Joe Orton

[Serendipity09]

August 9, 1967: Joe Orton, homicide. British author and playwright. Murdered by his former mentor and current lover, Kenneth Halliwell, who was jealous of Orton's artistic success and romantic conquests, while the older Halliwell remained unpublished and unloved. Halliwell pounded Orton's head to death with a hammer, then killed himself with an overdose of sleeping pills. Their story was depicted in 1987's film Prick Up Your Ears, starring Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as Halliwell. Orton was 34 years old, Halliwell was 41.

[cherryghost]

I recently met the photographer Lewis Morley who did the famous photograph of Joe sitting on the same chair that Christine Keeler sat on! And silly me I didnt ask him about the experience!

[Lisamarie]

I love the fad story about this! I love he was able to get so up close and personal ! I love the tiles on the floor! It was so amazing! I would love to live in a place like that!

[Harry's Cat]

I have an interesting anecdote about the public loo's on Islington Green (now demolished) where Joe did a lot of his Importuning/Cottaging/Scoping (whatever you like to call it)

In around 1977 a small time crook/thief called Billy Moseley was murdered and his severed head was wrapped in newspaper and hidden behind one of the cisterns in the public loo in question.

The murder(s) were convicted (Maynard, Dudley & Clarke) and to this day are protesting their innocence.
However one of the pieces of evidence was that the newspaper that the head of Billy Moseley was wrapped in had the newsagents writing on it to tell the paperboy where to deliver and it was Maynard’s address!
As I said small time crooks in Islington (You could write a book!!!)

[Jack-O-Lantern]

"The Orton Diaries" is a fascinating read. This was one trashy bloke, but WAY talented...

http://www.amazon.com/Orton-Diaries-...0437070&sr=8-1

[TIMB1967]

I read that book...the Orton Diaries. He was pretty witty and had a way of getting what he wanted when he wanted it...and yes, very talented.

[Guest]

Talented guy, tragic ending. Big friend of the inimitable Kenneth Williams.

[Guest]

John Kingsley ("Joe") Orton (1 January 1933 in Leicester–9 August 1967 in Islington, London) was an English playwright.

In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. Ortonesque became a recognised term for "outrageously macabre".

Orton was born at Causeway Lane Maternity Hospital, Leicester, to a working class family. Until the age of two, he lived at 261 Avenue Road Extension in Clarendon Park, Leicester. The family then moved to the Saffron Lane council estate. He lived with his younger brother, Douglas, and two younger sisters, Marilyn and Leonie. His parents, William and Elsie, had married in 1931; his father worked for Leicester Council as a gardener, while his mother worked in the local footwear industry until tuberculosis cost her a lung.

Orton attended Marriots Road Primary School, but failed the eleven-plus exam after extended bouts of asthma, and so took a secretarial course at Clark's College in Leicester from 1945 to 1947. He then began working as a junior clerk on £3 a week.

Orton became interested in performing in the theatre around 1949 and joined a number of different dramatic societies, including the prestigious Leicester Dramatic Society. While working on amateur productions he was also determined to improve his appearance and physique, buying body-building courses, taking elocution lessons, and trying to redress his lack of education and culture. He applied for a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in November 1950. He was accepted, and left the East Midlands for London. His entrance into RADA was delayed until May 1951 by appendicitis.

Orton met Kenneth Halliwell at RADA in 1951, moving into a West Hampstead flat with him and two other students in June of that year. Halliwell was seven years older than Orton and of independent means, having a substantial inheritance. They quickly formed a strong relationship and became lovers.

After graduating, both Orton and Halliwell went into a regional repertory work; Orton spent four months in Ipswich as an assistant stage manager, Halliwell in Llandudno, Wales. Both returned to London and became writers. They collaborated on a number of unpublished novels (often imitating Ronald Firbank), and had little success. The rejection of their great hope, The Last Days of Sodom, in 1957 led them to solo works. Orton would later return to the books for ideas and many show glimpses of his stage play style.

They refused to work for long periods, confident of their "specialness"; they subsisted on Halliwell's money (as well as the dole) and were forced to follow an ascetic life in order to restrict their outgoings to £5 a week. From 1957-59, they worked in six-month stretches at Cadbury's to raise money for a new flat; they moved into a small, austere flat on Noel Road in Islington in 1959.

A lack of serious work led them to amuse themselves with pranks and hoaxes. Orton created the alter ego Edna Welthorpe, an elderly theatre snob, whom he would later revive to stir controversy over his plays. Orton coined the term as an allusion to Terence Rattigan's "Aunt Edna", Rattigan's archetypal playgoer.

