Harvey Fierstein
American actor and playwright
Harvey Forbes Fierstein ( FIRE-steen; born June 6, 1952) is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter, known for his distinctive gravelly voice. He gained notice for his theater work in Torch Song Trilogy, winning both the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play. He went on to win the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for La Cage aux Folles, then Best Actor in a Musical for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, a role he reprised for the Hairspray Live! television special.
On film he reprised his role in the film version of Torch Song Trilogy (1988), appeared in Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, and as the voice of Yao in both Mulan and Mulan II.
Fierstein also wrote the books for the Tony Award-winning musicals Kinky Boots, Newsies, and Tony Award-nominated, Drama League Award-winner A Catered Affair. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2007.
In 2025 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.
As one of the first openly gay celebrities in the United States, Fierstein helped turn gay and lesbian life into a viable subject for contemporary drama "with no apologies and no climactic suicides".
Fierstein's distinctive gravelly voice is a result of an overdeveloped vestibular fold in his vocal cords, essentially giving him a "double voice" when he speaks.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q446481. VIAF identifies the subject as 84122932. The Library of Congress control number is n83121334. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1988, 2007 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harvey Fierstein” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.