One of the trappings of notoriety that I enjoy the most is my correspondence with others. Principally this takes place in the form of letters, but since my number is listed in the telephone directory I also receive a large number of phone calls as well.

  Most of the letters I receive are from women, which tends to surprise a lot of people. There is a good reason for this: women are the chief letter writers. Men never write them so you never receive any from them. I like anyone that takes the time to write to me and I feel it is my duty to respond to each and every letter that I receive. Well, not so much the hate letters. The people who send those don’t tend to supply a return address.

  I remember the scorn that was heaped upon me by the press when I announced, “Nobody is boring who will talk about himself.” So now I instead say, “Nobody is boring who will tell the truth about himself.” That, I think, is the key. Present yourself to the world as an accepting force, rather than a critical or scornful person and be somebody they can confide in.

  I once knew a woman in England who had a husband and two children. She told me, “I write to my best friend every week.”

  And I asked her, “What do you say?”

  And she said, “Oh, little things.”

  I imagined, though I didn’t ask any more, that she wrote about some new fabric she’d seen in Arding & Hobbs71 for a pound less per yard than in the shops nearby and so on. That probably made her week. And I’m sure her friend wrote back and congratulated her. Personally, I dislike resorting to trivial remarks to keep a friendship going, which brings me to one of my biggest faults: although I reply to the letters I receive, I don’t usually keep up a correspondence with someone once it’s begun.

  People write to me and I reply. Then they will write again and I won’t reply because I know that if I do I am going to have to write to them once a month if I’m not careful. If I wrote three times a year to everybody who writes to me it would take up my entire life. Typically, if people write to me a second time and I don’t reply, I receive a third letter which says, “Was it something I said?” That’s when things become difficult. If I judge them to be young, I write back a careful letter saying, “Don’t regard this letter as a reproach. I am sure people are glad to have a letter from you.” Then I explain why I can’t keep up a correspondence and that usually satisfies them.

  My sister used to have a harrowing time at Christmas, though it was entirely of her own doing. She would receive hundreds of Christmas cards and rather than open them as they arrived, she would pin them all to a screen until, I presume, Twelfth Night, whereupon she would open them. Then she would let out screams of anguish. “Oh. I didn’t send them a card.” And then she would rush out to buy them a New Year’s card by way of recompense. Sometimes you would hear her reprimanding herself, “But I thought they were dead.”

  She saw it as her duty to send Christmas cards to all of her family, friends and doubtless countless members of her husband’s parish. I do not see it as my duty to write to people. It is a pleasure to write to them for the first time and I try to reply gladly in the same way that I will gladly speak to strangers, but thereafter it gets a little wearing. As I write this I still haven’t answered all the letters I received at Christmas. I simply haven’t had time to go through them all.

  Sometimes I think people only recognize me because of my hats. If I ever left my room not wearing a hat, I’m sure very few people would recognize me. I have always liked hats. When my hair was thick and immovable, I never wore them. It was only after I was about thirty that I started putting them on my head every time I ventured out. I think that’s when they became part of my persona. I like them on other people too, particularly women and Boy George.72

  My first hat, I think, was more or less a fedora. You know those hats with curly brims which dip in front. Like the ones that gangsters used to wear. It was a light stone color and it was quite unspectacular. I don’t know why I chose to wear a fedora. I suppose because it’s a very masculine kind of hat. I never wore hats while my father was alive and my mother only objected to my hats because she thought I would be in danger if I made myself too conspicuous. Plus, she thought the hats would prevent me getting the oft-mentioned job she thought I needed.

  My present hat, what I call my sheriff’s hat, was given to me in Rochester by the owner of a hat shop who rushed out and gave it to me. “Wear this.” he said, and when I put it on, it fitted me perfectly. I would say it is my favorite piece of clothing. It exactly fits my head and no amount of wind can tear it off. It’s also impervious to the rain, so it acts like a kind of shield and keeps me from the elements.

