Interview - In 1968, gay icon Quentin Crisp wrote his autobiography titled The Naked Civil Servant. Detailing the life and times of the self termed 'stately homo' it was the story of one man coming of age and growing into old age in conservative England. An outrageous and flamboyant homosexual, in a much less tolerant era, Crisp became a best-selling author and a great British eccentric.

In 1976, John Hurt portrayed the 68 year-old Crisp in the television film of his autobiography. The flamboyant breakthrough role catapulted both men into the limelight, winning Hurt a BAFTA, and turning Crisp into an overnight celebrity. The film was a seminal moment and the iconic role is one in which is arguably best remembered for.

"We made The Naked Civil Servant in 1976 and the whole sexual revolution, in terms of homosexuality, had not happened. It was a really shocking subject matter. The chemistry of it was that both filmmaker and audience came together at the same time so what the film had to say in terms of what Quentin had to go through in order to get what he had to say understood, happened at exactly the right moment. That is something you can't time. You can't say, 'Let's do it right now because it's the right moment.'

We had no idea that it was the right time nor did the public. The public didn't know they were going to be able to take it."

Was Quentin surprised by the reaction?

"We were all surprised; I didn't have to pay a cab fare for months and months. The drivers wouldn't take any cash from me!

And my goodness, you've never seen a mail bag like it and wherever I went, people would stop me and say 'it's completely transformed my life' There was one lady in particular who stood out for me' she was an 80 year old PME of the Edinburgh Festival. Her husband had recently died so she had bought herself a television and she said, 'I turned it on and it was the rugby so I turned to the other side and your film was on. I watched it from beginning to end and I have completely changed my opinion'. She was 80 years old and was obviously extremely bigoted. And she wasn't just one singular person; the response was from all parts of society. People still come up to me and say, 'That was the day that I came out.' It's a wonderful feeling to have been a part of something which moved people to such an extent."


In the first part of his memoirs, Britain's most famous homosexual depicted his life in anonymity. An Englishman in New York, directed by Richard Laxton tells the story of Crisp's years of fame.What was it that encouraged him to revisit the role so long after the beloved original and were there any concerns on his part?

"To be quite honest I had no intention of returning to it at all. I'd never really considered it. The Naked Civil Servant was such a seminal piece of television I thought it better to let sleep dogs lie; to leave it to the position that it enjoys rather than trying to add to it and dissipating the success.

However one forgets that Crisp enjoyed a whole 20 years of life after The Naked Civil Servant. He used to call that time the twilight of his life. I suggested to Quentin that he should change 'twilight' to 'sunset' of his life because in fact that is what it was. It was a 20 year period right up to the age of 90. So when I got this script from Brian Phillips I just felt that he had had done a superb job and then somewhat more personally, when Richard Laxton came on board, things really began to take a lot of shape and I was very keen to do it.

Things rattled along pretty quickly from that point. I was very keen that it had to be shot in New York absolutely 100% as it had to be authentic. It had to have America actors."

The production landed in New York and soon the residents of the East Village were greeted with the sight of Quentin, seemingly alive and well and back in their midst.

"It was fantastic. People kept recognising me thinking I was Quentin and saying, 'God I thought he was dead'. I had conversations with people on the side of the road. There was never anything other than a huge amount of love and respect for him. New Yorkers adored him, East Villagers adored him."


Despite New Yorkers taking him to their hearts, Quentin suffered a very public backlash when a careless comment during one interview, that AIDS is merely 'a fad' resulted in him being vilified in certain quarters of the city's gay community . Speaking about the now infamous quote and one of the central themes of the film Hurt explains his take on the subject, saying,

"Quentin was a wit. And wit by nature and by definition is cruel. So it tends to hit quite hard. When trying to make a witty answer to that particular question, he really hit a duff one. And also one must remember that at that time, there just wasn't the information on the disease there is today. People weren't aware of just how dangerous AIDS was; the disease was in its infancy and while there had been a few deaths, I don't believe that anyone thought it was going to become a world wide pandemic.

And my suspicion as to why he never apologised, and it can only be a suspicion, is because he said 'if I apologise, that makes it seem as though I don't mean anything I say and I do'. As he says, nobody wants an explanation, the press don't print explanations they only print apologies."

His friends he made in New York were incredibly supportive at that time. Would you say Philip represented the closest thing to a soul mate that he had?

"He was devoted to him. The real Philip certainly. Quentin became more reliant on him as he got older. There is nothing to say that he loved him. Quentin loved everybody as far as he was concerned. He loved the whole net of society."

As someone who has studied and known Quentin for a long time, would you say the public persona was very different from the private one?

"I think he eliminated the private persona. Quentin practiced what he preached. The one thing about Quentin is that he was a philosopher in a sense but what is unusual about Quentin is that he lived his philosophy, unlike Karl Marx for instance."

Quentin is eminently quotable, if you had to choose one thing what would be one of your favourite quotes of his?

"Well there are so many to choose from and of course there are the famous ones or there are the personal ones, but perhaps one that sticks in my mind would be when I asked him, 'how are you enjoying New York?' He said, 'oh it's wonderful, in New York three weeks is a meaningful relationship."

An Englishman in New York, starring John Hurt and Cynthia Nixon, will be shown on ITV 1 on 28 December at 21.00.