harvey Fierstein....he is incredibly talented and I love everything he has touched.

Kudos to Harvey..this so entertaining and educational. I keep forgetting how multi-talented and fluid he is.....and that Voice!!! I could listen to him talk,read,hum...just anything. You know how you love a person so much...where you just stare...or just look at their mouths as they talk. I'm not a theater buff....so my first encounter with him is in the movie..Torch song! This interview is so....enlightening... on many levels. Thanks...

I lived in London back in the 80-90s and went out in drag a few times. One nigh with 3 friends we went to a working mans club in a really rough eastend area. It was full of straight guys many with wifes or girlfriends all dressed up and loving life. It was a real eye opener, what a great group of people. They didnt mind 4 drag queens crashing their night.great video 2x👍

Great Interview with the eloquent entertaining honest literary sparkling humane Harvey. Im lucky enough to be playing Albert "Bessie" this week in Casa Valentina In the Uk. Fantastic writing in a moving powerful and funny play. The audiences adore it . There are moments of unbearable emotion and tragedy when you can hear a pin drop. The conversations in the heatre bar at the interval are around liberty , respect , accepting difference and living with the male and female in all of us. This is enrated by the writing of these fully rounded characters and Harveys amazing ability to twist and turn illusion and reality and to deal with the darker side of predjudice. An honour to say these lines. Thank you Mr Fierstein you are a genius.

I am such of fan of Harvey Thank you for sharing your great talent.

i love Harvey...i watch Torch song at least 2 times a yr....i love the movie ...i saw it back in The 80s and i relate To it Now and i relate To it then.... ive been thr alot of hard times in my life and thé movie always makes me feel better... l love you Harvey...i would love To tell m'y life story ....ox .

I will always give Harvey my serious attention. He expresses human experience so beautifully. Torch Song Trilogy is still one of my all-time favorite movie.

Few people are more universally beloved than Harvey Fierstein and the legacy he'll leave behind will be invaluable. The risks he took in the early 1980's with 'Torch Song Trilogy," "La Cage Aux Folles" and being an openly gay man made a profound impact on making homosexuality more palatable to mainstream audiences. Why? Because he is so intelligence, charm, and talents are seemingly limitless. Like RuPaul years after him, his larger-than-life personality was easy to fall in love with. But unlike RuPaul, who rose to unprecedented fame as a Disney-fied drag queen that went to great lengths to ensure there was nothing threatening about her, Harvey accomplished all of this without scrubbing himself of everything controversial. From the start, he didn't flinch from showing the realities of gay life to his audiences, from cruising back rooms of gay bars to the loss of a lover to a gay bashing. His brief screen time in "Mrs. Doubtfire" endeared middle America to the "gay brother/uncle" and "Hairspray" turned him into one of the most beloved mothers in the history of Broadway. For perhaps the best evidence of Harvey's impact in the entertainment industry and far beyond, take the time to seek out early interviews with him. A conversation with Barbara Walters is disarming in how it illustrates just how different life and the public's perception of "homosexuals" were only three decades ago. And it's a perfect testament to a magnificent life and why Fierstein deserves even more accolades than he's been given. He's more than earned his place in American history.

He’s a wonderful marvelous man just love him and his writing and plays. A treasure.

Came across this in looking for Catskill history..... a wonderful distraction from that. HF is full of blunt, compassionate wisdom, sometimes his opinion shocks me a bit, and then I know it's time to take a second look at my own idea.

Awesome interview, this Harvey really gets it....... cant wait to see the play

Harvey is brilliant and is a national treasure. His insights, stories and descriptions are spellbinding!

He may be stereotyped by Hollywood as gay character but my gosh, what wonderful charismatic gay characters he always represents! God bless you Harvey and your community (coming from a hetrosexual man)

i saw him buying antiques at a flea market....tough cookie !

Wish I could spend some time with Harvey. He is so awesome and intelligent!!!!

I am amazed. There is nothing tha Harvey is saying that i find strange. He is just brilliant.

What a BLISS!! Thanks a lot!

he shows that he has really thought about it.

Love everything spoken from Harvey F wonderful and so funny

Years ago and NOW it shows up in my feed which frustrates me as I learn things and want to ask questions and because I don’t know how to operate this ‘computer/phone’ I don’t know where to go or what to look for! Damn

“Buy your friends an Easter egg for Christmas!”

I love Harvey.

Funny. Smart. Classy.

I LOVE YOU HARVEY!!!!

FAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabulos Harvey. Love you.

"Who is that asshole... Johnny Weir." LOL

i so envy him..... a straight dude could never get away with 10% of what Harvey says.

Ed Wood?

He should not have outed that teacher

his name is very simliar to harvey weinstein

Fierstein, I love you, but it's because we are such an f'd up mess that we need God and the churches. And who are you to "judge" whether or not those church people are happy, or that those "planned" lives they're living weren't planned by themselves?

I dont agree on being gay, but my God Harvey is an inspiration to EVERYONE despite views