Ronnie Kray: A Special Relationship

The newspaper report did not name the pair but they were later identified by a German magazine and the shockwaves spread even wider.

So the Government closed ranks and forced the newspaper to withdraw the story, which it knew to be true.

But now, more than half a century on, the scoop has been vindicated – thanks to the release of declassified MI5 files.

They confirm that Boothby and mobster twin Kray were “hunters” of young men who trawled “homosexual parties” together at a time when homosexuality was still illegal.

The Sunday Mirror story had revealed: “The peer is a household name and Yard detectives are inquiring into allegations that he has ‘a relationship’ with a man who has criminal convictions and is alleged to be involved in a West End protection racket.” ...

Mirror.

We learn; 'The (gay MI5) source said: “Boothby is a kinky fellow and likes to meet odd people, and Ronnie obviously wants to meet people of good social standing, he having the odd background he’s got; and, of course, both are queers.” He added: “Both are hunters (of young men).” 

The information was shared with Scotland Yard, and a note by Roger Hollis, the director-general of MI5, revealed: “The Home Secretary and some of his colleagues felt that this might develop along the lines of the Profumo affair.”

Apart fom the silly note by Hollis, I'm not sure this tells us anything much that's new.

Hollis actually wrote; 'The Home Secretary asked me to see him last night. He said that rumours were building up about the homosexual peer and his connection with a protection racket.

'The Home Secretary and some of his colleagues felt that this might develop along the lines of the Profumo affair.

'The name mentioned in gossip… was Lord Boothby and he was said to have associated with two East End thugs of the name Kray.'

The Mirror could not 'expose a gay affair between a peer and an East End gangster', for there was none.

The Telegraph clarifies...

A report titled Special Branch says: "Boothby and Kray attended several homosexual parties [NB The Telegraph headline somehow turns this into 'sordid sex parties'!] together, at one of which they were photographed together (in a normal social pose). 

"According to Holt there is no improper association between the two, nor is it likely that there would be, as both are 'hunters' of young men." 

Lord Boothby, a popular TV presenter and former MP for East Aberdeenshire, had succesully sued for £40,000 damages after his links with Kray were first outed after a Sunday Mirror front page on July 12 1964 headlined: "PEER AND A GANGSTER. YARD INQUIRY." 

So the source the Mirror was quoting was quoting the source Leslie Holt (pictured right in said photo), Boothby's lover and chauffeur, who sang after they split.

And further via Mail Online (again via the actual redacted MI5 files)...

The report also suggested that the Sunday Mirror was tipped off about the ‘affair’ between Lord Boothby and Ronnie by rivals of the Krays, but they had got the details wrong.

The MI5 report said: ‘Certainly the suggestion that Boothby has been having an affair with the gangster Kray is hardly true.

‘Ronnie, 34 and ugly, he (the source) repeats, is a hunter. Nash or whoever told the story to the ‘Mirror’ seemed to have got the two people with a record mixed up, Leslie and Ronnie.’

Ronnie Kray: Buggers Can't Be Losers

Guardian Film.

Dear idiot,

Ron was not bisexual.

He married Kate while he was in Broadmoor (Trigger warning!) cause The Sun said they'd pay him £20,000 for the photos.

PS Fagburn has been told by the UK Prison Service that 'conjugal visits' don't exist here, so Ron almost certainly stuck with his young bum chums. Lucky bugger...

Tweet Of The Day: Legend

Incredible way of making my two star review seem like I didn't hate the film pic.twitter.com/zvOyIxHQ3h

— Benjamin Lee (@benfraserlee) September 8, 2015

That two star Guardian review in full.

Fagburn loves it that Tom Hardy confuses acting with pulling a (prosthetically-enhanced) face that look a bit like someone. Bless.

The Krays: That's Showbusiness!

