Wilde’s repertoire of masks, talent for self-fashioning and skillful reinvention transformed him into a media star. He went down into the mines with the bearded ruffians of Leadville, Colo.-“the roughest and most wicked town on earth”-then supped on three courses of whiskey and was hailed as a hero, a man’s man and one of their own. He wore Buffalo Bill’s shoulder-length hair and was a heavy drinker. He was Irish and English, an ass but clever, feminine and masculine, aesthetic and athletic. Wilde’s character was enigmatic, both appalling and appealing. The “queer, high-flavored fruit” seemed defective in masculinity. He favored a long fur-trimmed green coat, wide Byronic collar, knee breeches, silk stockings, silver-buckled pumps and a yellow handkerchief. His lectures mixed paradox and wit, eccentricity and nonsense while spreading the war cry of beauty amid the agonizing ugliness of 19th-century American dress and décor. Wilde was six feet, four inches tall, weighed 200 pounds and had thick lips and a puffy face. Customs he said, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” Every American bride is taken there and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.” He also put down the nation’s iconic cataract: “I was disappointed with Niagara. Customs he said, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” He rated the Atlantic Ocean “disappointing” and would have preferred more turbulence. Wilde was better known for his wit than for his lectures, a long-running, one-man show, written by and starring himself. He fell in love with an attractive woman, but discovered that his deepest erotic yearnings were for men. Wilde did not marry to “cure” his homosexuality. His marriage in 1884 and his two sons (Cyril and Vyvyan) as well as the appearance of male lovers (Robbie Ross in 1886 and Lord Alfred Douglas in 1891) were still in the future. Wearing a theatrical costume while behaving outrageously on stage, his ambiguous sexuality became entertainment. In the Victorian period men had to hide their homosexuality, but Wilde found a way to flaunt his feelings. Making Oscar Wilde by Michele Mendelssohn
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