Bedtime Story

Between the 2 great wars, there existed a movement that we now call The Bright Young Things, flappers & socialites seeking thrills & chasing dreams in the anything goes era.

Tennant by Cecil Beaton

Stephen Tennant was a born on this day-April 21^st, in 1906, into a life of profound privilege, yet he perverted his special standing by becoming the most beautiful person, male or female, of his generation.  With gold dust in his blond hair, vaseline on his eyelids, a leather coat with a chinchilla fur collar, he outraged staid society with his lover- the great poet & pacifist, super-masculine & much older- Siegfried Sassoon on his arm. Sassoon brought his fame, his talent, his position to their relationship, while Tennant's only daily activities were dressing-up & reading about himself in the gossip columns. The way-too-thin, way-too-rich Tennant's extreme elegance was a sort of sexual terrorism, as it flabbergasted society on both sides of the Atlantic for half a century.

Sassoon (standing) & Tennant

Retreating from the vulgarity of the modern world, Tennant’s home base was his country Arts & Crafts manor built for his mother.  He had 22 tons of silver sand spread on the lush English lawns, palms planted, & tropical birds & lizards were let loose in the grounds.  In the winter, they took refuge in the house, accompanying Stephen as he turned the bath taps on his collection of shells, since they looked better wet. His many visitors included: Cecil Beaton, David Hockney, Kenneth Anger, Derek Jarman, Greta Garbo, The Sitwells, T.E.Lawrence, Talulah Bankhead, Christopher Isherwood, Cocteau, & his best friend- Willa Cather. Tennant lived in this home for homos, in delicious, decorative detachment.

When his NYC friends met his ship at the pier, the must have been embarrassed to see him walking down the gangway with his Marcelled, wearing makeup & .delicately holding a spray of orchids. When a rough customs official shouted "Pin 'em on!" in homophobic disgust, Tennant exclaimed: "Oh, have you got a pin? You kind, kind creature."

Tennant & his crowd

Tennant's  BFF was Willa Cather, the notoriously no nonsense writer of O' Pioneers!. What an odd pair, with the rather plain Cather hanging out with a man whose beauty tips included: “an absolute ban on facial grimacing or harsh, wrinkle-forming laughter.” Cather encouraged him to write, even though  the novel that obsessed him for the last 50 years of his life, remained unfinished at his death. Tennant did publish several slim volumes of poetry.

After WW2, Tennant went to bed.  For the next 17 years he rested. Perfumed, made-up, with ribbons in his dyed comb-over, Tennant was not concerned about his grossly overweight figure: "'But I'm beautiful, & the more of me there is the better I like it!” He lay in bed surrounded by his jewelry, drawings & Elvis Presley postcard, pink & gold statues in the overgrown garden, the fishnets & seashells everywhere, & pet lizards. His famous visitors may have laughed, but Tennant himself, was in on the joke from the beginning. 

A telling anecdote has him regretting giving a present to a friend because “I’m not sure if she loves it as intensely as I do”. 

In his later years, Tennant would visit the nearby villages by going shopping wearing tight pink shorts or a tablecloth as a skirt. His family had given up on him long before, exhibiting only bemused resignation, a trait The Husband uses today while dealing with me. Writer V. S. Naipaul described Tennant by noting "His shyness wasn't so much a wish not to be seen as a wish to be applauded on sight."

Stephen Tennant peacefully passed away, in bed, of course, in his 81st year. Beaton had once predicted: “he will be the last of us to go,” & so he was,leaving us in 1987.Sublime obliviousness to social taboos was Tennant's greatest contribution to our gay history.