In another episode, Orton and Halliwell stole books from the local library, and would subtly modify the cover art or the blurbs before returning them to the library. A volume of poems by John Betjeman, for example, was returned to the library with a new dustjacket featuring a photograph of a nearly naked, heavily tattooed middle-aged man. The couple took many of the prints to decorate their flat.

They were eventually discovered, and prosecuted for this in May 1962. The incident was reported in Daily Mirror as "Gorilla in the Roses". They were charged with five counts of theft and malicious damage, admitted damaging more than 70 books, and were jailed for six months (released September 1962) and fined £262. The sentence was unduly harsh, Orton and Halliwell felt, "because we were queers." For Orton however, prison would be a crucial formative experience, the isolation from Halliwell allowing him to break free of him creatively, and laid bare for him the corruptness, prigishness and double-standards of a purportedly liberal country. As Orton put it, ‘It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul... Being in the nick brought detachment to my writing. I wasn’t involved anymore. And suddenly it worked.’

In the early 1960s Orton began to write plays. He wrote his last novel, Head to Toe, in 1961, and soon afterward had his writing accepted. In 1963 the BBC paid £65 for the radio play The Boy Hairdresser, broadcast on 31 August 1964, as The Ruffian on the Stair. It was substantially rewritten for the stage in 1966.

Orton revelled in his achievement and poured out new works. He had completed Entertaining Mr. Sloane by the time The Ruffian on the Stair was broadcast. He sent a copy to theatre agent Peggy Ramsay in December 1963. It premiered at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 under the direction of Michael Codron. Reviews ranged from praise to outrage.

Entertaining Mr Sloane lost money in its three week run, but critical praise from playwright Terence Rattigan (who invested £3,000 in it) ensured its survival. The play was transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End at the end of June and to the Queen's Theatre in October. Sloane tied for first in the Variety Critics' Poll for "Best New Play" and Orton came second for "Most Promising Playwright." Within a year, Sloane was being performed in New York, Spain, Israel and Australia, as well as being made into a film and a television play.

Orton's next performed work was Loot. The first draft was written between June and October 1964 and entitled Funeral Games, a title Orton would drop for Halliwell's suggestion but would later reuse. The play is a wild parody of detective fiction, adding the blackest farce and jabs at established ideas on death, the police, religion and justice. Orton offered the play to Codron in October 1964 and it underwent sweeping rewrites before it was judged fit for the West End (for example, the character of "Inspector Truscott" had a mere eight lines in the initial first act.)

Codron had manoeuvred Orton into meeting his colleague Kenneth Williams in August 1964. Orton reworked Loot with Williams in mind for Truscott. His other inspiration for the role was DS Harold Challenor.

With the success of Sloane, Loot was hurried into pre-production, despite its obvious flaws. Rehearsals began in January 1965 with a six-week tour culminating in a West End debut planned. The play opened in Cambridge on 1 February to scathing reviews.

Orton, at odds with director Peter Wood over the plot, produced 133 pages of new material to replace, or add, to the original 90. The play received poor reviews in Brighton, Oxford, Bournemouth, Manchester, and finally Wimbledon in mid-March. Discouraged, Orton and Halliwell went on an 80-day holiday in Tangier, Morocco.

[Guest]

In January 1966, Loot was revived, with Oscar Lewenstein taking up an option. Before his production, it had a short run (April 11-23) at the University Theatre, Manchester. Orton's growing experience led him to cut over 600 lines, raising the tempo and improving the characters' interactions.

Directed by Braham Murray, the play garnered more favourable reviews. Lewenstein was still a little cool, however, and put the London production in a "sort of Off-West End theatre", the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre in Bloomsbury, under the direction of Charles Marowitz.

Orton continued his habit of clashing with directors with Marowitz, but the additional cuts they agreed to further improved the play. It premiered in London on 27 September 1966, to rave reviews. Loot moved to the Criterion Theatre in November, raising Orton's confidence to new heights while he was in the middle of writing What the Butler Saw.

Loot went on to win several awards and firmly established Orton's fame. He sold the film rights for £25,000, although he was certain it would flop; it did, and Loot on Broadway repeated the failure of Sloane. Orton was still on an absolute high, however, and over the next ten months revised The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp for the stage as a double called Crimes of Passion, wrote Funeral Games, the screenplay Up Against It for the Beatles, and worked on What the Butler Saw.

The Good and Faithful Servant was a transitional work for Orton. A one-act television play, it was completed by June 1964 but first broadcast by Associated-Rediffusion on 6 April 1967.

