Three wealthy homosexuals remember Evelyn Waugh
Stop, stop! He’s already dead!
Fifty-nine years ago today, Cecil Beaton wrote in his diary, ‘So Evelyn Waugh is in his coffin. Died of snobbery.’
Yes, poor Evelyn died of heart failure on Easter Sunday, collapsing in his Somerset home after attending a church service. He was just sixty-two years old.
Being a Forster gal, I don’t have much to say by way of an obituary. I liked Brideshead Revisited1, thought Vile Bodies was fine and struggled through Charles Sturridge’s adaptation of A Handful of Dust that only makes the magic of his Brideshead adaptation look like a fluke.
The fact that I couldn’t be bothered to wait until the 60th anniversary of Waugh’s death to write some hack piece for The Spectator about his demise heralding a dearth of great conservative writers (an oxymoron, I know) probably says enough about my lack of passion. Honestly, I just wanted to write about Beaton's diary entry, and I don’t know or have a strong enough opinion about Waugh to structure an entire article around it.
What I do know, however, is mid-20th century high-society homosexuals and their opinions on Evelyn Waugh, which we shall explore now.
Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton probably has the most comprehensive opinion about Waugh, having known him the longest. They attended the same prep school, Heath Mount, and from their very first day, Beaton was the target of Waugh, ‘tiny, but fierce,’ and ‘already an experienced bully,’ who spat at him and jabbed pins in his arm.
Though Beaton went on to Harrow and Waugh to Lancing College, they moved in similar social circles as adults. Beaton wrote, ‘In our own way, we were both snobs, and no snob welcomes another who has risen with him. My particular snobbery was more in the nature of wanting to become part of the world of the ‘culturi’…Evelyn was attracted by the foibles of those who lived in large, aristocratic houses.’
In a 1949 diary entry, Beaton wrote, ‘Evelyn’s abiding complex and the source of much of his misery was that he was not a six-foot tall, extremely handsome and rich duke.’
It was an idea he would (Brideshead) revisit in his diary entry the day after Waugh died, ‘he wanted to be a duke, and that he could never be; hence a life of disappointment and sham.'
Perhaps it is a little cruel of me to point out, but I think Beaton, photographer of the Royal Family, recipient of a Knighthood and tenant of Ashcombe House2, ironically achieved a greater level of success in Waugh’s chosen field of snobbery than Waugh, who turned down a CBE in 1959, believing he deserved a Knighthood. He would die sans titre.
Peter Watson
Peter Watson, arts benefactor and Cecil Beaton’s unrequited love, was not a duke, but 6'2 and richer than sin, he aligned to Evelyn Waugh’s supposed ideal far more than Waugh ever could. Surprisingly, Waugh couldn’t stand him.
To Waugh, Watson was 'a pansy of means.’
To Watson, Waugh was simply ‘the Catholic Fascist.’
Watson was best known for being the patron of artists like Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and for his work at (and funding of) Horizon magazine, where he was the Arts Editor. In November 1947, Watson had a disagreement with Cyril Connolly, Horizon’s Editor, about whether or not an entire issue should be dedicated to Evelyn Waugh’s new short story, The Loved One.
Opposed to publishing it because he thought its satire was ‘used as a mask to cover an inner emptiness,’ Watson said of Waugh in a letter to Connolly, ‘How he hates everyone! I should not wish to be him. I just don’t understand how he can be religious in any way.’
Noël Coward
The actor and playwright Noël Coward was equally baffled by Waugh’s faith. Though Coward thought Brideshead Revisited was ‘exquisite’ and in a 1950 letter to Waugh said, ‘I wish we met more often,’ he often took to his diaries to critique Waugh’s other works.
Men at Arms was ‘a bit soggy with Catholicism’, Officers and Gentlemen was ‘not, I fear, very good’, and Unconditional Surrender was ‘sadly disappointing…The whole book is shadowed by a dark cloud of Catholicism which suffocates humour and interferes with the story…I do wish highly intelligent writers would not unconditionally surrender themselves to specific religious dogmas, it really does bugger up the output.’
In his diaries, Coward has little to say about time spent with Evelyn Waugh, only noting his presence, but in a 1955 letter to Clemence Dane, he was more effusive.
‘Evelyn Waugh came to dinner, what a strange little man he is; I like him but as you know I have always been puzzled how anyone as intelligent can accept the dogmas of the RC faith, and he didn’t, perhaps he couldn’t enlighten me. On the contrary, he told me he was a bored and unhappy man so now I am more mystified than ever.’
