Quentin Crisp

From Philosopedia

Crisp, Quentin (25 December 1908 - 21 November 1999)

Writer and critic Dennis Charles Pratt was born in Sutton, Surrey, in suburban London. He was the fourth child of accountant Charles Pratt (1871 - 1931) and former governess Frances Phillips Pratt (1873 - 1960). When in his 20s, he changed his name to Quentin Crisp.

He attended a school in Derbyshire in his teens, which he later described as a cross between a monastery and a prison. Crisp made no secret of being effeminate and was teased at Kingswood Preparatory School in Epsom, from which he won a scholarship to Denstone College. In his sixth form, he served in and eventually commanded a squad in the Officers Cadet Force. In Soho he worked as a prostitute for six months, finding this a degrading experience. When he attempted to join the army at the outbreak of World War II, he was declared exempt because he was "suffering from sexual perversion."

He worked as an illustrator and designer of book covers, writing books such as Lettering for Brush and Pen (1936) and Colour in Display (1938).

His The Naked Servant, a shocker when first published in 1968, described his having received a government stipend while working at illustrating books and modeling nude in art schools. The work not only revealed that he had taken money for sex but also described his unique style of clothing. By 1968, he noted, “The symbols which I had adopted forty years earlier to express my sexual type had become the uniform of all young people.”

An award-winning film version, starring John Hurt, brought Crisp to public attention. An Evening with Quentin Crisp debuted off-Broadway in 1978 and played off and on for two decades. His later books include How to Have a Life-Style (1976), Love Made Easy (1977), The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp (1998), and Quentin Crisp's Book of Quotations (1989).

Crisp told a gathering of Unitarian Universalists in New York City that he was not attracted to any of the organized religions. He was, in general, a rationalist about theology, morals, and ethics. On a trip to Northern Ireland, he bravely informed his audience that he was an atheist, “Yes, but is it the God of the Protestants or the God of the Catholics in whom you don’t believe?” a person called out.

As for religion, he has said, “Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter.” Asked several years later in 1998 if he is an atheist, he responded,

• If God is the universe - which encloses the universe, or if God is the cell inside the cell, or if God is the cause behind the cause - that I can believe - I can not believe in a God susceptible to prayer - that’s a lot of rubbish. This is nonsense. I would never teach a child to pray. I would tell them your fate is sealed.

And is death final?

• Well, I hope so. Eternal life is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

What would have been a better life for you?

• What would be different? I would be different. I would be a woman. Now I am only manly in that I have no emotion, otherwise I’m feminine. If I had been a woman, I would have been acceptable.

Reviewing “The Godfather” in Christopher Street (Issue #153), Crisp advised moviegoers:

• This picture stops just short of being blasphemous, but viewers should be warned that it denounces Catholicism at least as vigorously as it attacks the Mafia. In one early scene, we are shown a Vatican official offering Mr. Pacino the control of a vast conglomerate enterprise in exchange for sufficient money to cover its own ill-advised investments. The narrative also manages to drag in Pope John Paul I who, in real life, died so suspiciously soon after his enthronement and who was rumored to have been poisoned with lethal cups of tea.

In 1993, octogenarian Crisp played the role of Queen Elizabeth I in a Sally Potter movie, Orlando, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf. Movie critic George Brown remarked, “Although Crisp looks more like Victoria than Elizabeth I, he’s every inch a devouring queen.”

His effeminacy was such that he never attempted to hide his sexual orientation. He tinted his hair lilac, wore eye shadow, pert scarves, and silk blouses.Asked at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square if he was a practicing homosexual, Crisp responded, “I didn’t practice. I was already perfect.”

Crisp, who termed computers “demon machines,” found absurd any idea that a god would be susceptible to prayer, and said that he does not believe in a hereafter, telling Advocate columnist Lance Loud (10 August 1993),

• I’m ready, I’ve made my will, my hands are folded, my eyelids lowered. And I don’t expect to be back. Not like Shirley MacLaine, who never seems to express fatigue when it comes to reincarnation. Doesn’t she ever think, “No! Not any more!’ ”

As for funerals, Crisp told New York’s Patricia Falvo, they “are rather horrid. All that standing in the pouring rain in the churchyard while people say how wonderful you were. They can just put me in a plastic bag and shovel me into a Dumpster. I don’t care.”

Crisp died just before opening his one-man show, “An Evening With Quentin Crisp,” in London. His last great exit, he would have regretted, was not onstage.

{E; FFRF; GL; The New York Times, 22 November 1999; WAS, numerous discussions, 1995—1997}