>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <17d001bf3a89$6cda7550$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: Goodbye, Mr. Crisp >Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 08:47:29 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >New York Times > >December 20, 1998, Sunday Style Desk > >A NIGHT OUT WITH/Quentin Crisp; Celebrating 9 Decades, In Lavender > >By ANDREW JACOBS > >IN spite of a 30-year run as an actor, writer, dandy and celebrated wit, >Quentin Crisp still lives in a kitchenless rooming house in the East Village >that features communal bathrooms and no front-door buzzer. ''If you'll phone >me from that terrible Punjab cafe on the corner, I will whiz right down,'' >he said on the telephone a few hours before his birthday party last Tuesday. > >''When I get to the sidewalk, I will jump up and down. That is how you will >recognize me.'' >Mr. Crisp, who first achieved notoriety in 1958 with the publication of >''The Naked Civil Servant,'' a memoir of his travails as a gay misfit, could >hardly be mistaken for anyone else. When he emerged, topped by his trademark >fedora and wearing a sky-blue ascot and rhinestone-studded bolo tie, Mr. >Crisp looked as regal as Gloria Swanson bound for a premiere. > >He did not jump up and down. > >In fact Mr. Crisp, who turns 90 on Christmas Day, was somewhat winded as he >gingerly slid into a taxi. Cindy Adams's voice briefly intruded, cajoling >passengers to buckle up. Mr. Crisp was unmoved. ''At my age,'' he said, >pausing for effect, ''death would be most welcome.'' >Mortality may have been on his mind, but the evening -- a party at the home >of Cheryl Hardwick, a composer -- was a celebration of Mr. Crisp's life as a >performer, humorist and unapologetically flamboyant homosexual. The >tablecloths were lavender. So were the napkins, the plates and the frosting >on the cake. In Ms. Hardwick's rococo parlor, the birthday boy settled into >a love seat, his designated throne for the evening. > >''We should have gotten some palm fronds,'' Ms. Hardwick said, as Mr. Crisp >focused on his Pimm's Cup. The culinary theme was a nod to Mr. Crisp's >origins: Welsh rabbit, Yorkshire pudding and bangers-and-mash fritters >speared with toothpicks bearing tiny Union Jacks. >Among those who literally knelt down to pay their respects to Mr. Crisp were >John Waters; Kate Pierson of the B-52's; Hamish Bowles, an editor at Vogue, >and Lady Bunny, the drag performer. Mr. Waters, who described Mr. Crisp as >''a joyous influence on my life,'' met the writer in London in the >late-1970's. Then an unknown filmmaker, he found Mr. Crisp's number in the >phone book and soon after calling was invited over for tea. ''We had a >lovely afternoon,'' Mr. Waters said. ''Unfortunately, he doesn't remember >it.'' > >Ms. Hardwick hushed the crowd when Fran Lebowitz called from Paris to wish >Mr. Crisp happy birthday via speaker phone. ''I have no idea who's >listening,'' boomed Ms. Lebowitz. ''It's unnerving. I feel like Monica >Lewinsky talking to Linda Tripp.'' Afterward, everyone sang ''God Save the >Queen,'' with new lyrics directed at the guest of honor. Through it all, Mr. >Crisp was composed but seemed exhausted by the attention. He still has the >stamina for a one-man show, ''An Evening With Quentin Crisp,'' which opens >Christmas Day at the Intar Theater, but he doesn't shy from discussion of >the inevitable last curtain call. > >''I want a significant death,'' he said. ''I don't want to die and have >people say, 'I thought he was dead already.' '' > >What else does he hope to achieve in his lifetime? ''Now, I just want my >voice to be in a taxicab,'' he said. He even has a message in mind, though >it may not pass muster with the Taxi and Limousine Commission: ''Life, to be >sure, is not worth living, but if you think it is, then buckle up.'' > >ELEVEN MONTHS LATER. > >New York Times >November 22, 1999, Monday The Arts/Cultural Desk >Quentin Crisp, Writer and Actor on Gay Themes, Dies at 90 > >By ALEX WITCHEL > >Quentin Crisp, the British-born writer, raconteur and actor who found fame >at 59 when he published ''The Naked Civil Servant,'' an account of his >openly homosexual life in London, and who found happiness when he moved to >New York at 72, died yesterday in Manchester, England. He was 90. > >Mr. Crisp was in Britain for a new run of his one-man show ''An Evening With >Quentin Crisp,'' which was to have opened today. > >The flamboyant Mr. Crisp gained attention in the United States in 1976 when >a dramatized version of ''The Naked Civil Servant,'' starring John Hurt as >Mr. Crisp, was shown on American television to enthusiastic reviews. In The >New York Times John J. O'Connor wrote that it was ''a startling, thoroughly >fascinating portrait of one of those exotic creatures who adamantly refuse >to behave 'properly' in this world, thereby making the rest of us examine >our own behavior to a closer and often more valuable extent.'' > >A resident of the East Village since 1977, and of the same >single-room-occupancy building on Third Street since 1981, Mr. Crisp was a >neighborhood celebrity known for his wardrobe of splashy scarves, his violet >eyeshadow and his white hair upswept a la Katharine Hepburn and tucked under >a black fedora. His nose and chin were often elevated to a rather imperious >angle, and his eyebrows were painstakingly plucked. When he played the role >of Queen Elizabeth I in Sally Potter's 1993 film ''Orlando,'' Village >residents bowed before him on the sidewalks as he passed. > >He was so well known for the prickly wit that earned him comparisons to >Oscar Wilde that he regularly received mail addressed to ''Quentin Crisp, >New York City, America.'' After a lifetime of being pointed at, snickered >at, even spat at, Mr. Crisp learned to welcome attention, even to court it. > >Quentin Crisp was born Denis Pratt on Christmas Day, 1908, in Sutton, a >London suburb. He was the youngest of four children born to a lawyer and a >former nursery governess. In ''The Naked Civil Servant,'' Mr. Crisp, who >changed his name as an adult, wrote of a tortured upbringing and young >adulthood at the hands of a vociferously homophobic society. But rather than >live unobtrusively, he decided in his early 20's to dedicate his life to >''making the existence of homosexuality abundantly clear to the world's >aborigines.'' > >He made a career of flaunting his effeminate manner and dressing in women's >clothing, and for such provocations, he would be rejected and even >physically assaulted. ''I suppose it's logical,'' he said. ''I abuse them, >they defile me.'' > >Unable to find employment in 1930's London, he resorted to prostitution. >With his mother's help he eventually found work as a book illustrator before >beginning to model nude in subsidized art schools on a government stipend, >hence the title of his autobiography. ''Maybe it's true that artists adopt a >flamboyant appearance,'' he once observed. ''But it's also true that people >who look funny get stuck with the arts.'' > >Mr. Crisp performed ''An Evening With Quentin Crisp'' Off Off Broadway at >the Players Theater in 1978, and it earned him a special Drama Desk Award >for Unique Theatrical Experience. > >Richard Eder, reviewing the production for The Times, said Mr. Crisp had >offered ''a witty, touching and instructive evening,'' adding: ''Despite his >extravagances, perhaps because of them, there is nothing sectarian about Mr. >Crisp. Both in words and in his fussy, faintly self-mocking gestures, he >asserts his identity. But what he draws out of it is universal: gaiety -- in >the original sense of the word, for once -- and themes common to all of us: >the need for courage and individuality, and the ground of tragedy on which >they are exercised.'' > >Among his books are ''How to Have a Lifestyle'' (Methuen, 1979), ''How to >Become a Virgin'' (St. Martin's, 1984) and ''Resident Alien'' (Alyson >Publications, 1997), a compilation of his pieces for New York Native, the >gay newsmagazine. > >Mr. Crisp was famous for never turning down a party invitation or a free >meal. But despite his gregarious social nature, he was fond of claiming that >he had never fallen in love. ''You can fancy someone, wish them well or >enjoy their company,'' he said. ''That's all I can do with anybody. But when >Miss Streisand sings, 'People who need people are the luckiest people in the >world,' she's being funny. When you need people, you're finished. I need >people, but not any one person.'' > >''A woman in England once told me, 'All people are the same to you.' But >that's not true,'' he continued. ''They're different but equal. I've spread >my love horizontally, to cover the human race, instead of vertically, all in >one place. It's threadbare, but it covers.'' > >He leaves no immediate survivors. > >Moving to the United States, Mr. Crisp maintained, was his proudest >achievement. He loved Americans, he said, for ''their belief that >personality is the greatest power on earth.'' One anecdote he often told had >him standing on Third Avenue, dressed and made up as usual when a passer-by >stopped. ''When he noticed me, he said: 'Well, my! You've got it all on >today!' And he was laughing. In London people stood with their faces six >inches from mine and hissed, 'Who do you think you are?' What a stupid >question. It must have been obvious that I didn't think I was anybody >else.'' > >As cherished a character as he was by many, Mr. Crisp had his detractors, >especially gay men of younger generations who decried his claim that gay >pride was an oxymoron. ''It's not normal to be gay,'' Mr. Crisp said, ''and >I think it's very weird to think that it is.'' > >''I don't know why gay people want to be separate but equal, anyway,'' he >said in a 1997 interview. ''That means they want to be cut off from >nine-tenths of the human race. 'I have nothing in common with them,' they >say. Why, you have everything in common but the funny way in which you spend >your evenings.'' > >His provocative comments aside, Mr. Crisp's homosexuality was always front >and center in the way he lived, filtered through his particular mix of >pride, anger and wit. ''When I was coming to America,'' he recalled, ''I >went to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, and the man asked me, 'Are >you a practicing homosexual?' And I said I didn't practice. I was already >perfect.'' > > > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: