by Nigel Kelly, $45; McFarland Publishing; 216 pages
"Never try to keep up with the Joneses, drag them down to your level."—Quentin Crisp ( 1908-1999 )
Quentin Crisp never tried to keep up with the Joneses, or anyone else. From a very early age, it was quite apparent that he was "different." Born Dennis Pratt, he was a frail-looking, effeminate gay man, a most dangerous thing to be in the England of nearly a century ago. Yet he was unable to hide who he was.
By the time he assumed the name of Quentin Crisp in the 1930s, he was a marked man. Shunned by London's then closeted gay community, he spent nearly 40 years enduring regular beatings, trumped-up charges of prostitution and poverty. Nigel Kelly traces the steps Crisp took from childhood through those difficult years, painting a portrait of an extraordinary journey.
"Quentin said the most surprising thing about those years was that he was never murdered," reports Kelly, author of a newly published biography of the 20th century's first out gay man. Kelly, who lives in Dublin, Ireland, counts Crisp as a personal hero. Ironically, Kelly is straight.
"I was bowled over by this extraordinary man and his exceptional courage," Kelly emailed to Windy City Times. "He strove to be true to himself and daily risked more than just a beating and waking up in hospital. This happened more frequently than he ever admitted."
Crisp's steadfast determination to be true to himself had a profound effect on the young Kelly. "I grew up in Northern Ireland during the seventies and eighties. Ours had become a segregated society. There were two groups: Catholics and Protestants. Each group was clearly identified by such simple things as the sports you played, which school you went to, the color of the clothes you wore and, of course, which church you went to. Many people adopted the lifestyle and adhered to those rules out of fear. Killings, beatings [ and ] bombings were almost daily occurrences."
The young Kelly had very different values than those of his peers. When he saw The Naked Civil Servant, the 1975 film adaptation of Crisp's autobiography, he was bowled over. "To behave as he did in the interim war years in England was an act of such bravery as to be awe-inspiring," said Kelly. These days, Kelly lives his life according to Crisp's philosophies.
Said philosophies, Kelly said, include being "true to yourself. I have striven to follow this in my own life and have never been willing to change who I am to fit in. There have been times when it has cost me friendships. There have been times when it has made me vulnerable."
"If all we talk about is our sex lives, no one will have anything in common with anyone," Quentin Crisp once said. Kelly agrees. He sees little difference between Crisp and himself.
"I have never been one to label people," Kelly explained. "I do not think of people as being gay, heterosexual, British, Irish, American, Christian, Jewish. I try to think of people as individuals. Quentin said 'like all unfettered human beings I call no pigeon hole my home.'"
As a young man, Crisp had briefly worked as a hustler. However, soon after, he lost interest in sex and never pursued relationships. He was always well-spoken and had impeccable manners, usually referring to people by their last names. He became, for all intents and purposes, a proper English lady. This did not go unnoticed by others. One of the questions raised by Kelly in his book is whether or not "The Stately Homo" ( as Crisp was sometimes called ) was actually transgender.
"I think it is a real possibility, and it would explain a lot," said Kelly. "In his youth he was very beautiful. He certainly had a very feminine quality and in his old age he looked increasingly like an elderly lady. In his last years Quentin himself seems to have accepted the possibility that he might be a transsexual and said that if he had known this when he was a young man he would have had the operation and lived his life running a shop."
"And no one would have known my guilty secret," Crisp is reported to have said.
Kelly believes that, had this occurred, Crisp would still have been a heroic figure. "If Quentin had lived as a woman after having the operation, I have no doubt whatsoever that he/she would still have been this extraordinary human being who would have left their mark on the world and everyone they met," he stated.
Quentin Crisp: The Profession of Being is now available in select bookstores, and worldwide at Amazon.com . Kelly also maintains a website which serves as a keeper of the Quentin Crisp flame: www.QuentinCrisp.info .
