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Not naked but still so civil, Hurt is back as gay Crisp
Rashid Razaq21 Aug 2008
With the signature fedora and a dandily knotted silk cravat, it could only be a certain flamboyant character.
Quentin Crisp, the writer, model, actor, wit and self-styled "stately homo", is brought to life again by John Hurt in a new film.
Hurt, who launched his career playing Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant in 1975 returns to familiar territory in the ITV drama.
The actor is pictured on the set of An Englishman In New York, which follows Crisp's adventures in his adopted city during the Eighties and Nineties.
Taking the title of the Sting song which is dedicated to Crisp, the sequel shows the effete Englishman charming Manhattan with his one-man show and dinner party witticisms.
Crisp, who died aged 90 in 1999, was in major demand during his later life and frequently attended celebrity soirees, leading him to remark that one could live on a diet of champagne and peanuts. But he faced ostracism after remarking that Aids was a "fad". Hurt will portray
Crisp as he meets Sting to tell him about the discrimination and homophobia he had to overcome in post-war Britain. Ground-breaking and award-winning at the time, The Naked Civil Servant was based on the gay maverick's memoirs and was placed fourth in a poll to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century.
The sequel is written by Brian Fillis, who dramatised the relationship between Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett in the acclaimed BBC Four film The Curse Of Steptoe.
The title of Crisp's memoirs came from his experience as a life model. He spent nearly 30 years posing for artists, which he explained in his autobiography was "like being a civil servant, except you were naked".
Hurt, 68, who has been married four times, went on to star in Alien, The Elephant Man and Harry Potter, picking up three Baftas and two Oscar nominations.
