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This digital document, covering the life and work of Quentin Crisp, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2502 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Quentin Crisp, Frederick George Jackson, Alex Lester, Asda Jayanama, Denstone College, Jeremy Snape, Alastair Hignell, Keith Mant, Noel Forbes Humphreys, Geoffrey Cheshire, Peter Brinson, John Makepeace, Oliver Warner, Arthur Berry, John Kay, Leonard Ward, Warren Hawksley, Dennis Victor, Philip John Pasterfield, William Whitehead Watts, W. P. C. Davies, Tim Mason. Excerpt:Personal information Alastair James Hignell CBE (born 4 September 1955 in Cambridge ) is a former English rugby union international and cricketer . Hignell is the son of a former Great Britain athlete. Sporting career Hignell won Blues at Cambridge in both cricket and rugby union , and by the time he graduated from university in 1977 he had already made several England appearances at full back . He made his England debut in 1975 in a brutal encounter with Australia in Brisbane - eight days later he was playing for Gloucestershire against Middlesex at Bristol and five weeks later he made 60 in the Varsity match . After leaving university, he continued playing rugby for Bristol and England in the winter, while also working as a teacher (including at Bristol Cathedral School and Sherborne School ), and cricket for Gloucestershire in the summer. As a right-handed batsman, he scored solidly rather than spectacularly, passing 1,000 runs in a season three times, including his final season in 1983, before his retirement. He won the last of his 14 England rugby caps in 1978-79. Journalism Hignell continued to teach until he moved into journalism full time and he became a respected reporter, as well as working extensively on BBC Radio . In 1999, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and has since been an active fundraiser. His final commentary for BBC Radio Five Live was the 2007-08 Guinness Premiership Final at Twi... ... Read more

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Chapters: Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, Quentin Crisp, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Jordan, Michèle Renouf, Cecil Beaton, Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, Elizabeth Montagu, Olive, Lady Baillie, Elizabeth Vesey, Maria Kinnaird, Ghislaine Alexander, Sir Michael Duff, 3rd Baronet, Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry, Dorothy Wilde, Venetia Stanley, Amelia Stewart, Viscountess Castlereagh, Liza Campbell, Emily Lamb, Lady Cowper, Helen Vincent, Viscountess D'abernon, Daisy, Princess of Pless, Tara Browne, Serena Armstrong-Jones, Viscountess Linley, Duff Twysden, Maiko Joeong-Shun Lee, Viscountess Rothermere, Margaret Greville, Jeanne Campbell, Ann Parker Bowles, June Tripp, Lady Caroline Paget, Robert Gould Shaw Iii, Elizabeth Rees-Williams. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 163. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH, (19 May 1879 2 May 1964) was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons. (Constance Markiewicz was the first woman elected to the House of Commons in December 1918 after running for the Sinn Féin party in 1918 General Election, but in line with Sinn Féin's abstentionist policy she did not take her seat. Markiewicz was also detained in Holloway Prison at the time.) Nancy Astor represented the Conservative Party and was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor. Astor was born Nancy Witcher Langhorne in Danville, Virginia, in the United States. Her father was Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and her mother was Nancy Witcher Keene. Her father's earlier business venture had depended at least in part upon slave labor and had been badly damaged by the fallout from the American Civil War, causing the family to live in n...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=59363 ... Read more

