Veteran British actor and two-time Academy Award nominee Sir John Hurt died today aged 77 years.  His very illustrious career that spanned some six decades contained some memorable performances in movies such as The Elephant Man, Alien, Midnight Express Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Harry Potter.  His most recent appearance was as The Priest in Jackie, and he has also just completed three other movies that are still to be released. 

For queerguru however Sir John will always be remembered for his ground-breaking BAFTA award winning portrayal of Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant in 1977.  Crisp was an outrageous and flamboyant old-school homosexual who started out as a rent boy, then became a life model for art schools for 30 years, before re-inventing himself as a self-styled expert on social manners and the cultivating of style. 33 years later Sir John reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in An Englishman in New York which depicted Crisp’s later years in New York.

Here is a clip of the first movie, and the whole of the second one.

 

 

 

Sir John Hurt CBE  22 January 1940 – 27 January 2017 R.I.P.