The Erpingham Camp, Orton's take on The Bacchae, written through mid-1965 and offered to Rediffusion in October of that year, was broadcast on June 27, 1966 as the 'pride' segment in their series Seven Deadly Sins.

Orton wrote and rewrote Funeral Games four times from July - November, 1966. Created for a 1967 Rediffusion series, The Seven Deadly Virtues, Orton's play dealt with charity — especially Christian charity — in a confusion of adultery and murder. However Rediffusion did not use the play. Instead it was made as one of the first productions of the new ITV company Yorkshire Television, and was broadcast postumously on August 26, 1968.

In March 1967 Orton and Halliwell had intended another extended holiday in Libya, but their relationship had deteriorated so far that they returned home after barely a day. Orton was working hard, energised and happy; Halliwell was increasingly depressed, argumentative, and plagued with mystery ailments.

Orton's controversial farce What The Butler Saw debuted in the West End after his death in 1969. It opened at the Queen's Theatre with Sir Ralph Richardson, Coral Browne, Stanley Baxter, and Hayward Morse.

Murder

On August 9, 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned the 34-year-old Orton to death with nine hammer blows to the head, and then committed suicide with an overdose of 22 Nembutal tablets washed down with the juice from canned grapefruit. Investigators determined that Halliwell died first, because Orton's body was still warm.

The November 22, 1970 edition of The Sunday Times reported that on August 5, 1967, four days before the murder, Orton went to the Chelsea Potter pub in the King's Road. He met friend Peter Nolan who later gave evidence at the inquest that Orton told him that he had another boyfriend, and that he wanted to end his relationship with Halliwell but didn't know how to go about it.

The last person to speak to Halliwell was his doctor, who arranged for a psychiatrist to see him the following morning. He spoke to Halliwell three times on the telephone. The last call was at 10 o'clock. Halliwell took the psychiatrist's address and said, "Don't worry, I'm feeling better now. I'll go and see the doctor tomorrow morning."

Halliwell had felt increasingly threatened and isolated by Orton's success, and had come to rely on anti-depressants and barbiturates. The bodies were discovered the following morning when a chauffeur arrived to take Orton to a meeting to discuss a screenplay he had written for the Beatles.

Halliwell left a suicide note, informing police that all would be explained if they read Orton's diaries, "especially the latter part". The diaries have since been published.

Orton was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium. The eulogy was read by Harold Pinter, who concluded by saying "he was a bloody marvellous writer." According to Dennis Dewsnap's memoire (What's Sex Got To Do With It, The Syden Press, 2004) from mostly Tangiers, where Orton and Halliwell went on holiday, Orton and his lover/murderer had their ashes mixed and were buried together. Dewsnap writes about Orton's agent Peggy Ramsay: "...At the scattering of Joe's and Kenneth's ashes, his sister took a handful from both urns and said 'a little bit of Joe, and a little bit of Kenneth. I think perhaps a little bit more of our Joe, and then some more of Kenneth'. At which Peggy snapped 'Come on, dearie, it's only a gesture, not a recipe.', a line surely worthy of Joe himself - though indicative of the contempt in which Ramsey held the Orton family. She described them as simply "the little people in Leicester", leaving a cold nondescript note and bouquet on their behalf at the funeral.

Orton's legacy stands to live on in his home town, Leicester as the development of the "cultural quarter" of the city (a former industrial area) continues apace and the new Theatre, Curve, the central development in the area, has a new pedestrian concourse outside the theatre's main entrance named, "Orton Square". Curve officially opens on December 4 2008.

John Lahr wrote a biography of Orton entitled Prick Up Your Ears, a title Orton himself had considered using, in 1978. The 1987 film adaptation is based on Orton's diaries and on Lahr's research. Directed by Stephen Frears, it starred Gary Oldman as Orton, Alfred Molina as Halliwell and Vanessa Redgrave as Peggy Ramsay. Alan Bennett wrote the screenplay.

Joe Orton was played by the actor Kenny Doughty in the BBC film Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!, starring Michael Sheen as Kenneth Williams.

Two archive recordings of Orton survive: a short BBC radio interview first transmitted in August 1967 and a video recording, held by the BFI, of his appearance on Eamonn Andrews' ITV chat show transmitted 23 April 1967.

[TIMB1967]

Many thank, Vlad, for all the information on him. Some of it I had read before but much of it was new to me...

[Guest]

Many thank, Vlad, for all the information on him. Some of it I had read before but much of it was new to me...

You're welcome

[TIMB1967]

I did see one clip of an interview of him on Youtube..forget which show he was on..He was very handsome..and a good sense of humor...ashame he was beaten to death by his crazy boyfriend...Damn..

