Quentin Crisp

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Quentin Crisp, “One Man Show” Birmingham, ca.1982
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Quentin Crisp (born December 25, 1908 as Denis Charles Pratt in Sutton , London , † November 21, 1999 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy , Manchester , England) was a British eccentric , author and entertainer. In the 1970s and 1980s, especially in his adopted home USA , he became a homosexual figure to identify with . The dandy , who always appeared in make-up and feminine styling into old age, is still considered a gay icon, but never saw himself as an activist of the gay movement.

Life

He grew up in Sutton, London, as the youngest of four siblings. His father was a lawyer , his mother a former governess . Even in childhood, marked by a strict upbringing, Crisp learned to defend himself against the bourgeoisie of his surroundings. Because of his preference for make-up and colored hair and because of his feminine appearance, a normal middle-class career was impossible. After school who was not happy for him and he still successfully completed, he began at the prestigious King's College in London , a journalism - study , but did not pass the exam. He then studied art for a while. It was not until he was over 30 that he left home and moved to the British capital. He changed his real name and called himself Quentin Crisp. In London he lived in modest circumstances and frequented bohemian and demi-world circles . At times he earned his living with prostitution and for many years as a nude model in art schools. He tried his hand at art professions and became an illustrator for books. But even here he was not accepted. He tried his luck as a freelance writer , but had little success.

For more than twenty years he managed to get by with odd jobs that were considered “typically homosexual ” - temporary work in the theater stock, trainee in hairdressers, temporary work in fashion boutiques, etc. Insults from the population and attacks on the street were just as common for Crisp as anger Employers or the police. Quentin Crisp is considered the first homosexual in England to come out publicly. Public attention was drawn to him in the 1960s. He then wrote his autobiography, which was published in 1968. Crisp was 59 years old at the time.

The book didn't sell well until it was made into a film. A television film starring John Hurt , The Life of Quentin Crisp was broadcast on BBC television in 1975 under the title The Naked Civil Servant . With the film came the success, Crisp became famous overnight. The film was dubbed in different languages ​​(including German). The book also eventually became a bestseller .

In 1981 Crisp moved to New York . He wrote a number of books and reviews, including a. as a film critic for a New York city magazine, and has appeared in various films; his most famous role was that of Elizabeth I in Sally Potter's 1992 film Orlando . He became famous for his one-man show, with which he appeared in the USA and Great Britain.

Crisp died in November 1999 while traveling around England.

fascination

Quentin Crisp's personality in all its facets fascinated people. The pop musician Sting dedicated the song Englishman to Crisp in New York in 1987 . He had previously visited Crisp in his apartment on the Bowery . Crisp had told Sting about the difficulties of publicly acknowledging one's own homosexuality in England in the 1950s and of having to live as an outsider for a lifetime. Pop star Boy George , who struggled with problems similar to Crisp's in his childhood, also writes in his autobiography Take It Like A Man that he always felt close to Crisp and that he had been a role model from an early age.

Works (selection)

Books

  • All This and Bevin Too . Illustrated by Mervyn Peake . Nicholson & Watson, London, 1943; Reprint: Mervyn Peake Society, London, 1978.
  • The Naked Civil Servant . Jonathan Cape, London 1968.
    • Reprint, with a foreword by Michael Holroyd : Penguin, London and New York 1997, ISBN 0141180536 .
    • German edition: Crisperanto: From the life of an English eccentric . Translated by Jörg Trobitius. Ammann Verlag, Zurich 1988; Licensed edition: Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-28362-0 .
  • How to have a lifestyle . Cecil Woolf, London 1975.
  • Love Made Easy . Duckworth, London, 1977.
  • Chog: A Gothic Fable . Methuen, London, 1979.
  • How to Become a Virgin . Duckworth, London 1981.
  • (with John Hofsess): Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behavior . Hutchinson, London 1984.
  • How to Go to the Movies . St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988.
  • Resident Alien: The New York Diaries . Alyson Books, Los Angeles, 1997; Flamingo, London, 1997.
  • The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp . Edited by Guy Kettelhack. Alyson Books, Los Angeles 1998.
  • I'm an Englishman in New York . Edited by Richard Connolly, translated by Michael Hein. Rogner and Bernhard, Frankfurt am Main and Affoltern a. A., ISBN 978-3-8077-0169-1 .

Sound carrier

  • An Evening with Quentin Crisp . Double LP with a complete appearance in New York 1979, DRG records S2L 5188 (1980).

Filmography

Films with Quentin Crisp in front of the camera (selection)

Movies about Quentin Crisp

  • The Naked Civil Servant , Great Britain 1975.
  • An Englishman in New York , Great Britain 2009, posthumous film adaptation of his life in New York

Secondary literature

  • Paul Bailey (Ed.): The Stately Homo: A Celebration of the Life of Quentin Crisp . Bantam, London 2000, ISBN 978-0593046777
  • Glyn Davis: Queens and Queenliness: Quentin Crisp as Orlando's Elizabeth I. In: Mandy Merck (Ed.): The British Monarchy on Screen . University of Manchester Press, Manchester 2016, pp. 155-178, ISBN 978-0-7190-9956-4 .
  • Ingrid Hotz-Davies: Quentin Crisp and the art of shamelessness . In: arcadia 44: 1, 2009, pp. 93-105.
  • Nigel Kelly: Quentin Crisp: The Profession of Being . McFarland, Jefferson NC 2011, ISBN 978-0786464753 .

Web links

Commons : Quentin Crisp  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ With dandy robe and blushed cheeks ( memento of February 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), article in the Netzeitung of February 10, 2010, accessed on October 2, 2010
  2. ↑ Crisp: The naked Civil Servant , article on BBC News, published November 21, 1999, accessed October 2, 2010
  3. ↑ Boy George (et al.), Take It Like A Man . London, 1995. ISBN 0283992174
  4. ↑ Extensive overview on crisperanto.org
  5. ^ To Englishman in New York. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Crisp, Quentin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pratt, Denis Charles (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British eccentric, author and entertainer
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Sutton , London
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1999
Place of death Chorlton-cum-Hardy , Manchester, England