For more than 50 years, Harvey Fierstein has not only been a keen observer of gay history, he’s made a lot of it.

In the just-published memoir, I Was Better Last Night, the 67-year-old actor-playwright-activist reflects with sass, affection, and introspection on his early days in the downtown NYC theater scene, his rise as actor and playwright in theatre, film and television, and his work during the gay rights movement and the AIDS epidemic.

In Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage Aux Folles, and Kinky Boots, Fierstein broke new ground in high-profile representation of the LGBTQ+ and drag communities.

In his 2014 play, Casa Valentina, he explored gender identity years before binary issues emerged in streaming series. In his solo show in which he also starred Bella Bella he put a spotlight on the legacy on the feminist leader, Bella Abzug.

Even in works by others, his iconic cultural presence is felt. In Martin Sherman’s Gently Down the Stream, he played a gay elder in a romantic relationship with a younger queer man who had a different perspective of life and love. As Edna Turnblad in the musical Hairspray, he stepped into Divine’s heels to celebrate the outsider, the outsized and the outlandish. His latest project this spring is recrafting Funny Girl—which made Barbra Streisand a star—for its first Broadway revival.

As he quips in his book: “No bad for a fat, cocksucking drag queen from Bensonhurst.”

“I didn’t want to write a celebrity tell-all,” says Fierstein about his book from his home in Litchfield County. The sui generis, honeyed-gravel voice over the phone is unmistakably his. The outspoken, truth-telling, wise-guy attitude is, too.

“I’m certainly in a position where I know a lot of stuff that other people don’t know. A lot. Someday I may steal some of that, but that’s not what I wanted this book to be. I leaned over backwards to make sure that it was as fair as I could be to everyone I wrote about.”

Madonna Moment

Still, Fierstein managed to get in just a dash of dish about icons, celebs and divas he’s encountered over the decade, such as the time in the early ‘90s when he pitched a film idea to Madonna to play Warhol superstar Candy Darling.

Fierstein perhaps let his wicked sense of humor go too far after she asked him, “Do you really think I can play a drag queen?”

“Of course, he said. “Everyone’s already ….|CONTINUED|