[Guest]

I did see one clip of an interview of him on Youtube..forget which show he was on..He was very handsome..and a good sense of humor...ashame he was beaten to death by his crazy boyfriend...Damn..

He is mentioned a fair bit in Kenneth Williams diaries too, have you read them?

[TIMB1967]

I haven't read any of his diaries but I have seen some limited interviews of him...I don't know what to make of him but I do know he was friends of Joe's and Kenneth's.

[Guest]

I haven't read any of his diaries but I have seen some limited interviews of him...I don't know what to make of him but I do know he was friends of Joe's and Kenneth's.

Oh Kenny was delightfully camp and outre, one of my favourite ever showbiz people. He could tell some stories!!

[TIMB1967]

Yes, he had a way of looking at things...I'll have to look at some more of his interviews on Youtube when I get a chance..I like his stories about Joe..it's good to hear something almost firsthand from someone who knew him.

[Guest]

Just a small pic - but, Joe on the left, Kenneth Williams on the right

[TIMB1967]

Thanks, Vlad..love the picture..I did like the Orton Diaries very much...he had a way of telling his stories..Joe was not a bad looking fella..I've never seen any of his plays though.

[Guest]

Thanks, Vlad..love the picture..I did like the Orton Diaries very much...he had a way of telling his stories..Joe was not a bad looking fella..I've never seen any of his plays though.

Yes he had a certain small, dark and handsome appeal

[Rosa Moline]

I love the Orton Diaries, I've read them over and over.

[TIMB1967]

Wish Joe had just up and left that crazy fuck before he snapped on him...guess we'll always wonder what made him snap in the first place. After reading the diaries, it could have been anything in there. I do remember reading that a day or so before the murder/suicide that Joe commented that Kenneth was acting "strange"...wish he'd have acted on that instinct..

[Guest]

Lol, Kenneth acting strange? Most of his life!
Often one gets a feeling about a forthcoming event! I wonder what would have happened had Kenny gone round there - would Joe had lived? Would Kenny have been murdered too?

[TIMB1967]

If Kenny were that unhappy, he should have just offed himself and been done with it..but he seemed to be obsessed with Joe and guess he wasn't going without him...guess the guys who hung out at those public restrooms had to look elsewhere for entertainment after that.

[TIMB1967]

I did see Prick Up Your Ears..not a bad movie exactly..but haven't found anything else informational on him.

[Guest]

Lol, in my above post I meant Kenneth Williams! Silly me! Imagine if Williams had gone round just before the murder. Would he have lived I wonder!

[TIMB1967]

That is something to ponder. I suppose in every tragedy there's always that whatifs. I did misunderstand to whom you were referring to until I read your last post. You weren't vague. I just had one of those blonde moments...lol

[joplinfrk]

I was watching Prick Up Your Ears the other night. Alfred Molina did a great job as Kenneth Halliwell. Gary Oldman, well, he's great in everything.

[joplinfrk]

This is a scream. It talks about their vandalizing books at the library! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedCOkLW8pU

[TIMB1967]

Thanks for the link, Joplinfrk. I enjoyed hearing about the infamous book defacings...lol

[Guest]

I like that clip!

[Rosa Moline]

Here's a review I wrote for Amazon on The Orton Diaries...

"I first had the great fortune to encounter this book whilst on holiday in West Africa in 1989 - since then I have read it countless times..I have never tired of it, and each time it is as witty, fresh and provocative as ever.Through Joe's words we encounter him visiting the Beatles and Brian Epstein to present them with a film script..his enduring friendship with Kenneth Williams (a sad, suffering individual who never really came to terms with his sexuality) the seamier, seedier side of Joe's world: "cottaging" in the Holloway Road and rent boys in Morocco.
The pivotal relationship in the book is naturally Joe's partner Kenneth Halliwell. Halliwell was originally a svengali figure to Joe as he encouraged Joe's talent for writing...as Joe's star ascended, Kenneth's descended and he was extremely bitter and jealous; quote: "All you people that are mad on Joe have no idea what he is like"..Halliwell found it humiliating to play second fiddle to Orton; finding himself pushed further and further into the background and relegated to role of "housewife"
On the 9th August 1967, some 9 or so months after starting the diaries Halliwell would be Orton's Nemesis and murdered him in a brutal, explosive rage - staving his head in (police would find brain matter and blood spattered all over the walls in the bedsit) then taking a overdose of Nembutal - the suicide note stated that the diaries held the explanation for this savage attack.
Mysteriously the diaries ended on 1st August - with Orton murdered on the 9th August. This was very unusual for Orton who wrote every day in his diary - this has led some to speculate what could have been the content of the final entries - if indeed they existed.
A fascinating, campy tour-de-force of 1960's London."

