Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp was an openly gay British writer, actor, raconteur, and icon who refused to conceal his effeminacy and homosexuality decades before it was safe to do so — making him a figure of constant harassment and occasional violence on the streets of London from the 1930s onward. He chronicled his life in the memoir The Naked Civil Servant (1968), which was adapted into a celebrated 1975 ITV film starring John Hurt. Crisp moved to New York City in 1981, where he became a beloved fixture of the downtown arts scene, living in a single furnished room on East Third Street until his death. He appeared in numerous films and television productions, most notably as Queen Elizabeth I in Orlando (1992). His aphorisms — including "Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level" — have endured as distillations of a particular kind of freely, defiantly queer sensibility.