Western girls in the Edwardian period dressed like geisha, compared with young girls in Japan (not quite old enough to be maiko), dated about the very early 1920s.
No, but seriously, do you know how amazing Vincent Price is?
Not just as an actor, although he was a blast to watch in everything he did. He’s one of those actors who’s just clearly having a whale of a time, no matter how bad the film is. He’s just genuinely happy to be there (it makes his villains a particular delight, and he played a LOT of them).
But did you know that he was also on the PFLAG board after his daughter came out to him? And that he was one of the earliest celebrities to speak out against the silence surrounding the AIDS epidemic?
Did you know that when his daughter came out to him, he admitted to her that it had been difficult for him during his first two marriages, because his wives had not been pleased to find out that their husband was just as interested in men as they were?
That’s right, kids, Vincent Price was BISEXUAL AS FUCK, and it was one of those open Hollywood secrets. And his wife Coral Browne? The one he grew old with and wrote cookbooks with and was basically ridiculously sweet with?
Also bisexual as fuck. They were the queer power couple of Hollywood in the 70s. His daughter, Victoria, grew up around Rock Hudson and members of the LGBT community. When she came out, Vincent Price became a board member of PFLAG and was just about the most accepting and awesome dad.
Did you know that Vincent Price played Oscar Wilde in a one-man play, and when it was denounced by anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, he dismissed her right back, saying that Oscar Wilde had already come up with a term for her: a Woman of No Importance? Because Vincent Price was deliciously witty and an awesome person.
Let me conclude with a quote from his daughter (from this article, where I got a lot of this information):
‘“In a funny way, and I think I’m going to cry, he understood me at 22 better than I understood myself then,” Price concluded. “Of course, he was in his 70s and lived a hell of a lot longer than I had, and he understood that at the end of the day it’s about who and what and how we love. And I have not been a person who has been very successful at conventional relationships, but loving well and loving deeply has been the most important thing to me.”’
Happy birthday, Vincent Price. You were a gem of an actor, and an even greater human being.
I always loved this guy, and didn’t even know this.
Tom Petty sings “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and Prince burns it down to the ground, 2004. This video from 2004′s Rock Hall induction festivities made the rounds when Prince passed away, because his final solo (and tossing his guitar in the air when it ends) is rightly remembered as legendary.
Before then, though, the song is borne aloft by Tom Petty’s heartfelt lead vocal and acoustic 12-string (supported by George’s son Dhani). Tom and George’s brother Wilbury Jeff Lynne takes the vocal on the bridge, Jeff’s guitarist Marc Mann takes the first solo, Steve Winwood (there to be inducted with Traffic) on organ, and yeah, that insane solo from Prince at the end – but this is also a great time to remember Tom’s gifts as a bandleader who knows when to step back and let his mates take the spotlight.
“You see me nodding at him, to say, ‘Go on, go on,’” Petty says. “I remember I leaned out at him at one point and gave him a ‘This is going great!’ kind of look.
“He just burned it up. You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here.’”
But what about that disappearing guitar? Once it leaves Prince’s hands, it never reappears, and the video shows no one catching it. Even Petty’s drummer, Steve Ferrone, remains confused about it—and he was onstage.
“I didn’t even see who caught it,” he says. “I just saw it go up, and I was astonished that it didn’t come back down again.
“Everybody wonders where that guitar went, and I gotta tell you, I was on the stage, and I wonder where it went, too.”
This is completely off topic, but I’ve watched this so many times over the years. I will say that I’ve never seen anything from a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame show that has ever come close to this. Too many of them gone too soon.
Quentin Crisp became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, detailing his life in homophobic British Society. When the book was adapted for television, Crisp began a new career as a performer and lecturer. He landed a few roles on American television and the 1990s became his busiest decade as an actor. He died in 1999, just shy of his 91st birthday.
Quentin Crisp was born Denis Charles Pratt in Surrey, England, on December 25, 1908. A self-described flamboyant homosexual, Crisp changed his name in his early 20s as part of his process of reinvention. Teased mercilessly at school as a boy, Crisp left school in 1926. He studied journalism at King’s College London, but failed to graduate. He then moved on to take art classes at Regent Street Polytechnic. Crisp began visiting the cafés of Soho, London, and even worked as a prostitute for six months.
Crisp was always true to himself and expressed himself by dying his long hair lavender, polishing his fingernails and toenails, and dressing in an often androgynous style. Despite the ridicule and violence often directed toward him, Crisp carried on. He tried to join the army with the outbreak of World War II, but was rejected by the medical board, who determined that he was suffering from sexual perversion. Instead, Crisp remained in London during the Blitz, entertaining American GIs, whose friendliness inculcated a love for Americans.
Crisp held a number of jobs, including engineer’s tracer, life model, and author. His most famous work, The Naked Civil Servant, detailed his life in a homophobic British society. When the book was adapted for television, Crisp began a new career as a performer and lecturer. He moved to Manhattan in 1981, when he was 72 years old; settling in a studio apartment in the Bowery. Upon meeting and spending time with Crisp, Sting was inspired to pen his hit song, “An Englishman in New York.”
Crisp continued to tour, write, and lecture; including instructions on how to live life with style and the importance of manners. Crisp landed a few roles on American television and the 1990s became his busiest decade as an actor. In 1992, Crisp took on the role of Elizabeth I in the film Orlando.
Quentin Crisp died in November 1999, just shy of his 91st birthday, while touring his one-man show.
Books written by Quentin Crisp:
Lettering for Brush and Pen (1936)
Colour In Display (1938)
All This and Bevin Too (1943)
The Naked Civil Servant (1968)
Love Made Easy (1977)
How to Have a Life Style (1975)
Chog: A Gothic Fable (1979)
How to Become a Virgin (1981)
Doing It With Style (1981)
The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp (1984)
Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behaviour (1984)
How to Go to the Movies (1988)
Quentin Crisp’s Book of Quotations, also published as The Gay and Lesbian Quotation Book: A Literary Companion (1989)