  Hats aside, I’ve never really minded what I wear. I do have a distinct style, but that’s probably more about what I wouldn’t wear than what I would. I have never sought to be too eye-catching. I was at a birthday party once, a long time ago, in England, and someone had given our host a tie as a present. The pattern on the tie consisted of yellow stripes, blue spots and green circles on it. Our host was aghast and asked if there was anyone in the room that would wear such a tie. To my surprise, everyone said, “We know who would. Quentin.” This troubled me greatly and caused me to think very seriously about what I wore in public after that.

  I have some basic rules which I think almost border on common sense. I never wear anything with a pattern on it unless the pattern’s very faint. I nearly always wear plain things. I don’t wear striped suits or checked suits or spotted socks or striped ties. I nearly always wear plain fabric because it seems to me you create more of an effect if you wear one color. It’s like a picture; a picture is no good unless you can describe it as a blue picture or a red picture. Mr. Picasso,73 for example, had a blue period. If you have to describe a picture as ‘of various colors’, to me, it somehow lessens it. I try to wear clothes that are not more spectacular than I am, so I wear black and gray and blue and so on, just to be on the safe side.

  Over the years my scarves have become a bit of a trade mark for me as well. They’re always given to me and seem to be a perfect gift because they can easily be put into an envelope and sent through the post. As I said before, it tends to be women that write to me rather than men and I think women tend to like scarves themselves, which is why they send them to me.

  * * *

  63 June Churchill, a friend of Quentin’s

  64 Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer, 1946-1989

  65 Francesco Scavullo, American fashion photographer, 1921-2004

  66 Greg Gorman, American portrait photographer of Hollywood celebrities, b. 1949

  67 Myrna Loy, American film, television and stage actress, 1905-1993

  68 Sydney Biddle Barrows, American known as the ‘Mayflower Madam’ because she ran an escort agency, b. 1952

  69 Wallis Simpson, American socialite whose third husband, King Edward VIII, abdicated his throne to marry her, 1896-1986

  70 The grand opening was on November 15, 2000

  71 Formerly a department store in Battersea, London, at the junction of Lavender Hill and St John’s Road

  72 Boy George, George Alan O’Dowd, English singer, songwriter, b. 1961

  73 Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor, 1881-1973

  CHAPTER 10

  Plays, Musicals and Operas

  Perhaps not surprising for someone who has reviewed films and books during my so-called career, I have always been a great fan of the arts. What else would you expect from someone whose chief purpose in life has been to observe others? Nothing pleases me more than seeing a good play or musical although I’ll confess upfront I’m not a huge fan of opera. Of course, I have seen more than my fair share of shabby productions as well as great ones, but even when I do, I smile politely and try to say nice things afterwards. It’s important to remember that a poor production is never the fault of any individual person.

  With very little of my life ahead of me I can say that my favorite play, the play that moved me the most, was The Plow And The Stars by Mr. O’Casey.74 It was really the acting in the production I saw that made it so significant for me. The Irish Players came to London, and we English had never seen acting so naturalistic before. It was wonderful.

  I was also lucky enough to see the London premier of Mr. Shaw’s75 Saint Joan, with Sybil Thorndike76 playing the role of Joan of Arc, the actress for whom Shaw had written the part. She was one of the great actresses of the English stage. It was a very theatrical play. I must have been about fifteen or sixteen when I saw the production, which is probably why it left such an impression on me.

  Edith Evans,77 later Dame Edith Evans, was another brilliant English stage actress. I first saw her when I was about twenty in the restoration play The Beaux Stratagem78. At the time, I didn’t know that asides, of which restoration plays are full, were spoken to the audience. I thought they were things that the actor thought in his head and spoke aloud so that the audience could hear as though he or she were thinking them. Ms. Evans made a point of leaving the cast, coming down to the footlights and saying the asides, then going back and continuing the play. It was so outrageous that it was brilliant. She was a magnificent comedian. She was completely artificial. She couldn’t really play a real human being until much later by which time she had entered the movie business and had to tone it down for the silver screen.

