John Benjamin Hickey

From Philosopedia

John Benjamin Hickey (25 June 1963)

An American actor born in Plano, Texas, Hickey has a career that includes stage, film, and television.

In 1995 on Broadway, he originated the role of Arthur in Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play Love! Valour! Compassion!, a role he would recreate for the 1997 film version.

In 1998, he played Clifford Bradshaw in the 1998 revival of Cabaret, which won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. Also that year, he played the lead in Finding North.

In 2002, he played Reverend John Hale in the Tony-nominated 2002 revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

In the TV series It's All Relative (2003-2004), he played the role of Philip Stoddard.

In 2006, he played American novelist and playwright Jack Dunphy in Truman Capote's biopic Infamous.

On the Showtime series The Big C (2010), he plays Sean Tolkey, the homeless brother of Cathy (played by actress Laura Linney, the main character).

In 2011 in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, Hickey repeated the role of Felix Turner he had played in the original 1985 production. Wrote Warren Allen Smith,

In 1985 I went to see Larry Kramer's Normal Heart, which was a violently angry attack on everyone (everyone!) for not recognizing in 1980 that a disease was spreading for which there was no cure. With Frank Rich of The Times, I was amused at Kramer's accusing the governmental, medical, and press establishments of foot-dragging in combating the disease, but I found the play wordy, melodramatic, and surprisingly negative about gays who by their inaction were killing each other needlessly. Kramer's saying men who continued having sex with other men were tragically choosing the wrong way to stop the disease. What I liked was his attack on New York City Mayor Ed Koch (most gays laugh that the man after whom a major city bridge has just been named is closeted) and attacks on so many of our governmental leaders (including President Ronald Reagan) as well as professionals including teachers and business and medical leaders such as Anthony Fauci, who headed the National Institute of Health (and who at first failed to credit the French advances that far exceeded ours).

On April 23rd, I went to a preview of Normal Heart which is directed by Joel Grey. The inspiring star in both productions so many years apart was John Benjamin Hickey, whose Texas mother I once met. This time I more fully appreciated Kramer's combination of fury, rage, and anger to achieve action that was polarizing but was absolutely needed. The major difference between the two productions: added has been better scenic design, lighting design, and projections.

After the play, I approached the gay conscience during those terrible years of the late 1980s and told him how I'd been with him in 1987 when he was the inspiration for founding ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) – his eyes lit up when I mentioned where we met at Cooper Union's Great Hall. By then he was no longer a leader in GMHC, the Gay Men's Health Crisis that was formed to get funds to fight the disease. Although I am over 13 years older, I found it pathetic to see him exiting alone – a major love in his life, David Webster, died of Kaposi's sarcoma, as did mine mine a few blocks away from the theater on 45th Street. In 1988 following liver damage due to Hepatitis B, physicians found Kramer was HIV-positive. For over two decades Kramer has been in bad health. At the end of 2001, although turned down for a new liver by many hospitals and medical establishments – few today realize that those with the disease were treated as if they were lepers – Kramer finally received one. As if it were 1350 when Black Death's bubonic plague killed 60% of Europe's population, one scene describes a lover's finding the doctors and aides in one hospital simply put his dead lover in a thick garbage bag and had it carried to a garbage pile.

Today, I had the feeling he was hard of hearing and should have been using a cane, but he kindly let his picture be taken and listened to my thanking him for all the barbs he has unjustly received from so many sources.

Only if one sees the era described by Kramer in which I had to stay closeted could anyone understand my having been forced to lie about who I am all my years of teaching, which at last at the age of 90 I feel comfortable in describing in my just-published autobiography, In The Heart of Showbiz.

On Broadwayin 2009, Hickey was the Earl of Leicester in Mary Stuart, in which he charmed both Stuart and Elizabeth I.

In 2002, he starred as the Reverend John Hale in The Crucible.

From its opening on 13 February 1998 until 28 February 1999, he played Clifford Bradshaw the journalist in Cabaret.

In 1995 he played the role of Arthur Pape in Love! Valour! Compassion!

Hickey has been an actor in more than 60 television shows, including Law and Order, "NYPD Blue, and Sex and the City.

In 2011, Hickey lives in New York City's West Village with his gay companion, Jeffrey Richman.