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Chapters: Stephen Fry, Rosie O'donnell, Graham Chapman, Frankie Howerd, Nigel Hawthorne, Quentin Crisp, Graham Norton, Cynthia Nixon, Derek Jacobi, John Barrowman, Perez Hilton, Derren Brown, Tila Tequila, Kenny Everett, Ellen Degeneres, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Barrymore, Rachel Maddow, Steve Yuhas, Meredith Baxter, Paul O'grady, Suze Orman, Wanda Sykes, Rick Mercer, Pam St. Clement, Brian Sewell, Duncan James, Sandi Toksvig, Hape Kerkeling, Colin Mcallister and Justin Ryan, Matt Lucas, Gok Wan, Alan Carr, Kristian Digby, Ned Sherrin, David Starkey, Richard Chamberlain, Simon Amstell, Larry Grayson, Rebecca Loos, Ruby Rose, Tim Gunn, Kim Stolz, Carson Kressley, Jason Gardiner, Stephen K. Amos, Louis Van Amstel, Derek Laud, Christopher Biggins, Clare Balding, Thomas Roberts, Sook-Yin Lee, John Kennedy O'connor, Paul Gambaccini, Ted Allen, Wesley Eure, Doug Blasdell, Scott Capurro, Craig Revel Horwood, James Van Praagh, Dale Winton, Clodovil Hernandes, Jackie Warner, Antony Cotton, Jai Rodriguez, Michael Sundin, Scott Thompson, Vincent Hanley, Brian Dowling, Ross Mathews, Jane Hill, Maggie Cassella, Kyan Douglas, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Rhona Cameron, Gilbert Harding, Dirk Bach, Jesús Vázquez Martínez, Thom Filicia, Bruno Tonioli, Nancy Alvarez, Fu, Russell Harty, Lorne Saxberg, Harvey Levin, Dick Sargent, Charles Perez, Brian Linehan, Paul Bellini, Christopher Price, Mark Curry, Jason Bellini, Jay Manuel, Amy Lamé, John Lapus, David Young, Sam Champion, Jason Wood, Steven Cojocaru, Tommy Sexton, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Anthony Crank, Ambrose Price, Tabatha Coffey, Brendan Courtney, Nate Berkus, Hella Von Sinnen, David Bromstad, Pete Williams, Todd Mckenney, Russell Grant, Vern Yip, Ben Harvey, Greg Malone, John Gidding, Dave Brindle, Thomas Hermanns, Ikki Twins, Elvira Kurt, Mikko Silvennoinen, Gavin Crawford, Jason Danino-Holt, Kate Mckinnon, Michael Venus, Steve Kmetko, Jay Hunt, David Evangelista, Steven Sabados, Robin de Gr...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=44205 ... Read more

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This extraordinary book documents a fascinating moment in the history of American culture--a period in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's that gave birth to new notions of male beauty and desire, and to a new type of male icon. Long before Stonewall and the gay pride movement, there was a small group of daring men--both photographers and the models who sat for them--who helped pave the way for male sexual liberation. Led by the photographer George Platt Lynes, the painter Paul Cadmus, and the arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, this group shattered taboos surrounding the artistic presentation of the male figure. The young subjects of these photographs--who often posed after-hours in studios officially used for fashion shoots--were in essence the first true male models. In a perfect complement to the intimacy of these early nudes, photographs are included of these men today. The pictures and stories in Naked Men are as relevant and evocative today as they were a half a century ago.
Amazon.com Review
The male nude has been a staple of art since the Greeks gracedtheir public buildings with the glorified forms of gods andheroes. Renaissance artists didn't hesitate to display the male form,particularly in churches; the past 100 years of photography have seena resurgence of the male nude. Nonetheless, until now there's beenvery little critical analysis of these nudes' homoerotic content. Inhis Lambda Award-winning Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes1935-1955, David Leddick uses intensive research, interviews, andphotographic representations to uncover sources and inspirations forthe male nude through 20 years of contemporary art. Relying on thewords and visual work of hundreds of artists, models, and writers(including George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Tennessee Williams, andGore Vidal), Leddick conjures up the images, history, and socialcontext of the mid-20th-century homoerotic nude. Filled with photosand reproductions, Naked Men shows us how gay sensibilities andgay culture have freed the male body from social restraints in bothart and everyday life. Leddick's The Male Nude,while not strictly a companion volume, does similar work, detailingmore than a century of male nudes. As with Naked Men, this bookis lavishly and beautifully illustrated. Both are important documentsof gay male history and culture. --Michael Bronski ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

great book!
This book is great.. as an artist I was just thrilled with this book. The history behind the models was insightful and captivating. A must read if you want to shoot figure models.

A Brilliant Idea Well Executed!
David Leddick, who has given us many books on the naked male, had a brilliant idea for this one: he would put together a book of photographs of nude models from 1935 to 1955 and include recent photographs of the men as close to the time of publication of this book (1997) as possible. The result is a stunning success. There is a foreward by Quentin Crisp, a male model, himself, for art classes in England in the 1930's (THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT) and a long, sometimes wordy introduction by Mr. Leddick. Of more interest, at least to me, is the biographical information about each of the models, their occupations, whether they married or not, what they are doing now and if they are alive--most of them were at the time Mr. Leddick began his research.

Many of the photographs are by George Platt Lynes, who apparently never took a bad picture and to whom every subsequent photographer of the nude male owes a tremendous debt. No photographer since Lynes has lit the human body with such skill and beauty.

