Harvey Fierstein's Memoir Offers a Glimpse Into the American Icon's Life

Tony Award-winning actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein has long been an American cultural icon. The 70 year old has graced the stage as Edna Turnblad in the Broadway production of Hairspray and Albin in the 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles. He's also appeared in Blockbuster films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Independence Day and has lent his voice to the character of Yao in Disney's Mulan.

In his memoir, I Was Better Last Night, Fierstein looks back at his upbringing in 1950s Brooklyn and his place in the downtown New York City scene. He also chronicles his storied life as an award-winning actor, playwright, and gay-rights activist, who has bumped elbows with everyone from pop culture titans like Andy Warhol and Madonna to LGBTQ rights icon Marsha P. Johnson. Fierstein will attend this year's Miami Book Fair alongside his editor, Peter Gethers, to discuss his book and the spectacular life he's led so far.

With his extensive background as an activist, Fierstein offers simple yet wise instructions for Florida's LGBTQ rights activists, who in the past six months have seen the passage of HB 1557 — also known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill — and formal complaints filed by Gov. Ron DeSantis against Wynwood drag brunch spot R House, among other partisan attacks by lawmakers.

"Advice is really easy to give and hard to take: You have to live really loud. Tell people they're wrong," Fierstein tells New Times.

In his book, Fierstein gives vivid accounts of living in New York City during the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which inspired him to join activist groups such as the Gay Activist Alliance and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR).

He has no reservations about his opinion of Florida's governor.

"DeSantis is just a windbag, but he comes off as a know-it-all, and people love that," Fierstein says. "It's a terrible thing, but people like stupid people because they like to feel superior."

Fierstein's 1983 musical based on a French play by Jean Poiret, La Cage aux Folles, won six Tony Awards. The play centers around a gay nightclub owner and his drag queen partner, whose son invites his fiancée's ultra-conservative parents over for dinner. If the plot sounds familiar, it's because it was adapted to the screen in the 1996 film The Birdcage starring Robin Williams, which takes place at a fictional drag bar in Miami Beach.

The Magic City makes an early appearance in Fierstein's book, where he recounts a story his mother told him as a child about his father's greedy stepmother. She hoards his grandfather's wealth after his death and moves to Biscayne Bay, where she meets an unfortunate fate. Apart from this early story, he recalls Miami being the subject of many household conversations throughout his childhood.

"I have photographs somewhere of my grandmother and uncle going down to Miami every winter," Fierstein says.

While his grandmother and uncle later moved to California ("There was no Disney World yet"), Fierstein dubs the connection between New Yorkers and Florida the "Antique Trail."

"You come to New York, and you make your fortune, you buy all this fancy shit, and then you retire, and you take it to Florida," he theorizes. "You croak. They sell it off in Florida at auction; it gets sent back to New York and into stores again."

Fierstein also explains the origin of his unmistakable raspy voice in his book, which resulted from damage to his vocal cords.

Most widely recognized as Yao, a character in the animated Disney film Mulan — and more recently featured in the animated Netflix sitcom Big Mouth — Fierstein says his voice helped distinguish him from other actors, so he quickly came to accept it.

"Anything that makes you identifiable usually works for you as an actor," he says, "A lot of actors just want to completely disappear into a character, but you and I both know, [for example], that's Meryl Streep, I don't care how much makeup you put on her."

An Evening with Harvey Fierstein and Peter Gethers. 8 p.m. Wednesday, November 16, Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus Auditorium (Building 1, Second Floor, Room 1261), 300 NE Second Ave., Miami; miamibookfair.com. Tickets cost $15.