Dustin Lance Black (born June 10, 1974) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, ...

activist. He is known for writing the film ''

Milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...

'', for which he won the

Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with th ...

in 2009. He has also subsequently written the screenplays for the film '' J. Edgar'' and the 2022 crime miniseries '' Under the Banner of Heaven''. Black is a founding board member of the

American Foundation for Equal Rights The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) was a nonprofit organization active in the United States from 2009 through 2015. The organization was established to support the plaintiffs in ''Hollingsworth v. Perry'' (formerly ''Perry v. Brown'' ...

and writer of '' 8'', a staged reenactment of the federal trial that led to a federal court's overturn of California's

Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in cou ...

Early life

Black's father Raul Garrison walked out on his

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sy ...

-stricken mother, Roseanna, and his two brothers, Marcus Raul and Todd Bryant, when he was young. They grew up in a

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...

household, first in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_ ...

, before moving to

Salinas, California Salinas (; Spanish for "Salt Marsh or Salt Flats") is a city in California and the county seat of Monterey County. With a population of 163,542 in the 2020 Census, Salinas is the most populous city in Monterey County. Salinas is an urban area l ...

. Growing up surrounded by

Mormon culture #REDIRECT Culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints {{R from other capitalisation ...

and

military base A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...

s, Black worried about his sexuality. When he found himself attracted to a boy in his neighborhood at the age of six or seven, he told himself "I'm going to hell. And if I ever admit it, I'll be hurt, and I'll be brought down". He says that his "acute awareness" of his sexuality made him dark, shy, and at times suicidal. He

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

in his senior year of college. While attending North Salinas High School, Black began to work in theater at

The Western Stage Hartnell College is a public community college in Salinas, California. Established in 1920 as Salinas Junior College, Hartnell is one of 115 schools that constitute the California Community Colleges, one of the three higher education systems in C ...

in Salinas and later worked on productions including '' Bare'' at Hollywood's Hudson Main Stage Theater. Black attended the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Theater, Film, and Television (

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

) while apprenticing with stage directors, taking acting jobs, and working on theater lighting crews. He graduated with honors in 1996.

Career

In 2000, Black wrote and directed '' 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 Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

road trip and adventure at

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

taken by six gay men. Raised as

, he was hired as the only such writer on the HBO drama series ''

Big Love ''Big Love'' is an American drama television series that aired on HBO from March 12, 2006 to March 20, 2011. It stars Bill Paxton as the patriarch of a fundamentalist Mormon family in contemporary Utah that practices polygamy, with Jeanne Tri ...

'' about a

polygamous Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marri ...

family. He served on season one as a staff writer, executive story editor in season two, and was promoted again, to co-producer, for season three. Black first visited San Francisco in the early 1990s, while AIDS was devastating the city's gay community. Black said that, "Hearing about Harvey was about the only hopeful story there was at the time." He had first viewed

Rob Epstein Robert P. Epstein (born April 6, 1955), is an American director, producer, writer, and editor. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, for the films '' The Times of Harvey Milk'' and '' Common Threads: Stories from the Quil ...

's documentary ''

The Times of Harvey Milk ''The Times of Harvey Milk'' is a 1984 American documentary film that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. The film was directed by Rob Epstein, ...

'' when he was in college, and thought, "I just want to do something with this, why hasn't someone done something with this?" Researching Milk's life for three years, Black met with Milk's former aides

Cleve Jones Cleve Jones (born October 11, 1954) is an American AIDS and LGBT rights activist. He conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which has become, at 54 tons, the world's largest piece of community folk art as of 2020. In 1983, at the onset ...

and Anne Kronenberg, as well as former San Francisco Mayor

Art Agnos Arthur Christ Agnos (born Arthouros Agnos; [] September 1, 1938) is an American politician. He served as the 39th Mayor of San Francisco, mayor of San Francisco, California from 1988 to 1992 and as the Regional Head of the United States Department ...

, and 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 Jones, who passed it on to his friend

Gus Van Sant Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician. He has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultu ...

, who signed on to direct the feature. Black is 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. Black's film '' Pedro'', profiling the life of AIDS activist and reality television personality Pedro Zamora, premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. On February 22, 2009, Black won the Oscar for

Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...

for ''Milk'' at the

81st Academy Awards The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2008 and took place on February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 ...

. He wore a

White Knot Over the course of its history, the LGBT community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both with ...

to the ceremony as a symbol of solidarity with the marriage equality movement. On October 11, 2009, Black marched in the

National Equality March The National Equality March was a national political rally that occurred October 11, 2009 in Washington, D.C. It called for equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in all matters governed by civil law in all 5 ...

and delivered a speech in front of the

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...

to an estimated crowd of 200,000 LGBT rights activists. In 2010, Black directed his own script ''

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

'', starring

Jennifer Connelly Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before making her acting debut in the 1984 crime film ''Once Upon a Time in America''. After having worked as a model for several year ...

. Also in 2010, Black narrated '' 8: The Mormon Proposition'', a documentary about the involvement of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

(LDS) in California's

. Black 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 LDS Church and meeting with the church to make it more LGBT-inclusive. Black wrote the screenplay for '' J. Edgar'', a biographical drama released November 11, 2011, directed by

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' Do ...

and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2011, Black wrote the play '' 8'', which portrays the actual events in the ''

Hollingsworth v. Perry ''Hollingsworth v. Perry'' was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found th ...

