Throwback Thursday Remembers Flamboyant Renaissance Man Quentin Crisp

Throwback Thursday Remembers Flamboyant Renaissance Man Quentin Crisp

 

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On this day, November 21st, 1999, the gay community lost one of its bravest raconteurs, bon vivants, and quipping queens. Quentin Crisp, born ironically on Christmas day in 1908, became a celebrated and slightly reviled shock to the staid and beige world of post-war Britain. With his unapologetic flamboyance, dyed hair, and effeminate manner, Crisp's life really only had one place to go. If it wasn't to an early death at the hands of the homophobic society around him, then it was to novel fame, securing a place in gay history as one of our most out and proud...and rabble-rousing...denizens.

"You will survive if you believe in yourself"

Born Denis Charles Pratt in Sutton, Surrey, he moved to London seeking his own style of living and loving away from the prying eyes of his birthplace. It is then that he changed his name, and more obtrusively adopted his colorful style. With his painted nails, make-up and dyed hair, he garnered stares of wonder and rage from passers-by, often resulting in violence. But he was headstrong and resilient and refused to cow-tow to anyone.

 

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He worked often as a rent-boy and a prostitute donning women's clothes. In the '30s he studied journalism, and then art, and found steady work as an artist's model for many years before emigrating to America in 1981. If you want a picture of the audacity of this man, just imagine Crisp hoarding henna dye and cosmetics and trolling the streets of London during and after the Blitz of WWII picking up soldiers! It takes some hefty balls for such a queen to get away with that! This was all while homosexuality was still a criminal offense in England. Crisp gave no F's!

And London was fascinated by him! His memoir The Naked Civil Servant was published in 1968 following a series of radio interviews about his life which a publisher thought would make a great book. Selling only 3500 copies at first, it was made into a film in 1975 starring John Hurt (or Alien chest-bursting fame!) and has come down in history as a classic in gay literature. The title refers to his work as a nude model for college art programs, paid for through government subsidies, so he was technically a "civil servant" on the job.

What's more shocking than the film is knowing it first aired on public television at the time in both Britain and the US! The success of the film brought Crisp to the stage with a one-man show in which he told stories from the book and his life and answered audience questions. Surprisingly, Crisp was not fully embraced by the burgeoning gay liberation movement due to his opinion that there wasn't much of a necessity for it. "What do you want liberation from? What is there to be proud of? I don't believe in rights for homosexuals." Gay News, a British community newspaper, said at the time of the book's reissue that it should have been published posthumously, which Crisp took as meaning he should drop dead.

 

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“I never felt I had a genuine chance of passing as a real person. Then I said, ‘I will not pretend I’m a person. I’ll live life as I truly am.’ From then on, I began to take control of my own destiny.”

Arriving in NY and ensconcing himself in the Chelsea Hotel just in time for the murder of Nancy Spungen (supposedly) by her boyfriend Sid Vicious and the subsequent fire...he moved. Living not the most glamorous life at home, Quentin continued to write and perform while accepting dinner and party invitations from anyone and everyone who took an interest in him. He believed that having one's number in the phone book was necessary, because otherwise "...you're stuck with your friends. How will you ever enlarge your horizons?" So he accepted all invitations, especially if they involved dining of some sort, knowing he'd have to sing for his supper as he entertained his hosts with his stories. Hey, a girl's gotta eat!

Crisp also accepted small roles in a variety of TV and movie projects, including Too Wong Foo... and The Bride where he met the singer Sting who later wrote "Englishman In New York" about him. But it was as Queen Elizabeth I in the 1992's Orlando where he might have made his most indelible film mark. In the clip above, starring Tilda Swinton in the title role, you might also recognize Bronski Beat singer Jimmy Sommerville singing with his signature falsetto.

“Looking back, I didn’t have any alternatives, and so, therefore, I have no regrets.”

 

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Crisp was a rascal of an iconoclast. He eschewed gay rights as unnecessary. He referred to AIDS as a "fad" and homosexuality as a "terrible disease." And he publically derided Princess Dianne of Wales as "...trash (who) got what she deserved." But he is not one to be "canceled." Far from it!

The Quentin legacy lives on well after his death from a heart attack while visiting friends. He is the subject of songs, plays, and films. A sequel to Naked Civil Servant,  filmed in 2008, starring a returning John Hurt. He had books published of his manuscripts and interviews years after his death, and the award-winning play Resident Alien based on the 1991 documentary about his life opened in London in 199 and transferred to NY a couple of years later. Besides more high-brow art, he's been referenced in work by Boy George, and even Bill Murray said that his 2018 Ghostbusters character's look was explicitly drawn from Crisp. Oh, and out metal rocker Rob Halford still treasures his signed copy of Naked Civil Servant.

 

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"I am a dilettante, so I don’t really know anything. I am not a scholar, as I haven’t studied. And I make pronouncements, but I don’t think they can be verified. I just make them so loud and with such conviction that people do not question them." 

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