AUGUST 6, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
17
ENTERTAINMENT
Quentin Crisp on subjects fit for a queen
by John Chaich
Who is Quentin Crisp? An "Englishman in New York.""London's Greatest Work of Art." "The Queen of all Queens." Or the self-professed Resident Alien, "Professional Failure," and Naked Civil Servant.
He also happens to be the 85-year-old gay man who stars as Queen Elizabeth I in Sally Potter's cinematic journey across time and gender, Orlando. After living his first 65 years as a "helpless case" in England, Crisp has become known in America for his outspoken appearance, and wit to match, as a columnist for New York City and national gay magazines.
I held discussions with this modern-day dandy over several days on the phone, and at the Glidden House where he stayed in Cleveland July 20. Conversation with Crisp is like one with your grandmother-if she were gay. Full of words of wisdom, snappiness, and an occasional "In my day..." saga, he draws you in with his charm and the experiences of his lifetime. He's lived his years in an uphill battle for respect, dignity, and a bit of fame as an unabashedly feminine gay man.
Dressed in a blue velvet jacket, scarf and monocle hanging from his neck, with his signature lavender hair swooped like a reverse Ionic column, Crisp is on a publicity tour for Orlando, far from the one-room New York apartment in which he's lived for the past 20 years.
What unraveled was an hour of sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking answers that seem to withstand the politics and reflection so common to our culture today.
John Chaich: How did your part in Orlando come about; how did you find the experience?
Quentin Crisp: It was torture to do, but everyone was nice. Ms. Potter came to New York and sent for me. I read some lines and said, "I want what you want," which is what I always say.
A line like that certainly must have gotten you into some experiences in your lifetime.
Well, yes, but it's well never to say no to an offer. As I've grown older, I've learned that I never regret what I've said "yes" to, but to what I've said "no."
How do you think people will respond to the gender issues in the film?
I have no idea. Gender is in fashion now; it's taking the place of sex. Androgyny in movies is more accepted. After all, there was Tootsie, and Victor, Victoria.
Do you think in any way that a person like you has paved the way for such acceptance?
Oh no. Gender will come and go. And you've also seen so much come and go in the gay community and movement.
There really is no gay movement since sex and politics have gotten mixed up. I don't know if it's a good idea, but it has happened.
Was your role as Queen Elizabeth I in Orlando your first time in full drag?
No, it wasn't because some people who live on Fourth Street-I live on Third Street-put me in The Importance of Being Earnest and I played Lady Bracknell. When I was Lady Bracknell, I suppose inevitably the clothes altered to some extent the way you move. It's difficult to actually sit down without taking your dress and going like this (pulls it up towards knee) which is the natural thing to do.
Now, you once said that when you were younger, drag was selfglorifying, but today it's self-denigrating. What do you mean by that?
Well, when I was young, there were drag artists. Nobody laughed. They wished to be beautiful and they wished to be courtly. Audiences. saw them in perfectly ordinary musicals: one week it would be Gracie Fields, the week after that it would be drag artists. They were artistes and the audience came away saying "Wasn't she wonderful? You'd never know! Such graceful movements."
Then something went wrong and sex reared its ugly head and then the drag artists realized they
they knew was gay and looked manly, "Who does she think she's kidding?" and the person didn't necessarily kid anybody... What everybody has to accept is that there is no division between only-manly-men, somewhat-manly-men, slightly-effeminate-men, very-effeminate men, and so on. The effort to divide them is absurd.
Because with that division comes a judgment...
Yes, and no one should try to scale people in that way-which is better, which is worse because people must be the way
TIM DAMON
Quentin Crisp on immersing oneself in gay culture: "Do you want to cut yourself off from nine-tenths of the human race?"
didn't look wonderful and the only thing to do was make fun of themselves. So they started to buy their clothes at jumbo sales and to look as awful as they possibly could. Bitchiness crept into the act and they savaged one another and the audi-
ence.
Would you still assess, as you once said, that "being feminine is out" in the gay community?
Yes. You see it's an entire shift. There's no romance and so there is never going to be again that distant beautiful woman. You see, the word vamp was constantly used when I was younger, and people were tempt-
resses.
So are gays troubled by the image and presence of an effeminate gay man now? The look alone today is more masculine.
Oh yes, they look like real people now. And that's fine if they feel like real people, because of course there was the same absurd attitude among the effeminate homosexuals when I was young that said when someone
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they are, they can't spend their whole life trying to improve the image of a community. They've got to get through their own lives somehow.
How you've lived your life, never denying your "queerness," one could say that you were like a founding member of Queer Nation. What do you think of organizations like that?
The more demonstrating the gay community makes, the more the outer world becomes worried. Protest begets protest; anger begets anger.
In your eyes, how important is it to come out?
People always think, "Well, should I tell my mother that I'm gay?" And the answer to that is that you shouldn't tell your mother anything! If your brother's relations with his wife are slightly kinky, he doesn't tell your mother. Why should he? And in any case what's your mother supposed to say? "Oh how nice," or, "Don't tell your father."
I mean, they don't want to hear the word. By the time a man is thirty, his parents know he'll never get married.
The whole coming out process seems especially relevant in light of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military.
Hmmm. Well, it's the only way you can do it. It was such a mistake that all that arose so early in Mr. Clinton's reign because it's a very small matter. You see, Mr. Clinton comes out of Arkansas-where there is no sin-and he's on his way to Washington and someone walking beside him says that there are these wonderful people who are willing to lay down their lives for their country and they're being denied this opportunity. And Mr. Clinton says "That's terrible; who are these people?" and this man says "They are the gays." And a shadow passes over Mr. Clinton's face because he doesn't know what it means and he says, "This must be stopped." And now they're stuck with this issue. There have always been gays in the forces and there are men who say "Woo woo, look at you-knowwhat," when people are standing around naked...what matters is behaving yourself while you're in the forces. I would have thought that all this was obvious from the beginning.
But the policy makes me think deeper into what it means to be homosexual: is it just a conduct, where your desires lead you to have sex, or is it a point of view?
I don't think there is today a gay susceptibility or a gay culture. I think that some people have a funny way of spending their evenings that does in some ways separate them from the rest of the world. I think that it's a pity in some respects that they now want to be separate but equal and I can't understand that...I mentioned this separate but equal bracket [to a gay man] and he said, "Well I can sympathize with that." I said, "Do you want to cut yourself off from ninetenths of the human race?" and he said "I have nothing in common with them." I don't understand that he has everything in common with them except this funny way of spending his evenings.
Do you think it's thinking about the act of sex itself or of feeling different for such a long time?
My whole life has been a journey from the outer suburbs of ostracism across open country under fire, practically to the heart of the world. I now live in the most sophisticated city in the world and I do as I damn well please. What more could you ask? If Mr. Clinton were to suddenly say that the state of Indiana were to be given over to the gay community and they all can go live there, I would burst into tears. I don't want to live my whole life among gay people... I want the rest of the world; I like people. Continued on next page
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