The Naked Civil Servant (book) The Naked Civil Servant (book) The Naked Civil Servant is the 1968 autobiography of British gay icon Quentin Crisp, adapted into a 1975 film of the same name starring John Hurt. The book began as a 1964 radio interview with Crisp conducted by his friend and fellow eccentric Philip O'Connor. A managing director at Jonathan Cape heard the interview and commissioned the publication. Having sold only 3,500 copies when first released, the book became a success when it was republished following the television movie broadcast. The book contains many anecdotes about Crisp's life from childhood to middle age, including troubles
Gay icon gay icon is Judy Garland. Michael Bronski, author of "Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility", describes Garland as "the quintessential pre-Stonewall gay icon." So revered is she as a gay icon that her best known film role, Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz", became used as code among homosexuals in the 1950s. The expression "Is he a friend of Dorothy?" was slang for "Is he gay?" The character Dorothy meets an odd group of friends during her journey through Oz—the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow—and so referring to an individual as a "friend of Dorothy"