Uniquely Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp died in November 1999. But it is his life, not his death that is significant. His life, until he became successful in his sixties, was a difficult one:

• he was certainly not born into money, then had two world wars and a depression to subsist in
  
• social mores were against him; the world at large did not appreciate queers, especially over-the-top flamboyant ones such as Crisp
• he was what he was - out there, flamboyant, and honest. He did not try to be some kind of gay liberationist nor a role model; it was his demeanor that did not offer him any camouflage (even if he wanted to blend in) as he moved through society

In his rather (in)famous autobiography The Naked Civil Servant (first published in 1968), he describes himself in the first paragraph as

From the dawn of my history I was so disfigured by the characteristics of a certain kind of homosexual person that, when I grew up, I realized that I could not ignore my predicament. The way in which I chose to deal with it would now be called existentialist.

On the second page of the book he dismisses his birth as a real accident of nature:

In the year 1908 one of the largest meteorites the world has ever known was hurled at the earth. It missed its mark. It hit Siberia. I was born in Sutton, in Surrey.

That is quite an introduction to his flamboyant life. This hysterically funny and piquant book (and from the fantastic biopic from the mid-70s, starring John Hurt) shows his journey through adversity, love and listlessness as he lived his life rather than lived a lie as so many of his peer group did. By this I mean that I truly believe that what you saw was what he was. When he achieved enough fame and a little money he chose to live in New York in the late 1970s. By that point, I think he may have embellished or lacquered the lady just a tad to satisfy a demanding public and fan base at his one-man shows. (Is it not a truism that we want our stars to be both the same whenever we see them and to offer us something completely new each time?)

If you've never seen Crisp interviewed, you must try to find some footage. He made Truman Capote's languid utterances seem positively butch.

I truly respected Quentin Crisp and his different contribution to gay culture. (BTW... the title refers to the time he earned a meager living by posing nude in a government-sponsored art class.)

The book shown here is my tattered copy that I purchased in 1977. I think I also have three of his follow-up books in my collection.