The Kenneth Williams Diaries

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Known as the Babes in the Woods, Waine and Dennis became friends with Williams after Waine, an Oxford undergraduate, sent him an amusing fan letter. Together with Williams's beloved mother, Louie, the couple became a vital support system, attending all the star's theatre and television performances and now and then unsuccessfully tempting him with other potential boyfriends, including rough labourers and squaddies which provoked an angry response. On one of many evenings at Orton's home, Waine also recalls Williams's fury when the playwright revealed that he had spiked Williams's food with hashish. He was in pain (‘oh, this bloody ulcer and spastic colon’), he had given up smoking (a lifelong recreation), and he was waiting to go into hospital (‘how I HATE those places’) for an operation he dreaded. He was frightened. And he was fed up. He knew he had painted himself into a corner. Professionally and personally, he had nowhere left to go. He was educated at The Lyulph Stanley Boys' Central Council School, [6] [7] a state-owned Central school, [8] in Camden Town, north London and subsequently became apprenticed as a draughtsman to a mapmaker. His apprenticeship was interrupted by the Blitz, and he was evacuated to Bicester, and the home of a bachelor veterinary surgeon. It provided his first experience of an educated, middle-class life, and he loved it. He returned to London with a new, vowel-elongated accent. [9] In 1944, aged 18, he was called up to the British Army. He became a sapper in the Royal Engineers Survey Section, doing much the same work that he did as a civilian. When the war ended he was in Ceylon and he opted to transfer to the Combined Services Entertainment Unit, which put on revue shows. While in that unit he met Stanley Baxter, Peter Vaughan, Peter Nichols and John Schlesinger. [10]

His very brilliance as a raconteur added to his self-loathing. ‘Most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable,’ said Cyril Connolly, ‘they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own to dispense it in noises upon the air.’ In 2006, Williams' life was the subject of the television play Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!. Michael Sheen portrayed Williams. [50] Recognition [ edit ] Rampton, James (8 March 2006). "Michael Sheen carries off the life of Kenneth Williams". The Independent. Archived from the original on 23 February 2020 . Retrieved 23 February 2020. Biographer Christopher Stevens has uncovered the depth of the star's friendship with a young gay couple who have never spoken publicly before and who were witness to Williams's long and bitter struggle with his sexual identity. Obituaries". Britishcomedy.org.uk. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015 . Retrieved 30 June 2014.Contrary to several opinions, I don’t believe he was tortured by his sexuality. He was born in 1926, forty-one years before the legalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults. He belonged to a more discreet generation, as he said, ‘before the love that dare not speak its name started shouting the odds from the rooftops.’ Was he homosexual? ‘Mentally yes, spiritually yes, physically no,’ was his sober answer. In his cups, he would tell the tale of his exciting encounter with a young Sikh in Ceylon, in a coconut grove in Kurunegala. ‘It was only fumbling, just the Barclays Bank.’ Customarily, when ladies were present, he eschewed the rhyming slang and put on his Noel Coward voice to roll the word ‘masturbatory’ round his tongue. Diary Of A Madman". Britishcomedy.org.uk. Archived from the original on 5 September 2013 . Retrieved 28 June 2014. WILLIAMS, KENNETH (1926–1988)". English Heritage. Archived from the original on 4 May 2014 . Retrieved 4 May 2014. Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - For more than forty years the much-loved actor, broadcaster and comedian Kenneth Williams kept a journal whose existence he occasionally used as a thread ('You'll be in my diary!') but whose contents he tantalisingly kept almost completely to himself.After his death in 1988, rumours that the diaries might one day be published sent a shiver of anticipation and dread through the theatrical world. What would they reveal about friends and colleagues And what would they disclose of the darker, lonelier side which it was widely suspected lay behind Williams's outrageous public person 864 pp. Englisch. The World of Kenneth Williams 1970, Decca SPA 64. Stereo edition of recordings from the 1950s and 1960s.

Williams, Kenneth Charles (1926–1988)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. 2009. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/39951. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) index". johnmurray.co.uk. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011 . Retrieved 22 September 2014. I was a friend of Kenneth Williams - not a best friend, but what he called ‘a good chum’ and, over several years, quite a close one: we collaborated on the books he wrote, spent hundreds of hours in one another’s company, shared countless meals, train journeys, trips to the cinema - so when, thirty years ago now, on the night of 14 April 1988, he took his own life, I felt a sense of real loss and sadness. But I wasn’t surprised.Williams, Kenneth (1995). The Kenneth Williams letters. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-638092-4 . Retrieved 23 February 2023. Anyway, my mother was a Morgan, and my father was a Williams, so I suppose the ancestry can be said to be Welsh. But I don't like nationalism. The very IDEA of devolution is mad. I don't even like the sound of the Welsh language, and I think their insistence on retaining it is barmy. All those signs to be re-written! can you imagine? :243 The book also boasts the first in-depth interview with Scottish comic Stanley Baxter about his lifelong friendship with Kenneth Williams, plus many never-before-seen photos from Williams' personal collection. Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Williams, and the cast of Carry On: what happened next?". The Daily Telegraph. 10 May 2018. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 . Retrieved 26 August 2018. There are also several recordings of Round the Horne [57] and Just a Minute that include Williams. [58] Books [ edit ] Countdown [26/04/83] (1983)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 30 August 2021.

Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth BFI Screenonline: Williams, Kenneth (1926–1988) Biography". Screenonline.org.uk . Retrieved 30 June 2014. Review: Born Brilliant: The life of Kenneth Williams by Christopher Stevens". Daily Express. 23 October 2010 . Retrieved 22 September 2014.

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GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 1988 14 1873 CAMDEN – Kenneth Charles Williams, DoB = 22 February 1926 aged 62 Kenneth had told me that his father had committed suicide. ‘When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. If you can. Charlie couldn’t.’ Williams, Kenneth (1993). Davies, Russell (ed.). The Kenneth Williams Diaries. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007291922. a b "Kenneth Williams | Home of British Films". Britmovie. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014 . Retrieved 28 June 2014. One airmail letter sent to Italy by a depressed Williams after he dropped out of a holiday with them is typically revealing: "Living with someone always means a denial of self in SOME way and I suppose I have always known it was something I couldn't accomplish. So I've always stayed on the sidelines. Getting the pleasure vicariously. It's not wholly satisfactory, but then of course no lives are, and you know what I think about indiscriminate sex and promiscuous trade. I think it's the beginning of a long, long road to despair."