Quentin Crisp called himself “one of the stately homos of England.” But the gay writer-raconteur — whose joyful last decades are lovingly recounted in the biopic An Englishman in New York (out today) — always felt more at home on this side of the pond: “The moment I saw Manhattan I wanted it,” says Crisp (played by John Hurt) in the bon-mot-filled film’s opening moments. “The streets of New York are the closest thing to heaven on Earth.”
An Englishman portrays a spry, stylish, septuagenarian Crisp taking a delicate bite out of the Big Apple in the ’80s and ’90s. (Not that he ate much of anything, mind you. He subsisted almost entirely on peanuts and champagne — cocktail parties, for Crisp, were as much about sustenance as they were about schmoozing.) And even as Crisp progressed into his 80s and 90s, he maintained an understated joie de vivre and outlandish signature style. Every day, he powdered his face, rouged his lips, curled his hair, and suited up — black jacket, black trousers, candy-colored shirt, a flowing scarf knotted at the neck and a wide-brimmed black hat cocked rakishly to the side.
Hurt will always be the quintessential Crisp, thanks to his turn in 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant, a filmed account of Crisp’s pre-NYC years. (Call it An Englishman in England.) He’s surrounded by an excellent supporting cast, including Cynthia Nixon as performance artist Penny Arcade and Denis O’Hare as an empathetic magazine editor for whom Crisp penned movie reviews. Fun fact: Crisp once reviewed O’Hare in an Off Broadway show. He wrote: “Mr. O’Hare I suppose is a good actor but he’s entirely unintelligible.” Fortunately, Mr. O’Hare seems to have recovered.
An Englishman in New York is available on DVD today from Breaking Glass Pictures.
