Quentin Crisp

He turned out to be fiercely independent and unpredictable during the last years.

He died in November 1999, just a month shy of his 91st birthday in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester. Ironically, his death coincided with the national revival of his one-man show.

He was interred with minimalist rituals and ceremony and his ashes were flown back to Phillip Ward in New York. His total assets worth at the time of his death valued at $600, 000

Quentin Crisp was born as Denis Charles Pratt to Spencer Charles Pratt and Francis Marion Pratt in Sutton Surrey. He was the fourth child of the couple. While his father was a solicitor, his mother was a former governess.

Since an early age, his behaviour was unique. He became the object of laughter and teasing due to his womanly ways and appearance.

Young Pratt completed his formal education from Kingswood House School after which he gained a scholarship to attend Denstone College, Uttoxeter in 1922. Four years henceforth, he enrolled at the King's College London to study journalism.

Failing to graduate from the college in 1928, he took up art classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic. It was around this time that he changed his name to Quentin Crisp.

Simultaneously, he started visiting cafes of Soho, taking his effeminate behaviour to another level by experimenting with make-up and women's clothes. He even started interacting with other homosexual men and rent boys and worked as a male prostitute.

Leaving home in 1930, he moved to the centre of London. It was while at London that he enhanced his effeminate behaviour and appearance by wearing loud make-up, long and painted finger nails and crimson red hair.

While his bizarre and eccentric appearance amused some Londoners, for most others it was outrageously weird and attracted hostility and violence.

During World War II, he enlisted himself in the army but was rejected on ground of his personality and changing sexual perversion.

In 1997, he was crowned King of the internationally recognized Beaux Arts Ball by the prestigious Beaux Arts Society. He presided along with Queen Audrey Kargere, Prince George Bettinger and Princess Annette Hunt.