Kenneth Halliwell
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Kenneth Halliwell (born in 1926, died August 9, 1967) was a British actor and writer. He was the mentor, partner and the eventual murderer of playwright Joe Orton.
Halliwell was raised in a somewhat split household. In general, he was ignored by his father and coddled by his mother. His mother's death, which occured when he was a young boy, was a great negative turning point in his life. Seemingly alone (as the relationship with his father was poor), his life was uneventful until, at the age of 23, he found his father dead, having committed suicide by putting his head in a gas oven. He determined his father was dead, performed a few household tasks, then called for an ambulance.
It was at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) that he met Joe Orton, the man who was to make his Halliwell's name almost as recognisable as his own. Both men were struggling actors without great talent who became struggling writers. However, their common interests led to the beginning of their relationship. Halliwell, in the early years, seems to have been something of a tutor to Orton, who had had a rather cursory education, and seriously helped to mold the term "Ortonesque". The two men collaborated on several novels including The Boy Hairdresser, which were not published until after their deaths. In 1962, along with Orton, he was imprisoned for six months for the theft and defacement of books in Islington Library.
In what turned out to be a kind of catharsis for Orton, became quite the opposite for Halliwell. Orton's emerging success as a writer, following their release from prison, put a distance between the two men which Halliwell found difficult to handle. For some of their new friends, Kenneth Williams in particlar, Halliwell's pedantic and morose nature was an inversion of Orton's charm. Towards the end of his life, Halliwell was on regular courses of anti-depressants.
The end of their lives came on the night of August 8 and early morning hours of August 9, 1967. Halliwell killed Orton by nine blows to his head with a hammer, and then overdosed on prescription medication shortly afterwards. Despite the violence of the murder, it was Halliwell who actually died first. The bodies of the two men were discovered late the following morning when a chauffeur came to the door of their Noel Road flat in Islington to collect Orton for a discussion with The Beatles over a screenplay he had written for them.
Halliwell's suicide note referred the contents of Orton's diary as an explanation for his actions: "If you read his diary, all will be explained. KH PS: Especially the latter part." This is presumed to be a reference to Orton's description of his promiscuity; his diary contains numerous incidents of cottaging in public lavatories and other sexual relationships.
In Prick Up Your Ears, the 1987 film based on Orton's life, Halliwell was portrayed by Alfred Molina.
Works
- The Protagonist (circa 1949), unproduced and unpublished play about Edmund Kean.
- The Silver Bucket (1953), The Mechanical Womb (1955), The Last Days of Sodom (1955), novels co-written with Orton, all unpublished and now lost.
- Priapus in the Shrubbery (1959), solo novel, unpublished and now lost.
- Lord Cucumber and The Boy Hairdresser, novels co-written with Orton, published in 2001.
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