Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Will Wilde died destitute in Paris on November 27, 1900, two years after completing a gruelling prison sentence for 'the love that dare not speak its name'. Last year, the city of Dublin - his birthplace - finally managed to erect a statue to his memory.
It has been a long rehabilitation for the poet, playwright and erudite philosopher, one which finally seems to have been completed by the movie Wilde, starring British actor/comedian/writer Stephen Fry - himself no stranger to prison confinement, homosexuality, or hysterical controversy.
Two other movies have been made about Wilde; one, in 1959, starred Robert Morley and another, in 1960, called The Trials Of Oscar Wilde, featured Peter Finch in the title role. Fry jokes: 'As a child I had the distinct impression after seeing the Peter Finch film that Oscar Wilde was put in prison for patting people on the head.' The director of Wilde, Brian Gilbert (Tom And Viv), acknowledges that 'the story of Oscar Wilde is over-familiar to a few and relatively unknown to many. I do really feel he's been trivialised over the years, both as a man and as an artist. This movie is part of the complete re-evaluation of the stature of Wilde.' Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour after an ill-advised libel action against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas ('Bosie'), turned into a series of prosecutions against Wilde for indecent acts.
Rent boys and illicit assignations were paraded across a London courtroom in an orgy of social shame for Wilde. After three ugly trials, he was wiped off the literary map, his wife Constance and their two young sons were forced to change their name and flee to Europe, and Wilde was given the maximum sentence possible, to be spent at Reading Jail.
Afterwards, a broken and largely friendless Wilde used the name Sebastian Melmoth as he travelled across France before his death. Two years ago, Fry walked out of a West End play called Cellmates, co-starring Rik Mayall in London, and went walkabout in Europe.
When he was found by the British tabloids, 'perilously close to suicide' in Belgium, he was also using the name Sebastian Melmoth. 'Yes,' admits Fry, 'I used that name, and that was before I knew this film was going to happen, so clearly Wilde had meant a lot to me. Not that I felt like Oscar Wilde, my goodness, I was not nearly in as much disgrace as he was.' Gilbert says: 'There is a lot in Stephen that makes contact with Wilde - he's had an experience of prison, he has his own sexual feelings, he's had scandal in his life and he's a naturally witty and articulate man.