Today's Spotlight is a screenwriter, director, film and television producer, and LGBT rights activist. Today's Out Spotlight is Dustin Lance Black.
Dustin Lance Black was born June 10, 1974 in Sacramento, California, growing up in a devout Mormon household in San Antonio, Texas after his parents moved there shortly after he was born He later returned to California, to Salinas, California after his parents divorced and his mother remarried. His parents met when his father had been during his year of missionary service had baptized Black's mother.Growing up in a devotely religious home and surrounded by Mormon culture and military bases, Black struggled with the feels about his sexuality at an early age.
He told himself, "I'm going to hell. And if I ever admit it, I'll be hurt, and I'll be brought down" when he found himself attracted to a boy in his neighborhood when he was around six or seven.
He says that his "acute awareness" of his sexuality made him dark, shy and at times suicidal when he was growing up.
While he was attending North Salinas High School, he fostered a love of the dramatic arts and began working on theatrical productions. He began to work in theater at The Western Stage in Salinas-Monterey, California,and later worked on productions including Bare at Hollywood's Hudson Main Stage Theater.
Black attended UCLA, School of Theater, Film, and Television while apprenticing with stage directors, taking acting jobs and working on theater lighting crews in LA. After years of worry about his sexuality Black came out in his senior year of college. He graduated with honors from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television in 1996 and was given both the UCLA's Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting award, "UCLA Festival 2009: New Creative Work," School of Theater, Film and Television and the "Distinguished Service to the LGBT Community by a UCLA Alumnus" Award, the same year.
In 2000, he wrote and directed two films, The Journey of Jared Price, a gay romance film, and Something Close to Heaven, a gay coming-of-age short film.
In 2001, he directed and was a subject in the documentary On the Bus about a Nevada road trip and adventure at Burning Man taken by six gay men.
Black was the only Mormon writer for the HBO series about polygamy, “Big Love,” for which he received two Writers Guild of America Awards. He had written for every season, serving on season one as a staff writer, executive story editor in season two, and was promoted again, to co-producer, for season three.
Black's first visit to San Francisco was in the early 1990s, while AIDS was devastating the city's gay community. He said that, "Hearing about Harvey was about the only hopeful story there was at the time."
Black saw Rob Epstein's documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" when he was in college, and inspiration struck,thinking, "I just want to do something with this, why hasn't someone done something with this?"
Black researched Milk's life for three years, meeting with Milk's former aides Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg, as well as former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, before he began to write a feature film screenplay encompassing the events of Milk's life.
The screenplay was written on spec, but Black showed the script to Cleve Jones, who passed it on to his friend Gus Van Sant,
who signed on to direct. Black is also an old friend of Milk producer Dan Jinks, who signed on to the biopic after he called Black to congratulate him and discovered that the project did not have a confirmed producer.In 2009, “Milk” received eight Academy Award nominations and won two. Black received an Oscar for his screenplay and Sean Penn won for best actor for his portrayal of Milk.
When Black accepted the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay he wore a White Knot to the ceremony as a symbol of solidarity with the marriage equality movement. In his acceptance speech at the Oscar ceremony, he said:"... When I was thirteen years old my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk and it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day I could live my life openly as who I am, and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married...'
"I want to thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to...'
"But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours.'
"Thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk."
Black also received the Writers Guild of America, Best Original Screenplay, 2009 Writers Guild of America, Paul Selwin Civil Rights Award, 2009, "to the member whose script best embodies the spirit of constitutional and civil rights and liberties", the American Film Institute (AFI) Awards, and the Independent's Spirit Awards, Best First Screenplay, for Milk.
On October 11, 2009, Black joined those marching in the National Equality March in Washington, DC and delivered a speech in front of the Congress Building to an estimated crowd of 200,000 LGBT rights activists.Black also continued working for marriage equality and legalizing gay marriage in his home state.
In 2010, Black narrated 8: The Mormon Proposition, a documentary about the involvement of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California's Proposition 8. He accepted the award for best documentary for 8:The Mormon Proposition at the GLAAD Media awards in San Francisco and spoke out on discrimination in the Mormon church and meeting with the church to make it more LGBT-inclusive.
Black was one of the Official Grand Marshals in the 2009 NYC LGBT Pride March, reuniting him, Anne Kronenberg and Cleve Jones.That same month, photographs of Black engaging in unprotected sex were published by columnist Perez Hilton. Black released a statement saying: "It is unfortunate that individuals and other outside parties are trying to profit from material which is clearly private." He also emphasized the importance of responsible sexual practices. In July 2009, Black filed a lawsuit against photo agency Starzlife, alleging they illegally obtained the pictures and distributed them without his permission. He is claiming invasion of privacy and copyright infringement and asking for $3 million in damages, as well as any profit the company made from the photos.
Black’s recent works include the screenplay for “Pedro,” profiling AIDS activist and MTV personality Pedro Zamora. He is the screenwriter for “J. Edgar,” a film about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Leonardo DiCaprio that is coming out this fall.
In September of this year there was a special one night benefit, a chamber reading of Black's new play 8, a drama based on the litigation to overturn California’s Proposition 8, at New York City's Eugene O’Neill Theatre.The play draws on the verbatim transcripts of the Proposition 8 trial, along with observations from the courtroom and interviews with the same-sex couples on whose behalf the challenge was mounted. All the proceeds of the evening, which topped $1 million, benefited the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Look ahead Black has more on his plate including director Paris Barclay slated to direct his screenplay "A Life Like Mine" and reuniting with Gus van Sant is working on Black's film adaptation of Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
In 2009, Black topped The Advocate’s list of the “Forty under 40” most influential openly gay people. He is an outspoken LGBT activist, serving on the boards of The Trevor Project and the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Black frequently speaks about gay rights to college students across the country.
He lives in Los Angeles California.
"You hear people say, 'This is my reason for being here. This is my compass.' For me, that's 'Milk.' I wanted to maybe inspire the younger generation to start becoming activists in a grassroots way. There's a lot of stuff that still needs changing — not just gay rights."