39 Facts About Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist.

Kenneth Williams was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in many British television programmes and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show Just a Minute from its second series in 1968 until his death 20 years later.

Kenneth Williams served in the Royal Engineers during World War II, where he first became interested in becoming an entertainer.

Kenneth Williams sustained continued success throughout the 1960s and 1970s with his regular appearances in Carry On films, and subsequently kept himself in the public eye with chat shows and other television work.

Kenneth Williams was fondly regarded in the entertainment industry; in private life he suffered from depression.

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Kenneth Williams kept a series of diaries throughout his life that achieved posthumous acclaim.

Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February 1926 in Bingfield Street, Kings Cross, London.

Kenneth Williams's parents were Charles George Williams, who managed a hairdressers in the Kings Cross area, and Louisa Alexandra, who worked in the salon.

Between 1935 and 1956, Kenneth Williams lived with his parents in a flat above his father's barber shop at 57 Marchmont Street, Bloomsbury.

Kenneth Williams stated in his diaries that he believed he was of Welsh extraction because of his parents' surnames.

Kenneth Williams was educated at The Lyulph Stanley Boys' Central Council School, a state-owned Central school, in Camden Town, north London and subsequently became apprenticed as a draughtsman to a mapmaker.

Kenneth Williams's apprenticeship was interrupted by the Blitz, and he was evacuated to Bicester, and the home of a bachelor veterinary surgeon.

Kenneth Williams returned to London with a new, vowel-elongated accent.

Kenneth Williams became a sapper in the Royal Engineers Survey Section, doing much the same work that he did as a civilian.

Kenneth Williams appeared in West End revues including Share My Lettuce with Maggie Smith, written by Bamber Gascoigne, and Pieces of Eight with Fenella Fielding.

Kenneth Williams worked regularly in British film during the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the Carry On series with its double entendre humour; and appeared in the series more than any other actor.

Kenneth Williams was quick to find fault with his own work, and that of others.

Kenneth Williams was a regular on the BBC Radio impromptu-speaking panel game Just a Minute from its second season in 1968 until his death.

Kenneth Williams frequently got into arguments with host Nicholas Parsons and other guests on the show.

Kenneth Williams once talked for almost a minute about a supposed Austrian psychiatrist called Heinrich Swartzberg, correctly guessing that the show's creator, Ian Messiter, had just made the name up.

Kenneth Williams narrated and provided all of the voices for the BBC children's cartoon Willo the Wisp.

Kenneth Williams, who had never got on well with his father, refused to visit him.

Kenneth Williams believed his father had committed suicide, because the circumstances leading to the poisoning seemed unlikely to have happened by bad luck.

Kenneth Williams was later denied a visa to the United States, when it emerged that Scotland Yard kept a file on him relating to his father's death – the suspicion being that he had poisoned his father.

Kenneth Williams often said that he was asexual and celibate, and his diaries appear to substantiate his claims — at least from his early forties onwards.

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Kenneth Williams lived alone all his adult life and had few close companions apart from his mother, and no significant romantic relationships.

Kenneth Williams's diaries contain references to unconsummated or barely consummated homosexual dalliances, which he describes as "traditional matters" or "tradiola".

Kenneth Williams befriended gay playwright Joe Orton, who wrote the role of Inspector Truscott in Loot for him, and had holidays in Morocco with Orton and his lover, Kenneth Halliwell.

Kenneth Williams's last home was a flat on Osnaburgh Street, Bloomsbury.

Kenneth Williams's diaries reveal that he had often had suicidal thoughts, and some of his earliest diaries record periodic feelings that there was no point in living.

Kenneth Williams's authorised biography argues that Williams did not take his own life but died of an accidental overdose.

Kenneth Williams had a stock of painkilling tablets and it is argued that he would have taken more of them if he had been intending suicide.

Kenneth Williams was cremated at East Finchley Cemetery, and his ashes were scattered in the memorial gardens.

Kenneth Williams had been brought up a Wesleyan and then a Methodist, though he spent much of his life struggling with Christianity's teachings on homosexuality.

The biography notes that Kenneth Williams used a variety of handwriting styles and colours in his journals, switching between different hands on the page.

David Benson's 1996 Edinburgh Fringe show, Think No Evil of Us: My Life with Kenneth Williams, saw Benson playing Williams; after touring, the show ran in London's West End.

Kenneth Williams was played by Adam Godley in Terry Johnson's play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, which premiered at the National Theatre in 1998.

Flat in the Osnaburgh Street block in which Kenneth Williams lived from 1972 until his death was bought by Rob Brydon and Julia Davis for the writing of their comedy series Human Remains.

Kenneth Williams is commemorated by a blue plaque at the address of his father's barber shop, 57 Marchmont Street, London, where he lived from 1935 to 1956.