Evelyn Against The World
I think any attempt to scrutinise artists of old for their lack of present-day values is a pointless endeavour, and I would be the first to admit that Cecil Beaton and Noël Coward probably wouldn’t pass muster. That being said, I think the fact that both they and Peter Watson find Evelyn Waugh so out of step with their contemporary values is damning.
Nancy Mitford said of Waugh, ‘everything with him was jokes,’ but none of the accounts given by Beaton, Watson or Coward inspire an urge to spend time in his company. He sounds like a deeply miserable character despite his success, faith and marriage which, in a 1949 diary entry, Beaton believed to be, ‘exceedingly happy…but I cannot imagine his ever loving anyone.’
Beaton was slightly more charitable towards Waugh after his death. ‘Now that he is dead, I cannot hate him; cannot really feel he was wicked in spite of his cruelty, his bullying, his caddishness…I am pleased not to see him again.’
Despite their respective levels of aversion to Waugh, Beaton, Watson and Coward extend little malice towards him, perhaps cognisant that Evelyn Waugh had already been sufficiently punished; he had to endure being Evelyn Waugh and, like his most famous creation, Charles Ryder, had to spend his life yearning for a world never fully within reach, lying in the gutter3 and weary of looking up at the stars.
You might think I’m being metaphorical, but I’m being literal. I don’t think Evelyn Waugh was tired of endless, hopeless aspiration - I think he was tired of looking up.
I find it interesting that both Coward and Beaton felt it necessary to reference Waugh’s height; Coward calls him ‘a strange little man’ and Beaton says that ‘the source of much of his misery was that he was not a six-foot tall extremely handsome and rich duke.’
It begs the question: did Evelyn Waugh have a Napoleon Complex?
Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life - to be born short. I have never been friends with a short man in my life. Don't trust them; they are mean, and they want to kill you - Karl Lagerfeld
Our wealthy homosexuals were a tall bunch. Noël Coward was 6'1, Peter Watson was 6'24 and Cecil Beaton was 6'3. Evelyn Waugh’s height is not publicly known, but we can infer that it was short enough for his son, Auberon, to refer to it as ‘a lack of height’ and for The New York Times to refer to it in their obituary of Waugh, a practice I don’t think has survived into 2025.
Mr. Waugh, though of only middling height, was an impressive figure as he walked along the fashionable streets and squares of St. James's, one of London's most elegant neighborhoods… In later years, he added bulk to what had been a slender frame.
Anderson & Sheppard, Waugh’s Savile Row tailors, have his height down at 5'10, but they rely on a measurement called, ‘The Gentlemen's Height’ - a ‘more elegant way of taking a record of height than asking the customer or taking a measurement from his head to the floor.’
Waugh’s actual height was closer to 5'7, and though it may be cruel for me, a lady of 6'0, to say, I think it explains everything.
Evelyn Waugh’s legacy is secure. His books have never gone out of print, his fascist leanings are routinely glossed over or openly defended in a range of publications from The Critic to The New Statesman, and his fictional stand-in was played by Jeremy Irons (6’2). He continues to be a topic of debate, but has many rushing to his defence.
I am not such a person. I trust Cecil Beaton, Peter Watson and Noël Coward’s opinions implicitly, and thanks to them, I now have a piece to serve as my obituary of Evelyn Waugh, a cruel, short man who died on the toilet.
To quote the great E. M. Forster, ‘What an ending, what an ending!’
Thanks so much for reading! If you couldn’t tell, I’m obsessed with 20th-century high-society homosexuals, so thank you for indulging me. If you enjoyed my writing, please consider subscribing - paid subscribers get two extra posts a month and access to all previous posts I’ve written.
If you would like to read similar pieces, you can check out this one specifically about Brideshead Revisited:
This article features Peter Watson and me bitching about England:
Or, if you’re just here for Jeremy Irons, this one is for you:
Alternatively, I would recommend the diaries of Cecil Beaton and Noël Coward in a heartbeat. Queer Saint: The Cultured Life of Peter Watson is a phenomenal, heartbreaking read. Oh! And Maurice, you’ve got to read Maurice!
See you next week!
L x
Though how much of that has to do with Jeremy Irons is debatable
Later purchased by Madonna of all people
As those poor souls do when they go to Lancing College and Hertford College Oxford
And weighed just nine stone - skinny legend!