'' trial and the testimony which led to the overturn of California's Proposition 8. He created the play in response to the federal court's refusal to allow release of video recordings from the trial and to give the public a true account of what transpired in the courtroom. It is written and performed using original transcripts from the trial and journalist records, along with first-hand interviews of the people involved. ''8'' first opened at the

Eugene O'Neill Theatre The Eugene O'Neill Theatre, previously the Forrest Theatre and the Coronet Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 230 West 49th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and ...

in New York City on September 19, 2011, and later broadcast to a worldwide audience on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

from the Ebell of Los Angeles Theatre on March 3, 2012. The

(AFER) and Broadway Impact, sponsors of ''8'', have released and licensed the play for readings nationwide on college campuses and in community theaters free of charge. Black appears as himself in the documentary film ''

Hollywood to Dollywood ''Hollywood to Dollywood'' is an American documentary film that played at 60 film festivals in the U.S., Canada, Scotland, and Australia in 2011 and 2012. Directed by John Lavin, the film follows the cross-country journey of identical twins Gary ...

'' (originally released in 2011). Black published his autobiography ''Mama's Boy: A Story From Our Americas'' in 2019. Paris Barclay was slated to direct Black's screenplay ''A Life Like Mine''. From 2007 to 2011,

was set to direct a

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...

's book '' The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'', for a time working with Black.

Personal life

Black was the top entry on a list of openly gay influential people in '' The Advocate''s "Forty under 40" issue of June/July 2009. He was featured on the cover of the magazine. He was one of the Official Grand Marshals in the 2009 NYC LGBT Pride March, produced by Heritage of Pride joining Anne Kronenberg and

. On January 24, 2012, Black's brother, Marcus, died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. Black started a relationship with British Olympic champion Tom Daley, in spring 2013; they live in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, London. In October 2015 it was announced that they had become engaged, and in May 2017 they married at

Bovey Castle Bovey Castle is a large early 20th-century mansion on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, near Moretonhampstead, Devon, England. It is a Grade II* listed building and is now a hotel with 59 individually designed bedrooms in the hotel and 22 t ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

. On February 14, 2018, Black and Daley announced they were expecting their first child; in June, they announced the birth of a son (by

surrogacy Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman agrees to delivery/labour for another person or people, who will become the child's parent(s) after birth. People may seek a surrogacy arrangement when pregna ...

). Facing criticism for their choice of surrogacy, Black and Daley started a podcast in which they discussed the ethical issues surrounding surrogacy and the experience as a whole. Black and Daley do not share pictures of their son's face online or on social media accounts due to privacy concerns. Daley said, "That might change in the future, but for right now, we wanted to enjoy the first year with him." In 2014, Black was one of eight potential commencement speakers invited by

Pasadena City College Pasadena City College (PCC) is a public community college in Pasadena, California. History Pasadena City College was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. From 1928 to 1953, it operated as a four-year junior college, combining the l ...

, and he accepted. After school officials learned nude pictures of Black were leaked online five years prior, the college announced Black had not been officially invited and the unofficial invitation was "an honest error". After talks between Black's and PCC's attorneys, the college board of trustees apologized and formally invited him.

Filmography

Other awards

* Cinema for Peace Award for Most Valuable Movie of The Year 2009 * UCLA's Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting award, "UCLA Festival 2009: New Creative Work," School of Theater, Film and Television, June 10, 2009, Freud Playhouse * Distinguished Service to the LGBT Community by a UCLA Alumnus Award, 2009 UCLA LGBT Graduation Ceremony, June 13, 2009 * Bonham Centre Award, for contribution to awareness and education around issues of sexual diversity
Media.utoronto.ca
The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, September 27, 2011 * Human Rights Campaign, Visibility Award September 15, 2012 *

Equality Arizona Equality Arizona is a statewide political advocacy organization in Arizona that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, including same-sex marriage. History Equality Arizona was formed in 1992 as the Arizona Human ...

, The Barry Goldwater Human Rights Individual Award Sept. 2013 *

Writers Guild of America West The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. It was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, including the Screen Writers Guild. It has around 20,000 mem ...

, 2018 Valentine Davies Award for Civil and Human Rights Efforts, February 11, 2018

References

Bibliography

External links

*
American Foundation for Equal Rights

"8" (the play) Official website
*
Dustin Lance Black: Telling The Story Of 'J. Edgar'
radio interview on ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to ...

'' (21 mins; 2012) {{DEFAULTSORT:Black, Dustin Lance 1974 births 21st-century American male writers Activists from California American expatriates in England American film editors American male screenwriters American television writers Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners Film directors from California Film directors from Texas Film producers from California Film producers from Texas Former Latter Day Saints American gay writers Independent Spirit Award winners LGBT Latter Day Saints LGBT people from California LGBT rights activists from the United States LGBT screenwriters Living people American male television writers People from Salinas, California Screenwriters from California Screenwriters from Texas Television producers from California Television producers from Texas UCLA Film School alumni Writers Guild of America Award winners Writers from Sacramento, California Writers from San Antonio LGBT dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American screenwriters LGBT film directors 21st-century LGBT people