London’s Newest Queen
It was in May 1976 that Mary Ann Singleton, who had arrived in San Francisco as a tourist from Cleveland, decided she would make the city her new home. So began the initial installment of Armistead Maupin’s beloved Tales of the City. Serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle and later the San Francisco Examiner, Maupin’s column grew into nine novels, a groundbreaking television miniseries that showed two gay men kissing, a musical, a radio show, and numerous related projects. In the process, Tales catapulted the writer, a 32-year-old North Carolina transplant when he started the series, to global fame—and made him an icon of San Francisco’s Castro district.
Last year, Netflix rebooted the Tales of the City mini-series, with stars Laura Linney (Mary Ann) and Olympia Dukakis (landlady Anna Madrigal) reprising their roles and new characters joining the production to update the story. Alta was honored to sponsor the show’s premiere at the Castro Theatre. However, just two months later, Maupin and his husband, photographer Chris Turner, moved into their London home—the day after Netflix launched the revamped miniseries.
I LOVE SAN FRANCISCO WITH ALL MY HEART, AND IT’S THE CORE OF EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WRITTEN.
Alta editor and publisher Will Hearst visited Maupin at his new house, toured his Clapham neighborhood, and, naturally, traded pints at a local pub. Along the way, they considered how the Castro—and all of San Francisco—has changed, shared tales about Tales, and discussed what’s needed for Maupin to call London home.
HEARST: You are the iconic San Franciscan, so why did you move to London? What changed?
MAUPIN: Well, it would be a mistake to assume that we were fleeing Trump, because first of all, it’s not possible to flee that man. He’s a danger to the entire globe. So that wasn’t part of the decision. And if it had been, the joke would have been on us—because we’ve traded one narcissistic blond ass monkey for another.
Our reasons were friendship and culture. We were so lucky. Our friends Ian McKellen and Graham Norton put us up in their homes until we could find a place to rent. Lord Michael Cashman helped us get visas. I knew Michael years ago when he was the first person to kiss a man on the telly on EastEnders, and he went on to this amazing career in the European Parliament. He now sits in the [U.K.’s] House of Lords. And he’s a great, progressive, kind, sweet man.
HEARST: So you must’ve planned this for a while?
I would never have done it if not for my husband, Chris. He lived here in the, one of the greatest things to ever appear in a newspaper. They’re all literary figures whom I’ve revered, so I could have seen this coming.