  Of course, the crowning moment of Ms. Evans’ film career was when she played Lady Bracknell in a movie adaptation of Mr. Wilde’s79 play The Importance of Being Earnest. There is a wonderful recording of her giving Wilde’s famous speech, the one that begins, “Your name is not on my list and I have the same list the dear Duchess of Bolton has. Indeed, we work together.”

  She then questions Mr. Worthing as to whether he can be put on her list of acceptable suitors for her daughter. Then, of course, he says, “It would not be true to say that I lost my parents. They lost me. I was found.”

  The next few lines are paramount and you have to begin them in a very low tone, which I know from having played the role myself80.

  Lady Bracknell simply repeats everything everyone says. She says, “Found?”

  Mr. Worthing elaborates, “In a cloakroom.”

  She echoes, “A cloakroom?”

  Then he finishes with, “In a handbag.”

  To which Edith Evans wails, “A handbag?”

  It’s very funny.

  Ms. Evans was a large lady and not blessed with good looks. I suppose that’s why she had to act. You see, if you are very beautiful, you don’t act. Punch magazine famously reviewed a late nineteenth century production of The School For Scandal81 in which it listed members of the cast and passed judgment on their performance. At the very end of the review it stated, “Lady Teazle’s clothes worn by Ms. Langtry” because Lillie Langtry82 did nothing. She was so beautiful, she had only to appear. Coincidentally, it was Oscar Wilde, a close friend of Ms. Langtry’s, who encouraged her to embark upon a stage career when she ran out of money.

  The first play I ever saw was called Chu Chin Chow.83 It was a comedy-musical and I loved it. It involved a huge cast of women dressed in Arabic dress. It was practically a pantomime, of course, but it was more of an extravaganza. You see, it’s not good showing children pantomimes because children don’t want political jokes. They don’t get them. When a comedian comes on during a pantomime and makes a joke about the Prime Minister, children have no idea who he’s talking about. Pantomimes are really for adults wanting to relive their childhood. What children want is spectacle. Chu Chin Chow had real camels that walked across the stage. It was mesmerizing.

  As I’ve said, I don’t particularly care for opera, but over the years I have discovered what’s wrong with opera. I should also state that I’ve only seen a total of two operas in my lifetime. That number seems to me to be quite enough. I’ve seen Porgy and Bess84 which I liked, and another opera that I saw by mistake. Let me explain the mistake.

  I used to frequent a small New York café called Binibon which was once so terrible that there was always a table. No one ever went there. Then one day I arrived to find that the place was full. Packed. There was nowhere to sit. It turned out that Mr. Mailer’s little friend had stabbed one of the waiters to death85 and, oddly, this had led to a surge in patronage. Anyway, since I couldn’t get my own table, I was compelled to sit with some other people, all of whom were talking about Mr. Pavarotti86.

  I began to gibber and twitch as I do because new people to me are lovable by the pound, when all of a sudden someone said, “Would you like to go and see him?” They meant go and see Pavarotti. And hesitantly I found myself muttering, “Ye… ye… yes.” I knew I didn’t want to see him. He was a singer which is a bad thing. I was trying to be polite which is always a mistake.

  So I ended up seeing Rigoletto87 in which Mr. Pavarotti was playing the part of the Duke of Mantua. The opera house in which the performance was staged, The Metropolitan Opera House, was so large and our seats so bad that Mr. Pavarotti, who is very generously proportioned, was the size of a cheap postage stamp in the distance.

  The plot of the opera seemed to revolve around getting Mr. Pavarotti into a sack and stabbing him. This finally happened offstage I’m happy to say. Afterwards members of the cast carried a limp bundle onstage, which we, the audience, were supposed to think was him. But even I, who know nothing about opera, knew that it would take at least four men and a wheelbarrow to carry on Mr. Pavarotti, dead or alive. So I cried out, “It isn’t him.” They paid no heed. They opened the sack and inside was the daughter of the man who had hatched the whole wicked plot. She sang and died and, to my surprise, everyone took it very seriously.

