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Article by Angela Levin taken from Daily Mail.
Now all I want is for blokeish men to say that I'm OK. Comedian Eddie Izzard On His Confused Sexuality And Need To Be Loved
"I want to take teevees," he says, his way of referring to transvestites, "away from the fringe area and introduce them into society - but through comedy rather than just being someone who clumps around in a dress. As I look at it, women wear dresses, so why not men?" I caught up with Eddie in a sumptous hotel, where he was enjoying a break between his round-the-country shows. Seeing Eddie in the flesh is a confusing experience. He claims to be 5ft 9in, but looks shorter. His hands are soft and feminine with long fingernails varnished a fashionable purple. He has blond highlights in his short, carefully tousled hair. He wasn't wearing make-up and his Desperate Dan jaw had a hint of designer stubble. His gestures are neither obviously male nor female. He was wearing a too-tight black, long-sleeved top that emphasised his flat chest and large rib cage, and bell-bottomed shiny black trousers. His size seven feet were encased in high-heeled boots. He sat in true Fifties finishing-school style with one leg neatly placed over the other at an angle. Nor was it just me who was bemused. The upper-crust hotel guests kept looking at him out of the corner of their eyes but, in true British style, their expressions remained impassive. One can understand their bewilderment. Should you relate to him as a male or female? Indeed, which sex does he want to be? A few years ago, I spent some time writing about men who wear women's clothes - transsexuals and transvestites. Transsexuals are sad individuals who, from being toddlers, are convinced they were born into the wrong bodies and are driven to change their sex. Transvestites, however, are often less troubled. While they like, or feel the need, to dress in women's clothes, they are happy to stay as men. Mick Jagger, for example, shows a partiality for female gear, but there's no mistaking his sexuality. Eddie calls himself a transvestite, but says that although he'd be "happy to be a woman" he doesn't want hormone treatment because he's too big-boned and "wouldn't look right". It's been put to Eddie that his cross-dressing might be a result of having been devastated by the death from cancer of his mother, Dorothy, when he was six. He admits he's never come to terms with his loss, but denies it as the cause. "It's genetic," he explains. "I've wanted to wear girls' clothes since I was four, when I saw a young boy on our estate wearing a dress. I did try to see a psychiatrist about it at college, but couldn't get an appointment. Not that it would have helped." He insists he has a masculine approach to things. "My thinking is testosterone-controlled, but I have oestrogen sensibilities." He also has an oestrogen-controlled attitude to clothes, talking about them with great enthusiasm and deliberately emphasising women's sizes. "I buy things off the peg, ranging from Jean-Paul Gaultier to Next and M&S. From the waist down, I'm a size 12 and 12-14 on top. I'm very relaxed about what I wear. "I particularly love working out what goes with what. I also cleanse, tone and moisturise my skin every day, but I don't worry about wrinkles because I'll always look like a bloke wearing make-up." On the question of which gender he fancies, Eddie is in no doubt. "I fancy women," he says, wrapping his arms round his flat chest, " although I admit that very square women don't fancy me. They go for Captain Normal. I also have a problem with very square men, who think I'm homosexual. I've tried fancying men, but I can't. "The best description of me is a male lesbian. By accesssing my female side, I appreciate my male side more." He leans forward in the armchair. "If everyone was as honest about their sexuality as I am, we'd have a greater understanding of each other. Men, in particular, are so blocked." Although Eddie claims to be open about his sexuality, when I asked when he last had a girlfriend he became as blocked as other men: "I can't remember." Eddie prefers to be in control of conversation. "I've been fairly loose and free for the past few years. I'd like to get to the stage where I fancy settling down with one partner, but I'm concentrating on touring and making it in America." Eddie Izzard was born on February 7th, 1962, in Aden, where his father John was working for BP. The family returned to Britain a few years later. Eddie liked football and - as he grew up - mountaineering and going on Outward Bound courses. He remembers his mother, a midwife, as being very caring. "She used to bring me hot, milky coffee, when I woke up in the night." When she became terminally ill in 1968, Eddie and his elder brother Mark were sent away to a boarding school. His parents chose St John's in Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan, which was strict, old-fashioned and believed in caning. Eddie, who was dyslexic, hated it. When he heard his mother had died, he started crying and barely stopped for years. "I couldn't make sense of what had happened, but when I reached 11, I decided to block off my emotions." He has, it seems, never let them fully return. The year after his mother's death, his father, then chief auditor for BP, switched his sons to the more liberal St Bede's in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and two years later to Eastbourne College. He remarried when Eddie was 13. When Eddie met his future stepmother, Kate, he told her all about his mother. Eddie went to Sheffield University to study accountancy, but spent his time writing and performing sketches. He dropped out after a year. He performed at the Edinburgh Festival and in 1991 was nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award. Two years later, he took his show to the West End and won the British Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian. He has since successfully toured America, Paris and Amsterdam and brought out two best-selling videos - Unrepeatable and Definite Article. Last year he again won Best Stand-up Comedian at the British Comedy Awards. Eddie started dressing as a woman in secret in his bedroom as a teenager. But when he was 23 he decide to tell a female friend whose brother was gay. She was so supportive that Eddie told other friends and joined a transvestite support group in London. Telling his father was a different story. "I built up to it for years. I told him when I was 29. We'd just been to a Crystal Palace football match. He just said: 'That's OK.' Even though he's convention itself, he's been very supportive. I'm so pleased I confronted my fear and told him." "I'd have been frustrated if I hadn't. I always thought I'd be a comedian with a huge secret. But once I told my dad, I felt free to reveal it on stage. Ever since, I've refused to apologise for being teevee." Eddie has worked hard for his success. He began as a street artist in Covent Garden and Edinburgh, but remembering those early, difficult days makes him cringe. "I was abysmal. I couldn't hold anyone's attention for five minutes. But gradually I learned how to keep an audience and can now do a two-hour show." Despite his increasing success, he won't let his emotions run away with him. "I never allow myself to get hugely elated or depressed," he says. "I don't confide in people, probably keep my own counsel too much and keep my emotions suppressed. I learned to do it as a result of my mother's death. It's certainly a good way of surviving under pressure." So it comes as no surprise that he lives alone in a South London flat and has little time for life outside of his work. He remains driven. "One of the problems of loss at an early age is that it leaves you with a tremendous need to be loved," he says. "It's why I love performing to a live audience. I could never stop. It's a drug for me. "Now all I want is for blokeish men to say I'm OK, but...." he smiles coyly, "some people will always consider me over the line."
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