In 1965, David Bailey, already Britain’s most fashionable photographer, took a portrait of the gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who looked fiercely well-groomed in suits and narrow ties... The portrait became gangland’s Mona Lisa: copied, pirated and imitated, it was central to their image and their brand... “Their big mistake was posing for me,” Bailey told the BBC last year. “If you’re a real gangster nobody knows who you are.” The Krays, of course, wanted everyone to know who they were... If Bailey’s photo was the first stage in the construction of the Krays’ enduring image, stage two came in 1967, when the Krays approached John Pearson, and asked him to be their biographer, focusing on their clubs, their celebrity chums and their charitable works. (Truman Capote, who had just published In Cold Blood, had been their first choice, but he declined the commission.)... They felt like they were in the big time, even though the bank robbers of the era looked down on them as mere bullies, called them “thieves’ ponces”, and “Gert and Daisy” behind their backs, claiming that they didn’t steal their own money and attracted too many dodgy hangers-on... George Cornell, a gangster from south London, had called Ron a “fat poof” – Ron used to say “I’m homosexual but I’m not a poof”... on 9 March 1966, when he heard that Cornell was in the Blind Beggar pub, which was on the Krays’ patch, he went round and shot him dead in front of shocked witnesses... In May 1968, Ronnie and Reggie Kray were arrested... Ronnie gave a spectacular but crazed performance in the witness box, name-dropping the boxing champions they knew and portraying himself as an innocent East End philanthropist. They were jailed for life... (At his trial, Ron cheerfully told the judge, “If I wasn’t here, I could be having tea with Judy Garland.”)... I was introduced to Ron by a former inmate who had been a friend in his earlier prison days... [he] talked about where he would go if ever released – “Morocco, for the boys”. He added, “Don’t print I’m mad.” ...

From a brilliant essay by Duncan Campbell, The Selling Of The Krays, on Ronnie and Reggie as rubbish gangsters, but great brand managers - part of Guardian online's The Long Read series.

I bet everyone told Ron he was really good at painting.

Legend: The Verdict

We took former Kray hitman Freddie Foreman, now 83, to see the film, starring Tom Hardy in both lead roles.

Here is his verdict.

TOM HARDY plays both Ronnie and Reggie in the film — and watching him in action on screen was like seeing the twins reincarnated.

His physical likeness to both is uncanny. It was like watching their ghosts looming from 50 years ago.

But one thing the film gets totally wrong is the relationship between Reggie and his wife, Frances Shea. It portrays him to be a Romeo who charms all the birds off the trees, and that could not be more wrong. 

He was gay, just like Ronnie.

The film gives the impression that Frances killed herself because she couldn’t cope with Reggie being a gangster or being drawn into violence by his brother, and all that cobblers.

The truth is that their marriage was never properly consummated and she referred to him as “bacon bonce”, which is Cockney rhyming slang for nonce...

And the film makes Ronnie out to be a psychopathic lunatic, but actually he was a very warm person and capable of great kindness. He also had a very good sense of humour.

 Yes, he did walk into the Blind Beggar pub and shoot George Cornell dead. But in the earlier days, Ron was still not as bad as the film makes out...

The Sun.

Classic.

The last part is positively Pythonesque.

PS Mirror; 9 things you never knew about the notorious Kray twins!!! (Except you probably know at least some of them, unless you're a bit 'McCormick').

Krays: Brotherly Love

Vicious gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray had an incestuous sexual relationship with each other as they were growing up.

The pair, who ran a cruel and violent criminal empire in London's East End in the 1960s, were terrified of their secret coming out.

They were worried that rivals would see their sexuality – Ronnie was a homosexual and Reggie was bisexual - as a sign of weakness so only had sex with each other in order to keep the secret.

Author John Pearson who extensively interviewed the brothers and their associates has made the revelation as a new film comes out on the twins.

John said: “Homosexuality was nothing to be proud of in the East End.

“But as they became more notorious, Ronnie became quite shameless about it.

“According to Ron in the early days they had sex with each other because they were terrified about people finding out.” ...

Daily Mirror.

Nicked from The Sun this morning.

Oh, and John Pearson was first flogging this - completely unsubstantiated - story five years ago.

Journalism!

PS Pearson, a prolific author, has written three books about the Krays - he published this under a pseudonym.

Legend: Tom Hardy Is...

Well this looks shit...

PS Dear Tom, if you're going for realism, both the Kray twins had very camp voices.

EastEnders: What Would Ronnie Kray Say?

'It's upsetting to read the negative tweets about the gay kiss in last night's episode of @bbceastenders, I only want to ask one question. Would you of called Ronnie Kray disgusting? #whatwouldronniesay'

Harry Reid's Instagram.

