On film and in exhibits, a full picture of Harvey Milk

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-milk30-2008nov30,0,2154495.story
Larry Gordon
11/30/2008

There, removed from tissue-paper wrappings in a storage box, were the wingtip shoes, striped suit and white shirt that gay activist and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk wore Nov. 27, 1978, the day he was assassinated. Dark bloodstains remained visible around the shirt collar, and small holes -- from bullets -- could be seen in the suit's blue and gray material.


The suit has been preserved 30 years for a purpose, explained Boneberg, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society in San Francisco, which owns it. "It's an iconic reference to what occurred, that this was a real man who bled real blood," he said.

Now the clothing and many other Milk-related items in scholarly and library archives in San Francisco are about to get more attention -- as are re-creations of them in the new film biography "Milk," which stars Sean Penn as the nation's first openly gay man elected to a major political office.