[Guest]

Great review Rosa Moline. Spot on!

[Rosa Moline]

Thank you Vlad!

[TIMB1967]

I read the Orton Diaries and never even considered the fact that it ended about a week before he was killed. I just never thought there was more to it....but it makes me think that maybe there was. Too bad we'll never know what happened in the few days leading up to his death.

[Long Gone Day]

This is a scream. It talks about their vandalizing books at the library! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedCOkLW8pU

The first library investigator seemed like he was trying to hold back laughter by coughing and he did say they began to look forward to finding another "altered" book as they became amusing. I did have to chuckle when I saw them on this clip. It was kind of amusing. It was "Elderly, lady-like women" who were taking the books out which must have been a hoot.

Great link. Great post. I wonder what happened to Joe's diary pages, too. Perhaps someone came to the apartment shortly after the murder/suicide and took them. Unless Halliwell himself decided to destroy them himself?

[Rosa Moline]

here's a gallery of the defaced books, apparently they're in the Islington History Centre. Seems unbelievable in this day & age you'd go to prison for that! I think they both got six months?

http://www.joeorton.org/Pages/Joe_Orton_Gallery13.html

[Guest]

here's a gallery of the defaced books, apparently they're in the Islington History Centre. Seems unbelievable in this day & age you'd go to prison for that! I think they both got six months?

http://www.joeorton.org/Pages/Joe_Orton_Gallery13.html

Cool. Thanks Rosa. Yep it was a harsh sentence. They could have got a warning or had to pay a fine to replace the books!
Still hilarious that they defaced them though!

[orionova]

I wonder what Joe and Kenny could have got up to with Photoshop and a batch of library books today.

[TIMB1967]

Imagine if Joe had had internet what he might have accomplished. I'd have subscribed to his mailing list.

[TIMB1967]

I often wonder why Joe's family had his ashes mixed with Kenneth Halliwell's when it was he who murdered him.

[Guest]

I often wonder why Joe's family had his ashes mixed with Kenneth Halliwell's when it was he who murdered him.

I wonder that too - disrespectful isn't it!!

[orionova]

I finally got to watch 'Prick up Your Ears', and thought it was great. I watched it on YouTube, and then made the mistake of checking out the IMDB boards for the film. Gah! What really got me were the Brits who were acting all smug because Americans would never in a million years guess 'ears' was an annageam of 'arse'. As if all Brits are real ale drinking, Archer's listening, Times crosswords solving Inspector Morse wannabees. Most of the Brits I knew were Phil Mitchell wannabees, reading the Sun or Daily Sport. The rest were into wargamming. painting little lead miniatures and looking down on foreigners. I actually had someone yell at me for taking a 'good Englishman' away from an unmarried English girl, as if there were only one eligable Englishman left in the UK. I didn't have the heart to tell the woman that my husband was actually Sicilian by birth.

Sorry for the whinge. I bet Joe would have enjoyed it, though. It would probably ended up in one of his plays.

[Rosa Moline]

I finally got to watch 'Prick up Your Ears', and thought it was great. I watched it on YouTube, and then made the mistake of checking out the IMDB boards for the film. Gah! What really got me were the Brits who were acting all smug because Americans would never in a million years guess 'ears' was an annageam of 'arse'. As if all Brits are real ale drinking, Archer's listening, Times crosswords solving Inspector Morse wannabees. Most of the Brits I knew were Phil Mitchell wannabees, reading the Sun or Daily Sport. The rest were into wargamming. painting little lead miniatures and looking down on foreigners. I actually had someone yell at me for taking a 'good Englishman' away from an unmarried English girl, as if there were only one eligable Englishman left in the UK. I didn't have the heart to tell the woman that my husband was actually Sicilian by birth.

Sorry for the whinge. I bet Joe would have enjoyed it, though. It would probably ended up in one of his plays.

We're not all like that! I read The Guardian...as for wargaming and painting lead minatures, don't know what that's all about but it sounds totally tedious!

[cherryghost]

I adore Joe Orton I should post the photographer Lewis Morleys photo of Joe!

[Guest]

I adore Joe Orton I should post the photographer Lewis Morleys photo of Joe!

Yes you should!

[TIMB1967]

Almost 42 years to the day that Joe was brutally murdered...Aug. 9 sure has some bad shit associated with it.

[Guest]

[RubySlippers]

wow...like that.

[Guest]

wow...like that.

That is one of Lewis Morley's photos of Joe

[Guest]