Click on the photo below to see the complete gallery.

We’ve compiled a series of photos to illustrate the real Harvey Milk and how Sean Penn was transformed during the film to look like him. We also have photos from The Castro, what it looked like pre-production, and how they transformed it for filming that wrapped in 2008.

The older photos were sourced from Uncle Donald’s Castro Street where you can view lots of great images from the era.

(photo source)

Almost 30 years after his assassination by a fellow city lawmaker, Harvey Milk returned to San Francisco City Hall, according to Mercury News. A bronze bust of the first openly gay politician to win an elected office of any prominence was unveiled Thursday evening on what would have been Milk’s 78th birthday. Milk, long considered a martyred hero of the gay rights movement, is the first non-mayor to have his likeness permanently installed in the civic building. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and shot to death a year later along with Mayor George Moscone by Dan White, a former police officer who had just resigned his supervisor’s seat.

The bust, sculpted by the Berkeley-based Daub, Firmin, Hendrickson Sculpture Group and based on a photograph taken by a friend, shows Milk with a wide grin and his tie fluttering in the breeze. It sits atop a solid granite base inscribed with a prophetic statement he recorded before his death.

“I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give ‘em hope,” it reads.

Standing 75 inches high and weighing over 200 pounds, the sculpture also has three scenes depicted in relief on the base. One features Milk during his stint in the Navy, another shows him riding in a gay pride parade, and the last depicts the candlelight march held the night of the assassinations.

The sculpture was unveiled during a gala reception, seven years after the Board of Supervisors first passed a resolution authorizing a public memorial for Milk. The project was delayed when the private committee formed to raise money for the project had a hard time soliciting donations.

The private funds were ultimately secured and the sculpture ended up costing $57,500, with another $26,500 going toward a design competition, engineering and installation, said Jill Manton, director of public art for the San Francisco Arts Commission.

A panel of jurors selected the winning design of the grinning Milk from three finalists. Another entry was a more serious, classical design and the third was contemporary interpretation, Manton said.

“Everyone really felt that this particular proposal captured his vitality, his vigor, his energy,” she said.

The bust will stand in a ceremonial rotunda outside the Board of Supervisors chambers, a spot where couples frequently choose to get married. Manton said she expects the bust to be popular with City Hall visitors, especially now that California has legalized same-sex marriage.

“What I’ve heard from the head of the docent tours is the most frequently asked question (by visitors) is, ‘Where is the statue of Harvey Milk?’ or ‘Is there anything commemorating where he was assassinated,” she said.

The installation comes at a time of renewed interest in Milk and his legacy. A biographical film starring Sean Penn as the slain supervisor is scheduled to be released later this year. In the meantime, California lawmakers have been asked to establish a state holiday in Milk’s honor. Mercury News

(Harvey Milk)

If Harvey Milk was alive today, he’d be turning 78 years old. 

Harvey Bernard Milk (22 May 1930 – 27 November 1978) was an American politician and gay rights activist, and the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He was, according to Time magazine, “the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet”.

As the self-described “Mayor of Castro Street” he was active during a time of substantial change in San Francisco politics and increasing visibility of gay and lesbian people in American society. He was assassinated in 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, by then recently-resigned city supervisor Dan White, whose relatively mild sentence for the murders led to the White Night Riots and eventually the abolition of diminished capacity defense in California.

Harvey Milk was named in the “Heroes & Icons” section of Time magazine’s Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century. Many institutions and organizations are named for Milk, including the Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Centre, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, the Harvey Milk Institute, the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library,and the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgendered Democratic Club in San Francisco.

Outside of San Francisco, there are a number of alternative schools named for Milk in the United States, including Harvey Milk High School in New York City. Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz has an on-campus apartment building named Harvey Milk.

In February 2007, the city of San Francisco agreed to erect a bust of Harvey Milk in City Hall in tribute to his service and memorialize his life’s work. A lengthy process to choose a design took place and a gala installation event is planned for this evening to coincide with Milk’s birthday.

In April 2008, the California Assembly passed a bill that would declare May 22nd “Harvey Milk Day”. We are now waiting for the Senate to pass it.

Director Gus Van Sant’s film titled Milk was filmed on location in San Francisco in January 2008. It stars Sean Penn as Milk, Josh Brolin as White, Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, Victor Garber as Moscone, Lucas Grabeel as Danny Nicoletta and James Franco as Smith. Reportedly Tom Ammiano will portray himself. It is set for a November 2008 release.

(source)

A statue of San Francisco’s first gay supervisor is going to be unveiled during a gala party at City Hall this month.

The project to place the memorial of former Supervisor Harvey Milk is a joint undertaking between the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee and the San Francisco Arts Commission. It is reportedly the first such public/private partnership of its kind.

The effort to honor the politician began in 2003 when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution supporting the creation of such a memorial.

Milk advanced the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights by becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country, winning a seat on the board of supervisors in 1977. Less than a year after taking office, he was assassinated by a political opponent.

The statue is being unveiled May 22. May 22 would have been his 78th birthday, and is being considered for Harvey Milk Day by the California State Legislature. 

Source: cbs.5

Entertainment Weekly presents the first official production photo from Gus Van Sant’s upcoming film, Milk, starring Sean Penn and James Franco. 

(source)

According to PrideSource, a bill to make Harvey Milk’s birthday a state holiday passed the California Assembly’s Education Committee April 23 in a 7-3 vote. If the measure clears both houses of the Legislature, the date May 22 will become a “non-fiscal” holiday, meaning it should not cost the state money.

“Harvey Milk knowingly risked his life because he believed that by living as an openly gay man he would help achieve full equality for all people,” said Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors. “His courageous leadership and vision has inspired three decades of progress in the fight to protect (LGBT) people across the nation. A statewide day of recognition in his honor would remind us that we all have the power to create positive social change and that we all have the right to live openly and with dignity and respect.”

The bill also encourages public schools and educational institutions to teach students about Milk, who often is missing from history lessons.

Franco on the set of Milk (source)

James Franco, who has recently finished filming for Gus Van Sant’s Milk, has released a ‘lesson’ on how to cry for the camera. Together with his brother Dave, they explore childhood trauma to bring up tears.

Franco is to play Scott Smith, lover and campaign manager to Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn), in the upcoming Milk film set for a 2008 release by Focus Features.

James Franco, set to play the lover of Harvey Milk in the upcoming ‘Milk’ film, was recently asked by Entertainment Weekly how Sean Penn (who plays Milk) rates as an onscreen lover. Franco said, “The top! He’s a little hairier than those other ones, but oh well.”

Of Van Sant, the director:

“It’s hard to think of a director or actor who I regard more highly than [Gus and Sean]. Gus has been a hero of mine since Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. And of course Sean is probably the best actor around. It was great. Surprisingly kind of comfortable and easy. Gus has a very soft-spoken, soft-handed approach, so he just brings everybody together, the right elements together, and then he doesn’t really have to do much. It just kind of happens. At least that’s how it feels.”

Check out this fantastic rendition of Harvey Milk using powdered Milk from Suspect and Fugitive

(source)

Academy Award nominee Gus Van Sant is directing ”Milk”, set to be released in theatres throughout the US in November, 2008. The film, which is being produced by Focus Features (the producers of Brokeback Mountain), may not match the critical and financial success of Brokeback Mountain and is not the first mainstream queer film. What makes it unique is that it’s the first Hollywood film to address queerness as a civil rights issue.

It will also be the first fictional account of gay rights icon Harvey Milk. Mr. Milk (1930-1978) was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America. He and the city’s mayor George Moscone were shot to death by another city supervisor, Dan White in 1979.

The stranger-than-fiction account of Mr. Milk’s political career and personal life was previously the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary feature “The Times of Harvey Milk“. Some people will undoubtedly cringe at the idea of transforming Milk’s life into fiction - biopics are notorious for for reducing history to a few corny plot points and lines of dialogue.

But they also make historical moments accessible to the general public. The success of this film will certainly make his most poignant quote, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door” enter popular lexicon and provide many with that Eureka moment where being queer becomes about more than getting your rocks off.