Arthur Kramer was the founding partner of influential law firm Kramer Levin. Kramer retired from the firm in 1996. He was found alone by a ski patrol

Ski patrol

A Ski Patrol is an organization that provides Emergency Medical and rescue services to skiers and participants of other snow sports, either at a ski area or in a back country setting. Patrollers are trained in Basic or Advanced Life Support to stabilize and transport patients to definitive care,...

 in Sun Valley, Idaho

Sun Valley, Idaho

Sun Valley is a resort city in Blaine County in the central part of the U.S. state of Idaho, adjacent to the city of Ketchum, lying within the greater Wood River valley. Tourists from around the world enjoy its skiing, hiking, ice skating, trail riding, tennis, and cycling. The population was 1,427...

 on January 13, 2008 and then died from a stroke

Stroke

A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

 on January 26. He was 81 when he died, having lived in Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

.

Kramer and his brother Larry

Kramer's relationship with his brother, playwright Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...

, moved into the public sphere with Larry's 1984 play, The Normal Heart

The Normal Heart

The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...

. In the play, Larry portrays Arthur ("Ben Weeks") as more concerned with building his $2 million house in Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 than in helping his brother's cause. Humorist Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin

Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...

, a friend of both Larry and Arthur, once called The Normal Heart "the play about the building of [Arthur's] house." Anemona Hartocollis observed in the New York Times that "their story came to define an era for hundreds of thousands of theatergoers." Arthur, who had been his younger brother's protector against the parents they both disliked, couldn't find it in his heart to reject Larry, but also couldn't accept his homosexuality. This caused years of arguing and stretches of silence between the siblings. In the 1980s, Larry wanted Arthur's firm to represent the fledgling Gay Men's Health Crisis

Gay Men's Health Crisis

The Gay Men's Health Crisis is a New York City-based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization that has led the United States in the fight against AIDS.-1980s:...

, a nonprofit Larry organized. Arthur said he had to clear it with his firm's intake committee. Larry saw this as a cop-out — rightly, as Arthur said later. Larry called for a gay boycott of MCI

MCI Communications

MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...

, a prominent Kramer Levin client, which Arthur saw as a personal affront. In 1992, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 voters passed Amendment 2

Romer v. Evans

Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with civil rights and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to deal with LGBT rights since Bowers v...

, an anti-gay rights referendum, and Arthur refused to cancel a ski trip to Aspen

Aspen

Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...

.

Throughout their disagreements, they still stayed close, remaining each other's touchstones. Larry writes of their relationship in The Normal Heart: "The brothers love each other a great deal; [Arthur's] approval is essential to [Larry]."

In 2001, Arthur gave Yale a $1 million grant to establish the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, a program focusing on gay history.

Lawsuit by Arthur Kramer's Widow

Over a course of 5 months in 2005, Arthur acquired seven insurance policies totaling $56.2 million of life insurance from three different insurance companies through two insurance trusts and designated his adult children, Liza Kramer, Andrew Kramer and Rebecca Kramer as the beneficiaries of the trusts. Before the first premium was paid to the policies, his children immediately sold their trust interests to hedge fund investors for an immediate profit of over $700,000. Shortly after Arthur's death in 2008, his widow, Alice Kramer, sued in New York federal court alleging that Arthur had violated New York State's insurable interest law when the policies were originally acquired and thus, the $56.2 million should be paid to her rather than to the investors who had purchased the policy interests from his children. Her claim was that Arthur had never intended to benefit his children when the policies were taken out but rather were procured by the investors. The lawsuit received national attention and the issue of the proper interpretation of New York State insurable interest law was certified by the federal court to New York State's highest court. In a 5-2 decision issued by the New York Court of Appeals on November 17, 2010, the majority ruled against Alice Kramer and held that New York State's insurable interest law is not violated when an insured takes out an insurance policy with an intent to have the policy resold to investors. The Court further concluded that in order for Alice Kramer to continue her claim against the investors for the insurance that her children had sold, she would have to prove that Arthur was subject to coercion or other nefarious conduct from the investors. Mrs. Kramer was represented by Stuart Friedman and Andrew Wittenstein of the New York law firm Friedman & Wittenstein in bringing her unsuccessful lawsuit.

www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/decisions/2010/nov10/176opn10.pdf