7/1/2023 0 Comments Oscar wilde gay pioneer![]() ![]() “After four years, the dirt doesn’t get any worse.” As in England, he liked to brag that he never cleaned his room in all the years he lived there. “The moment I saw New York, I wanted it.” As he had for so many years in England, he lived in one tiny rented room in the then genuinely shabby Lower East Side. “I have always been American in my heart,” he claimed. In 1981, at the age of 72, surprising nearly everyone, Crisp moved to New York. It’s very good, and yes, he does indeed simply walk out on stage as himself to tell people how to be happy before taking questions from the audience in a hilarious and enlightening back and forth. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube. A crowd would often spontaneously collect in the streets to follow him, hurling abuse or even getting violent.Īfter the success of the film, Crisp enjoyed a modest level of stardom, appearing on television talk shows, writing more books and eventually performing a popular one-man show entitled An Evening with Quentin Crisp. Although he faced harassment and abuse every single day, Crisp decided as a young man to live out his identity publicly, in a grand way, even outrageously, dying his hair scarlet, donning thick make-up and wearing colorful gender non-conforming clothes in a repressive England of the 1920s and 30s. (Crisp was born in 1908, little more than a decade after the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde for gross indecency). The Naked Civil Servant is a witty examination of Crisp’s life as an effeminate homosexual in London at a time when being either effeminate or homosexual was all but unheard of. (Crisp often referred to John Hurt, who played him in the film, as “my representative on earth.” “Any film is at least better than real life,” was one of the many ways he expressed his sincere admiration for the film that helped make him famous). ![]() Performer? Author? Actor? Wit? Icon? Celebrity? Artist? Guru? Philosopher? All fit all fall short.Ĭrisp, who died in 1999 less than a year after we spoke, was most famous for the 1975 BBC television film based on his-til then-largely ignored 1968 autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant. He is the only person I’ve ever spoken to who had something witty, insightful, memorable and stylish to say about, well, everything.īut now, just as back then when I finally sat down to write my article, I struggle a bit to convey who exactly Quentin Crisp was. Although I’ve spoken with many people throughout my life and career, that feeling has remained singular. I felt a sense of freedom in speaking with him, a clear but unspoken understanding that I could ask anything, tell him anything, and that there was absolutely nothing I could say that would either shock or disinterest him. “I walk out on stage, and I tell people the only thing I know anything about. “Well, it’s not rrrrreeeeaaaallllllly a performance,” he began, almost apologetically. ![]() We talked about many things: I asked first about what I’d been assigned to cover for a local alt-weekly: What did he have planned for his upcoming one-man performance at Atlanta’s 7 Stages Theatre? ![]() What followed, though brief, was among the best and most memorable conversations of my life. Somewhat stunned, I asked (rather unnecessarily), if I could please speak with Quentin Crisp. Imagine a musician playing a slow, gliding scale from the lowest possible note to the highest on a broken, wheezing instrument, and you may start to get the idea. More croak than voice, but somehow cheerful, expectant. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes? This is the way Quentin Crisp answered the phone when I called to interview him almost 20 long, dark years ago: ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |