Recently I read that the writer,
raconteur, writer, gay icon and wit Quentin Crisp died at a friend’s home in
Manchester. After some digging I found out the exact address and one Sunday
afternoon I went to have a look. Quentin is best known for his memoir The Naked Civil Servant which was made
in a film featuring John Hurt. It described his hemmed-in life as a homosexual
man in homophobic British Society. I can remember seeing Quentin on the front
cover of the book in the local library and thinking, “What’s that?”.
This flamboyant homosexual was born in Surrey in 1908 and was teased
mercilessly at school. He went to London to study journalism but quickly moved
on to take art classes at Regent Street Polytechnic. He began visiting the
cafés of Soho and found men easy to pick up, working as a rent boy for six
months. He invited comments, violence and flying spit by dying his long hair
lavender, polishing his fingernails and toenails and dressing in an androgynous
manner. Up until his early 20s he was Dennis Pratt but started using the name Quentin
Crisp. Society was less used to homosexual men in those days and Quentin must
have guessed that when he tried to join the army at the outbreak of World War
II the medical board would refuse entry as he was perverted. He stayed in
London during the Blitz “entertaining” American soldiers.
Aged 32 he moved into a bed-sitting room at 129 Beaufort Street,
London which he occupied for 41 years. Famous for never attempting housework he
said, "After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse." He
then spent thirty years as a professional model for life-classes in art
colleges. Not only did his looks attract attention but his highly individual
views on social manners. This Oscar Wilde-type dandy started ground-breaking
writing books which mainly showed manners brought people into society whereas
etiquette kept others out.
He was famous for having his telephone number to be listed in the
telephone directory and felt it his duty to chat to anyone who called him. This
openness yielded many dinner invitations where he regaled the host with
wonderful yarns in a theatrical manner.
He was 60 when his memoir The Naked Civil Servant was published
and made him famous nationally and internationally. Aged 68 he appeared in
Hamlet, the film The Bride which brought him into contact with Sting who was
inspired to pen his hit song An
Englishman in New York.
On the back of his memoirs devised a hugely successful one-man touring
show An Evening With Quentin Crisp. The first half was a colourful
monologue based on his life and the second half a question-and-answer session
which showed how random questions brought out the raconteur in him.
He took his show to America. On first stay in the Hotel Chelsea there
was a fire, a robbery, and the death of Nancy Spungen (stabbed by her boyfriend
Sid Vicious - her body was found under the sink in the bathroom of their hotel
room.). What a mad country Quentin thought the 73-year-old he decided to stay.
He found a one-room apartment in Manhattan's
Lower East Side for his few possessions.
He flourished in America and became the favourite of the arty set and
had friends like Andy Warhol and films stars. As he had done in London he
allowed his telephone number to be listed in the directory and felt obliged to
converse with anyone good enough to call him. An evening meal with Quentin was
said to be one of the best shows in New York. He said he survived on peanuts,
champagne, cocktail parties and writing columns British and American
newspapers. He was always in demand from journalists requiring a sound-bites -
some controversial: calling AIDS "a fad", homosexuality "a
terrible disease" and saying Princess Diana “got what he deserved.”
Oddly though this trailblazing gay icon who dressed like an outrageous
drama-Queen in fedora hat, peacock’s feather and make-up he was asexual. There
was no partner, he claimed to never have known love and preferred the company
of strangers.
In his third volume of memoirs Resident Alien the 87-year-old
said he was close to the end of his life but was still performing. On his 90th
birthday he was performing the opening night of his one-man show and said hoped
to live to be a century old “less a decade off for good behaviour.” This was
prophetic. Later that year he was in Manchester to
kick off his show. He was due to appear
at the Green Room Theatre in Manchester and invited to stay nearby at his
friend’s home in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
He’d been
drinking since he got off the plane and through the night he suffered a heart
attack surrounded by his angina tablets and an empty brandy bottle. Oddly the
policeman who arrived at the guesthouse to identify the corpse was called PC
Sissy and the gay undertakers who came to remove the body nearly dropped the
body of their hero in excitement. He
was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary
Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Quentin’s
personal assistant believes Quentin knew he would not return to America. Six
days before he left for Britain he amended his will saying, ”Good, I can die
now.” He must have known he was dying - he had rheumatism, an enlarged heart
and prostate cancer. The British tour was probably a “goodbye” to England where
he’d spent most of his life.
He was
cremated at South Manchester Crematorium with eight people in attendance. The
ashes were flown back to his assistant in New York. The press
assumed he was fairly poor having lived six decades in two one-room flats but
he left almost £500,000 in America and more than £50,000 in a British bank
account.
So here I am outside his friend’s house where he died in one of the
back bedrooms. I was aware that on a Sunday morning people might be watching so
I immediately started taking photos and wanted to get back in my car within ten
minutes. The moment I started taking photos a tall rangy building appeared from
behind, groaning and moaning and saying, “Okay I’m moving it, you can put your
camera away - I’m moving it now okay?” I can only assume he’d been shouted at
for parking his van across people’s driveways. I said I was only taking photos
of the house as Quentin Crisp has died there (he’d heard of him.)
I strolled around the back of the houses and took photos of the back
bedroom windows. I suppose a guest would be put in the back backrooms but
Quentin may not been fit/sober enough to ascend the stairs and may have expired
on the couch downstairs.
Pointing at the back bedrooms where
Quentin passed away…
At the crematorium where Quentin was
cremated…