Political Notebook: Award recognizes Mixner's pioneering ways

by Matthew S. Bajko
The Bay Area Reporter

There isn't much that David Mixner hasn't done in the course of his 61 years. Nor is there a chapter in American political history over the last five decades in which Mixner didn't play some role.

He became an activist in the civil rights movement over the objections of his parents and protested the Vietnam War. He worked closely with the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk to defeat an anti-gay measure that would have barred gays from being teachers.

full article

Penn Tapped for Harvey Milk Biopic

Sean Penn will play gay 1970s politician Harvey Milk in director Gus Van Sant's long-gestating biopic of the first openly gay prominent elected official. Matt Damon is tentatively attached to play Milk's assassin, Dan White, who shot the San Francisco city supervisor along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978. After serving five years of a seven-year sentence, White committed suicide in 1985. Michael London and his Groundswell Prods. are financing the movie. Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks are producing from a script by Dustin Lance Black (Big Love). The filmmakers are now in talks with a ''leading specialty division,'' according to Hollywood Reporter, to finalize a deal on the as-yet untitled project. Shooting could start by the end of this year.