1. Kenneth Leith Halliwell was a British actor, writer and collagist.
13 Facts About Kenneth Halliwell
1. 2.
Kenneth Halliwell was the mentor, boyfriend and murderer of playwright Joe Orton.
3.
Kenneth Halliwell was very close to his mother; when he was 11, he witnessed her death from a wasp sting at their family home.
4.
Kenneth Halliwell's father committed suicide in 1949 by inhaling coal-gas in a gas oven; Halliwell was the first to find the body the following morning, but he "stepped over the body, put the kettle on, made a cup of tea and had a shave" before he reported the death.
5.
Kenneth Halliwell later moved to London to study drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, having inherited the family fortune.
6.
From January 1959, Orton and Kenneth Halliwell were involved in the theft and defacement of public library books.
7.
Kenneth Halliwell became an illicit collage artist, while Orton wrote the fake blurbs for the flyleaf of the dust jackets.
8.
Orton's eventual success as a writer, which began not long after their release from prison, put a distance between the two men that Kenneth Halliwell found difficult to handle.
9.
Towards the end of his life, Kenneth Halliwell was on regular courses of anti-depressants.
10.
On 9 August 1967, Kenneth Halliwell mortally injured Orton with nine hammer blows to the head, then overdosed on pentobarbital sleeping pills.
11.
Kenneth Halliwell's suicide note referred to the contents of Orton's diary as an explanation for his actions:.
12.
In Prick Up Your Ears, the 1987 film based on Orton's life, Kenneth Halliwell was portrayed by Alfred Molina.
13.
Kenneth Halliwell is the subject of a monologue, Especially The Latter Part, by Richard Ely.