Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In November 2008 a film of Milk's life will be released, directed by Gus van Sant, with Sean Penn starring as Harvey Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White. Filming of the movie took eight weeks, and often used extras in large crowd scenes, such as a re-enactment of Milk's "Hope Speech" at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade. Many of the extras were present at the actual events. [Source: Wikipedia] Milk was included in the "Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century", on the basis that he was "a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so".