Daniel Nicoletta
Encyclopedia
Daniel Nicoletta is an American
photographer, photo journalist and gay rights activist.
, Daniel Nicoletta was raised in Utica, NY. In his late teens he left New York to attend San Francisco State University
, later graduating from the Bachelor of Arts program. In 1973, when he was 19, he was hired by Harvey Milk
and Scott Smith
to work at Castro Camera
, their camera store on Castro Street
. The three became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his campaigns for political office. During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
, Milk became California's first openly gay elected official. Harvey Milk served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone
were assassinated
by Dan White
at City Hall
on November 27, 1978.
After the death of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station
, which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall.
Daniel Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985 Academy Award winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk
, directed by Rob Epstein
.
In the feature film Milk
, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant
, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel
. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the stills photographer on the film.
Daniel Nicoletta was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival
. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner, Marc Huestis
, and others, began film screenings of their Super 8
films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
As a photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library
, at the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library
and at Schwules Museum
in Berlin, Germany. His work has documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects such as the White Night Riots
, the Castro Street Fair
, the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes
, Angels of Light, and personalities such as Justin Bond
, Loren Cameron
, Divine, Mark Ewert
, Allen Ginsberg
, Harry Hay
, G.B. Jones, and Sylvester.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer, photo journalist and gay rights activist.
Biography
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Daniel Nicoletta was raised in Utica, NY. In his late teens he left New York to attend San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
, later graduating from the Bachelor of Arts program. In 1973, when he was 19, he was hired by Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
and Scott Smith
Scott Smith (activist)
Joseph Scott Smith was a gay rights activist best known for his romantic relationship with Harvey Milk.-Biography:Smith was widely considered the muscle behind many of Milk's endeavors...
to work at Castro Camera
Castro Camera
Castro Camera was a camera store in the Castro District of San Francisco, California, operated by Harvey Milk from 1972 until his assassination in 1978...
, their camera store on Castro Street
Castro Street
Castro Street may refer to:* Castro Street in The Castro, San Francisco, California* Castro Street , a 1966 short documentary film directed by Bruce Baillie* Castro Street Station, a Muni Metro underground station in San Francisco...
. The three became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his campaigns for political office. During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco, California, United States.-Government and politics:...
, Milk became California's first openly gay elected official. Harvey Milk served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone
George Moscone
George Richard Moscone was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as...
were assassinated
Moscone-Milk assassinations
The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978...
by Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...
at City Hall
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...
on November 27, 1978.
After the death of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station
Castro Street Station
Castro Street Station is a Muni Metro station at the intersection of Market Street, Castro Street, and 17th Street in The Castro district of San Francisco, California...
, which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall.
Daniel Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985 Academy Award winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk
The Times of Harvey Milk
The Times of Harvey Milk is an American documentary film that premiered at The Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco...
, directed by Rob Epstein
Rob Epstein
Rob Epstein, also credited as Robert P. Epstein, is a director, producer, writer and editor. Epstein has won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature for the films The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt....
.
In the feature film Milk
Milk (film)
Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel
Lucas Grabeel
Lucas Stephen Grabeel is an American actor, singer, dancer, songwriter, director and producer. As a performer, he is best known for his role as Ryan Evans in Disney Channel Original Movie's High School Musical and its sequels High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year , and as...
. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the stills photographer on the film.
Daniel Nicoletta was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival
Frameline Film Festival
Frameline is a nonprofit media arts organization that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the oldest film festival devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender programming currently in existence...
. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner, Marc Huestis
Marc Huestis
Marc Huestis is an award winning filmmaker, camp impresario and social activist. He is best known for his motion picture Sex Is... and his in-person tributes/benefit events feting celebrities from Hollywood's Golden Age and cult personas at San Francisco's Castro Theatre.- Early life :Huestis was...
, and others, began film screenings of their Super 8
Super 8 (film)
Super 8 is a 2011 American science fiction action film written and directed by J. J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, and Kyle Chandler and was released on June 10, 2011 in conventional and IMAX theaters...
films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
As a photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco Public Library
The San Francisco Public Library is a public library system serving the city of San Francisco. Its main library is located in San Francisco's Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street at Grove. The first public library of San Francisco officially opened in 1879, just 30 years after the California Gold...
, at the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
and at Schwules Museum
Schwules Museum
The Schwules Museum is an LGBT museum in Berlin which opened in 1985.The impetus for the founding of the Schwules Museum was a successful exhibition on gay topics at the Berlin Museum in summer 1984, Eldorado. This was the first public exposition in Germany of recent research on gay life...
in Berlin, Germany. His work has documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects such as the White Night Riots
White Night Riots
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of the lenient sentencing of Dan White, for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco...
, the Castro Street Fair
Castro Street Fair
The Castro Street Fair is a San Francisco LGBT street festival and fair usually held on the first Sunday in October in the Castro neighborhood, the main gay neighborhood and social center in the city. The fair features multiples stages with live entertainment, DJs, food vendors, community-group...
, the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes
The Cockettes
The Cockettes were a psychedelic drag queen troupe founded by Hibiscus in the late 1960s in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. The troupe performed outrageous parodies of show tunes and gained an underground cult following that led to mainstream exposure.In 1971, over differences in...
, Angels of Light, and personalities such as Justin Bond
Justin Bond
Justin Vivian Bond , formerly simply Justin Bond, is an American singer-songwriter, performance artist, occasional actor and Radical Faerie. Described as a "fixture of the New York avant-garde", Bond arose to notability playing the role of Kiki DuRayne in the drag cabaret act Kiki and Herb from the...
, Loren Cameron
Loren Cameron
Loren Rex Cameron is an American photographer, author and transsexual activist. His work includes portraiture and self-portraiture which consist of lesbian and transsexual bodies in both clothed and nude form...
, Divine, Mark Ewert
Mark Ewert
Marcus Ewert, previously known as Mark Ewert, is an American writer, actor and director, living in San Francisco.Marcus Ewert began making and appearing in films in the 1990s. He has appeared in the Gus Van Sant short film Four Naked Boys and a Gun, in Sadie Benning's Flat Is Beautiful, and the...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Harry Hay
Harry Hay
Henry "Harry" Hay, Jr. was a labor advocate, teacher and early leader in the American LGBT rights movement. He is known for his roles in helping to found several gay organizations, including the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States.Hay was exposed early in...
, G.B. Jones, and Sylvester.
Film
- MilkMilk (film)Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
, directed by Gus Van SantGus Van SantGus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
2008 - That Man: Peter Berlin, directed by Jim Tushinski 2005
- Sex Is, directed by Marc HuestisMarc HuestisMarc Huestis is an award winning filmmaker, camp impresario and social activist. He is best known for his motion picture Sex Is... and his in-person tributes/benefit events feting celebrities from Hollywood's Golden Age and cult personas at San Francisco's Castro Theatre.- Early life :Huestis was...
1993 - The Times of Harvey MilkThe Times of Harvey MilkThe Times of Harvey Milk is an American documentary film that premiered at The Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco...
, directed by Rob Epstein 1984 - Theatrical Collage, directed by Daniel Nicoletta 1976