’Tis a blushing shame faced spirit: Gielgud’s cottaging catastrophe!
Sir John Gielgud was, without a doubt, one of the finest actors of his generation. With his silky smooth tones and polished delivery, he was the archetypal classical actor of the last century with a cerebral quality to his performances which contrasted with the physicality of his contemporaries (such as the much revered Larry Olivier). Despite his own international acclaim, this much admired knight of the realm was in fact arrested for cottaging whilst he was at the pinnacle of his acting career. Naughty, naughty Johnny G! Tut, tut, tut. Whist there was indeed much scandal at the time, this incident failed to blight his career, his reputation or his legacy which lives on — in fact the whole debacle has more or less been confined to the annals of forgotten theatrical history. So, what actually happened? How did dear Sir John comeback from it?
Let me set the scene. It’s 1953. It’s the 21st of October. Chelsea. Midnight. After a long days rehearsal and a few drinks afterwards, Sir John visited his local public convenience with the hope of encountering some casual sex. After giving a young man ‘the glad eye’, he was arrested by an undercover police officer. Taken to the nearest police station, he gave his name as Arthur Gielgud and stated that he was a self-employed clerk. This certainly was not Sir John’s finest performance. The next day, at Chelsea Magistrates’ Court, he pleaded guilty to the charge of “persistently importuning male persons for immoral purposes” and despite the magistrate telling him that he thought it was time people like him were sent to prison, the case was treated as a bad incident of drunk and disorderly, and Sir John was fined £10 and required to report to his doctor immediately for medical advice. Rather shocking to say the least.
Putting the whole series of events into context, cottaging in the 50s was not an uncommon thing. With any sort of sexual activity between men being illegal until the 60s, gay men often sought casual encounters in public lavatories all over the place. In 1953, the government appeared almost obsessed with tackling, what was termed, “the plague of sodomy”. David Maxwell Fyfe, the then Home Secretary, aimed to “rid England of this male vice”, illustrated by the dramatic rise in prosecutions for “gross indecency” during his tenure to 5,443 — an increase of 500%.
Whilst he got away quite lightly at Chelsea Magistrates’ Court, poor old Johnny didn’t half get it in the neck publicly. He was utterly vilified: he received hate mail; a petition was made to demand that he resign from Equity (the actor’s union); people called for him to be stripped of his knighthood; even the US authorities refused to grant him a visa to work in America. At the time, Gielgud’s friend, ‘The Master’ himself, Noel Coward, described him as “stupid and selfish”.
Despite the shame and embarrassment, the vitriol and anger, there was in fact a glimmer of hope that came from this series of events. The day that the news broke of Gielgud’s arrest he was paralysed with fear. At the time, he was in Liverpool, starring in a performance alongside the formidable Dame Sybil Thorndike, and felt it almost impossible to go onto the stage that night. As the curtain was about to go up, something remarkable is reported to have happened. Dame Sybil grabbed Sir John by the arm and whispered in his ear, “Come on John darling, they won’t boo me” (what a diva).With that, she led Gielgud out into the dazzling lights of the Royal Court Theatre. You can almost feel the tension as the expectant audience stared down at the two theatrical legends — one intent on giving her usual astounding performance, the other shaking like a shitting dog. There was silence. Not a shout. Not a boo. Not even a cough. And then…..a standing ovation. The audience cheered and applauded Gielgud, raising the roof of the Liverpudlian theatre.The message could not have been more abundantly clear. The people did not give two hoots what Johnny got up to in his private life, they considered him an outstanding actor and held him and his performances in such high regard. His sexuality did not matter.
Not only does the fact that Gielgud went on working into is 90s and is remembered with such esteem, illustrate society’s growing tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality, his arrest was one of several that paved the way to the The Wolfenden Report in 1957, which recommended the decriminalisation of homosexuality. If that’s not a reason to remember Sir Johnny G being caught with his trousers around his ankles, I don’t know what is.