  Anyway, the trouble with opera is that, first of all, the plots are too complicated. There is, for example, an opera88 in which, before it begins, a gypsy who is to be burned alive for witchcraft commands her daughter to avenge her, so the daughter steals a baby whom everyone thinks has burned as well because baby’s bones are found in the ashes of the pyre. This is before it begins.

  Why don’t they have simple plots? Why don’t they make the temptation of Eve into an opera, then when the curtain goes up you would say, “He must be Adam, she must be Eve, and that thing in the middle must be the serpent.” At least you would be able to follow it. As it is, you cannot hear the words in opera because, even if you could speak the language, the singing distorts them beyond all recognition.

  Next, why do operas take place in such huge arenas? It’s obvious that operas should take place in a room about the same size as a family’s living room so that opera singers can sing happily, sadly and angrily as necessary. On the current stages, large as football pitches, they can only belt out the notes as loudly as possible. No one in the audience is wondering, “I wonder if she’ll marry the fat man with the beard or the fat man without a beard, or whether she will escape from prison before the end.” No, they are preoccupied with whether or not a particular singer will be able to negotiate the approaching merciless top C. They wait for it and they think, “Here it comes. She got it. Hooray.” It’s like a circus. “Will the man catch the wrists of the other man as he flies through air? He got it. Hooray.” It really is nonsense. Why are all parts written so they are just out of reach of singers? It defies logic.

  Returning to more sensible theatre, I have to tell you that, in my opinion, today’s theatre has lost its poetry. Now that Mr. Williams89 is dead, I don’t think theatre has anybody, really. Mr. Orton’s90 play91 which I saw, is funny but not enlightening. It doesn’t say anything that you remember. It doesn’t comment on life. It only comments on a situation, which is as far-fetched as it can be. These days, I don’t think theatre touches you.

  I think it’s sad that Broadway has taken to producing children’s plays. Cats92 is now the longest running show on Broadway and every member of the cast is dressed in a cat suit. It’s ludicrous. Before that, I saw Starlight Express93 which was about the broken hearts of railway coaches. I don’t know why there are so few serious plays being put on nowadays. I’m afraid theatres are dumbing down their productions in order to appeal to the masses. They don’t understand that television already does that.

  I understand that Mr. Spacey94 appeared in The Iceman Cometh95 which is certainly a serious play. It lasts for about four and a half hours. I would have liked to have seen that. Of Mr. O’Neil’s plays, I’ve only seen More Stately Mansions which was too long. Even though the cast spoke simultaneously and as fast as they could, it still went on for three and a half hours. You know you’re in for it with Mr. Spacey and I’m sure he did a hell of a job.

  Nevertheless, I’m convinced that theatre, like life, has lost its sense of poetry. I saw a play recently by Mr. Albee96 called Three Tall Women, but even that hadn’t really anything to move you. It’s not that theatre is superficial, it’s that it doesn’t contain anything that you can take away and enjoy outside of what is going on the stage. It’s not that it’s shallow, it’s that it’s expressed in a way that makes it more ordinary instead of uplifting.

  I don’t see many plays because they are so expensive. The other night, I went to see The Mystery of Irma Vep97 which was great fun. It’s a wild farce with everyone rushing in and out and changing their costume, making faces and so on. It must have been very well rehearsed because it took place on a very small stage and they only fell on the floor when they were meant to. It was so overloaded with meaning that you couldn’t really get it all, but it was very funny and very entertaining. It wasn’t on Broadway though, it was in the Westside Theatre, a small theatre on 43rd Street.

  Of all that’s on in the big theatres, I have only seen Sunset Boulevard which I thought was entertaining. The pity about Sunset Boulevard, of course, is that the musical’s best song occurs within the first twenty minutes of the show and nothing else quite equals it. I remember Ms. Paige98 shooting her boyfriend. Three times. Once as he stands in front of her, once as he goes down the steps and once when he comes to the edge of the stage and falls in to the orchestra pit. We know it to be the swimming pool because we’ve all seen the movie, which by the way was better than the play. I spoke to Ms. Paige after the performance and said to her, “Shouldn’t the young man take his curtain calls wringing wet?”