There are unknown models here but some big names as well: Tennessee Williams, the very straight but most unshy Yul Brynner, Donald Windham, Christopher Isherwood, the famous artist Paul Cadmus, the photographer Horst as well as George Platt Lynes, himself.

Two of my favorite photographs: that of Umberto Visbal, a darkroom and studio assistant for Lynes in the early 1950's-- outrageously sexual (p. 127), and Carlos McLendon (p. 87) shot in September 1947; here we have a photograph beautifully composed and printed with many shades of gray.

My favorite quote from the written material: Bill Harris (pp. 94-95) saying that he never frequented a bathhouse again after hearing someone say: "See that little old Chinese woman over there? That used to be the handsomest man in New York." The writer Camus may have been correct when he said that after the age of 40, we are all responsible for our own faces. He could have included our bodies as well.

This book just becomes more important with time
When David Leddick first published NAKED MEN: PIONEERING MALE NUDES 1935 - 1955 in the year 1997, many readers voiced the opinion that other photographers' books admiring the beauty of the masculine physique were far superior, more provocative, more erotic, and so forth.What is becoming more evident now six years later is just how sensitive Leddick's writing is and how insightful this study remains.His premise- to address artists who either photographed, painted or drew the male nude in a period of time when the male nude as subject was verboten - reveals a brave period of history in gender studies.Leddick shares many images of young men and pairs those images with current (at the time of his writing) views of those pictured models.This could be a gimick if it stopped there, but Leddick has the sensitivity to focus on truly significant artists, allowing us insights not avialable elsewhere in the literature.A long portion is devoted, naturally, to George Platt Lynes who more than most photographers devoted his camera to captruing the 'compleat' persona of artists such as Jared French, Christopher Isherwood, Yul Brynner and well established studio models.What he shows us are the photographs takenfrom 1935 - 1955 and then shares photographs of those models today.He also visits Lincoln Kirsten, Paul Cadmus, Lew Christensen, and Tennessee Williams and has many interesting anecdotes which he shares in well written prose.This is not a book of homoerotica (though the models both young and old are beautifully captured).This is a vital volume of history that makes as interesting a treat for the mind as it does for the eye.Especially recommended for the collector who has Leddick's later books - this preludes the spectrum of what is to come.

A Look at the Intentions of Naked Radicals
This book is not for those searching out eye-candy.While the pictures are beautifully photographed examples of the male body, it is not a pornographic work.It is a study of the attitudes and intentions behind the models and photographers on display.It is about the movement they inspired that has gotten terribly out of control with the various perversions of extremist pornographers that tout the word 'art' as if it could be applied to ever speck of waste upon every piece of toilet paper.This work does not agree with such a mentality.The pictures are tasteful and sincere.It is for those interested in art history, not a quick thrill.

Beautiful, but less than meets the eye
David Leddick's "Naked Men" is a most unusual collection of nude photography. Leddick's expressed intent is to chronicle the early history of photographing unclothed men, and he sets about it in two divergent ways. The narrative centers around the photographer George Platt Lynes (1907-1955), the creator of many of the photographs reproduced in the volume, and his circle of like-minded friends in early twentieth-century New York, including the artist Paul Cadmus (still living), and the recently deceased arts impresario Lincoln Kirstein.

Although the pictures of course hold a strong homoerotic appeal and many of the subjects were romantically and physically entwined with their photographers and each other, the book is not a gay history. In fact, there is not enough history included in the text, which is framed by large expanses of blank page and ceases for much of the book. The inclusion of brief histories and present-day, or at least more recent, photographs of the models is Leddick's second main innovation, and is indeed effective--the juxtaposition of the men in their youthful beauty and their serene, still handsome older selves offers surprising, often moving revelations to the viewer and reader. Yet here again, one wishes that more of them were allowed to speak for themselves. The photographs included are large and beautifully reproduced (a eye-popping highlight is one of a very young Yul Brynner), but it is downright churlish to offer a smoldering picture of a half-undressed Jack Fontan, state that it is "one of a series of photos in which the subject performs... a striptease until he is fully unclothed," and then not show any more! In short, this is a book that, overall, has an effect exactly like many of its photographs--it tantalizes, but in the end leaves one a bit unsatisfied. ... Read more

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A chronological list of quotations documenting the change over the past decade in "ideas of being gay". The quotes are grouped into sections by subject: coming out, gayness, sexuality, beauty, art and literature, education, separation and loneliness, religion, employment and money and health. ... Read more