Stephen Tennant

{{Infobox person

| honorific_prefix = The Honourable

| name = Stephen Tennant

| image =

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| birth_name = Stephen James Napier Tennant

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|4|21|df=y}}

| birth_place = Wilsford cum Lake, Wiltshire, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1987|2|28|1906|4|21|df=y}}

| death_place = Wilsford cum Lake, Wiltshire, England

| other_names =

| occupation =

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| known_for = One of the "Bright Young Things"

| partner = Siegfried Sassoon (1927–1933)

| children =

| parents =

| mother = Pamela Wyndham

| father = Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner

| relatives = {{Plainlist|

Margot Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (paternal aunt)
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (stepfather)
Edward Tennant (brother)
David Tennant (brother)
Emma Tennant (niece)
Stella Tennant (great-niece)

}}

| notable_works =

}}

Stephen James Napier Tennant (21 April 1906 – 28 February 1987) was a British socialite known for his decadent, eccentric lifestyle.{{Cite news |last=Ash |first=John |date=1991-02-03 |title=The outrageous Stephen Tennant |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1991/02/03/the-outrageous-stephen-tennant/6fde8a4d-a81d-45be-8d9f-428ed69c854f/ |access-date=2023-03-16 |issn=0190-8286}}{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/books/the-man-who-stayed-in-bed.html | title=The Man Who Stayed in Bed | work=The New York Times | date=3 February 1991 | last1=Waters | first1=John }} He was a central member of the socialite group referred to as "Bright Young Things" by the tabloid press of the time. Tennant was noted for his affected demeanor, appearance and behaviours.{{Cite web |last=Garman |first=Emma |date=2020-05-12 |title=The Great Writer Who Never Wrote |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/12/the-great-writer-who-never-wrote/ |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=The Paris Review |language=en}}

Early life

File:The Wyndham Sisters - Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tenant.jpg, 1899 (Metropolitan Museum)]]

Tennant was born into British nobility, the youngest son of a Scottish peer, Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner, and the former Pamela Wyndham, one of the Wyndham sisters and of The Souls clique. His mother was also a cousin of Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945), Oscar Wilde's lover and a sonneteer. On his father's death, Tennant's mother married Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, a fellow bird-lover. Tennant's eldest brother Edward – "Bim" – was killed in the First World War. His elder brother David Tennant founded the Gargoyle Club in Soho.{{cite news|last1=Hoare|first1=Philip|title=Michael Luke: Writer, film producer and dashing chronicler of the Gargoyle Club|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/michael-luke-6147974.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606230015/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/michael-luke-6147974.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=6 June 2014|access-date=3 June 2014|newspaper=The Independent|date=9 April 2005}}

=Social set=

During the 1920s and 1930s, Tennant was an important member – the "Brightest", it is said – of the "Bright Young Things". His friends included Rex Whistler, Cecil Beaton, the Sitwells, Lady Diana Manners and the Mitford girls. He is widely considered to be the model for Cedric Hampton in Nancy Mitford's novel Love in a Cold Climate, one of the inspirations for Lord Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and a model for the Hon. Miles Malpractice in some of Waugh's other novels.

Writing

For most of his life, Tennant tried to start or finish a novel – Lascar: A Story You Must Forget.{{cite web|url=https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/exhibitions-visiting/special-exhibitions/stephen-tennant-work-progress|title=Stephen Tennant: Work in Progress|website=Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Yale University|date=14 December 2018 |access-date=12 April 2020}} It is popularly believed that he spent the last 17 years of his life in bed at the house he inherited from his parents, Wilsford House{{National Heritage List for England|num=1131008|desc=Wilsford House|access-date=16 March 2023}} at Wilsford cum Lake, Wiltshire, which he had redecorated by Syrie Maugham.

Though undoubtedly idle, he was not truly lethargic: he made several visits to the United States and Italy, and developed many new friendships. His later reputation as a recluse became increasingly true only towards the last years of his life. Yet even then, his life was not uneventful: he became landlord to V. S. Naipaul, who immortalised Tennant in his novel The Enigma of Arrival.

Personal life

During the 1920s and 1930s Tennant had a long time sexual affair with the poet Siegfried Sassoon.{{cite web |last1=Thompson |first1=Johnathan |title=New diaries reveal the 'dark secrets' of Siegfried Sassoon's swooning affair |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/new-diaries-reveal-the-dark-secrets-of-siegfried-sassoon-s-swooning-affair-321646.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/new-diaries-reveal-the-dark-secrets-of-siegfried-sassoon-s-swooning-affair-321646.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |website=The Independent |date=22 October 2005 |access-date=30 December 2020}} Prior to this he had proposed to a friend, Elizabeth Lowndes, but had been rejected (Philip Hoare relates how Tennant discussed plans with Lowndes about bringing his nanny with them on their honeymoon).

His relationship with Sassoon (twenty years his senior), however, was to be his most important: it lasted some six years before Tennant off-handedly put an abrupt end to it and Sassoon was reportedly devastated.{{Cite magazine |last=Green |first=Peter |date=2006-02-20 |title=The Siegfried Line |magazine=The New Republic |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/65301/the-siegfried-line |access-date=2023-11-04 |issn=0028-6583}}

When Tennant died in 1987, he had outlived most of his contemporaries. A large archive of his letters, scrapbooks, personal ephemera and artworks is held in The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History in Hackney, London.{{Cite web|title = the viktor wynd museum of curiosities|url = http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/museum-curiosities/viktor-wynd-museum/viktor-wynd-museum-curiosities-fine-art-natural-history-now-open/#.VhEZ24sk--I|website = Thelasttuesdaysociety.org|accessdate = 2015-10-04|archive-date = 6 May 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210506123951/http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/museum-curiosities/viktor-wynd-museum/viktor-wynd-museum-curiosities-fine-art-natural-history-now-open/#.VhEZ24sk--I|url-status = dead}}

In popular culture

The character of Cedric Hampton in the novel Love in a Cold Climate is based on Tennant.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1991/02/03/the-outrageous-stephen-tennant/6fde8a4d-a81d-45be-8d9f-428ed69c854f/|title=The Outrageous Stephen Tennant|newspaper=The Washington Post|accessdate=12 May 2019}}

The character of Miles Malpractice in the novel Vile Bodies is based on Tennant.{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/24-hour-arty-people-87009.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/24-hour-arty-people-87009.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=24-hour arty people|date=14 September 2003|newspaper=The Independent|access-date=13 February 2019}}

Lord Sebastian Flyte, a character in the novel Brideshead Revisited, is partly based on Tennant.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/books/the-man-who-stayed-in-bed.html|title=The Man Who Stayed in Bed|first=John|last=Waters|date=3 February 1991|access-date=13 February 2019|website=The New York Times}}

The narrator of Shola von Reinhold's novel LOTE (2020) is obsessed ("transfixed") with Tennant, and mentions him throughout the book.[https://www.dukeupress.edu/lote]

He was played as a younger man by Calam Lynch and as an older man by Anton Lesser in the 2021 Terence Davies film Benediction.