From a young age, Quentin Crisp was determined to be himselfβmakeup, painted nails, dramatically dyed hair, and allβeven if it consigned him to a life of poverty and isolation. Hear the author, raconteur, and provocateur in a conversation with Studs Terkel before he found late-in-life fame. Mitchell interviewed Crisp in his famously grubby one-room apartment for the investigative current affairs program World in Action ; watch the segment her e.
In , The Naked Civil Servant was adapted for the screen. See Crisp introduce the film here. He reprised the role in a sequel over 30 years later.
You can watch it in its entirety here. Crisp revisited the play 20 years later to rave reviews. Watch Sting talk about the song and his friendship with Crisp in this interview. Watch a few of his appearances on Late Night with David Letterman here. Crisp had plenty of detractors in the LGBTQ community and was criticized for the provocative statements he made equating homosexuality with mental illness, dismissing gay liberation, and downplaying the AIDS epidemic though he later donated regularly to AIDS organizations.
Watch him talk on the subject of gay liberation here. You can see him in the trailer here and read his recollections of the experience here. Watch Ward in conversation with Eric Marcus here.
Crisp died on November 21, Listen to his friends and family share their memories of Crisp in this recording of his memorial service. The archive holds more than 5, programs that the pioneering oral historian and broadcast legend recorded for WFMT radio in Chicago between and In his early 20s, he left home, changed his name, and began to cultivate a dramatic personal style that provoked both curiosity and hostility in a rigidly conformist age. With his dyed hair, makeup, and painted nails, Quentin asserted his right to exist as a feminine gay man, even if that meant isolation and hardship.
