OUT100: Wilson Cruz

Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle

The Moment: January 15, 1982: Torch Song Trilogy, created by and starring Harvey Fierstein, opens in New York.

Wilson Cruz has got both bunny-slippered feet firmly planted on the ground: One foot is in LGBT activism, and one's in entertainment. He's a national spokesperson for GLAAD, and this year he returned to network TV as Nurse Kenji on Fox's Red Band Society. "Harvey Fierstein taught me how to be a man and an artist," Cruz says of the writer and actor he pays homage to in this photo. "There's a moment in Torch Song Trilogy in which his character, Arnold, turns to his unaccepting mother and offers what for me is a definitive statement: 'There's nothing I need from anyone except for love and respect, and anyone who can't give me those two things has no place in my life.' "

Photographed in Los Angeles on August 27, 2014

Styling by Alison Brooks. Groomer: Simone/Exclusive Artists

SLIDESHOW: See the Complete Out100 List