Probably not, Ronnie Kray famously killed a man who called him a 'fat poof'.

My kinda guy.

Tom Hardy: It's Twins!

TOM HARDY has saved producers of his new film a fortune, by playing both RONNIE and REGGIE KRAY.

The costume department of flick Legend have gone all out on the clobber he wears as the East End twins.

The actor was snapped in character on location in Essex for the first time since taking on the roles...

The Sun.

Kray fans will know that's Tom as Ron, cause of the specs.

Here's a bit more about this exciting movie project.

[Edit: More blah and long lens pics in Wednesday's Mail Online].

Philip Ridley's The Krays is one of Fagburn's favourite films, incidentally. 

Hope this, too, shows our Ronnie to be the screaming gaylord of the London underworld that he was.

Maybe they'll take full advantage of Tom's dual roles and give us a bit of twincest?

PS Why Britain loves a gay gangster, Guardian Film. This is rubbish.

And let's not forget Tom's other forthcoming fillum role...

Why, the resemblance is uncanny...

PS And here's the first official picture...

Not sure what Chris Morris is doing behind him. 

Ronnie Kray: Huge Kylie Fan

INSIDE Broadmoor brought back memories of the times I visited Ronnie Kray in there.
He was a huge Kylie Minogue fan and begged me to bring her along.
I’m one of the few people alive who have heard I Should Be So Lucky sung by Ron Kray.
He had a terrible voice. But even Simon Cowell wouldn’t have dared tell him so.

Daily Star TV critic, Garry Bushell.

Oh let this be true.
You can always trust Gazza, can't you?

PS Only just saw this on their site, but simply had to share!

Orlando Cruz: [NB Must Not Make Obvious 'In The Ring' Gag Here]

This Saturday in Las Vegas, Orlando Cruz, which is his real name [Eh?], will become the first openly gay boxer to win a world title if he can overcome the odds and beat Orlando Salido for the vacant WBO featherweight title. Cruz announced he was gay last year, never lost his promoter, never lost his ranking and never lost a single friend from inside the ugly business of boxing.
"I now feel free to just get on with the boxing," said Cruz, who is from Puerto Rico and is based in Florida. "I'm not fighting two opponents any longer and that is a great relief. The nights of staying awake and crying are over."
Cruz fought for Puerto Rico at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and has been a fringe contender for a couple of years and gay for a lot longer. "I'm a boxer first, I want to be a world champion and remembered that way and not as a gay boxer," he says.

The Independent.

The Krays: Gay twincest porn pioneers?

"What's that, you say? A gay boxer!!? But how can they box with limp wrists?"

Ahh, another gay story centred around its perceived incongruity; a gay man in "a macho world" - that don't happen much, do it?

So brave etc etc...

Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who said; "A gay man's boxing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

It probably calls it "the last taboo" somewhere, but I can't be sure because I kept losing interest.

Do these journalists not realise boxing's almost as gay as diving?

Anyway we end with this heartwarming thought straight out of Michael Jackson's "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" school of philosophy...

He can also really fight and in the ruthless business of boxing, a sport that has not really changed in 150 years, that is all that matters; it makes no difference if you are black, white, gay, straight, male, female, nice, unpleasant, Christian, Muslim, ugly or handsome, as long as you have guts and can have a fight.

BARF!

PS Attention boxing fans! There are some boxers in the video for Boy George's new single, King Of Everything. It is a very good song, by the way.

PPS The Mail celebrates this event with a short video of Orlando "prepping" and being interviewed - he comes across as "a bit Tom Daley", if you know what I mean...

Orlando Cruz also got a big profile in Saturday's Guardian - the above header seems to sum it up.
The main interest for the straight media seems to be the "You'll believe an elephant can fly!" incongruity... 

Arts News: A Brush With The Law

This beautiful painting by Ronnie Kray, one of the nation's best-loved violent psychofags, is part of a set being put up for auction.
Toby Service, of Brightwells Fine Art Auctioneers, told the Mirror; “They did a lot of paintings and drawings in prison.
"They were never particularly good, to be honest, but I wouldn’t say that to their face."