Gay Icons Of The Past #7: The High Priest of Tease

[PeterRS]

When police finally broke into the tiny, dirty bedsit apartment in North London, even the most hardened were nauseated by what they witnessed. Blood was everywhere. Lying on the bed was the body of the younger of the two men, his head cratered as a result of nine fierce blows from the hammer that lay on his chest. The bloodied naked corpse of the older man lay prostrate on the floor, dead from a massive overdose of barbiturates. 

The plot that soon unravelled is the stuff of murder mysteries. One of the two deceased was indeed a writer and a highly successful one at that. But mystery novels were far from his genre. Outrageously gay and totally promiscuous at a time when gay men had to remain very much in the closet, Joe Orton was one of the exceptions. Hailing from a cheap housing estate, Joe had left school early, later proudly telling friends, "I'm from the gutter." He knew he was gay and he did not care who else knew it. Rough trade was his delight and he'd cruise around London's public lavatories and red light districts, later filling volumes of diaries with details of each encounter. Then as the Swinging Sixties arrived, London was finally breaking free from the deprivations of the post-war era, a time when Britain came to lead the world in everything from London’s Carnaby Street fashion to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. 

Were his diaries how Joe came to realise he had a talent for writing? Who knows? Eventually he found his way to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. There in 1951 he met a fellow student seven years older, a withdrawn prematurely balding man from a wealthier family named Kenneth Halliwell. No one seemed to like Halliwell much, whereas the impish, no-nonsense Joe was the life and soul of every gathering. What Joe saw in Halliwell apart from as a cash cow is equally mysterious. Perhaps it was simply that the adage 'opposites attract' was true in their case. Even so, the relationship did absolutely nothing to stop Joe's promiscuous behaviour.

On leaving RADA, both tried their hands without much success at acting, writing and then doing various odd jobs. They even landed in jail for a few months after a prank when they defaced hundreds of public library books. Although Halliwell had helped Joe with his writing, in two important ways prison actually liberated Joe. First he realised he was no longer dependent on Halliwell. More importantly, as he was later to say, “It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul . . . Being in the nick [jail] brought detachment to my writing. I wasn’t involved any more. And suddenly it worked.” The iconoclast in him took over, poking fun at institutions and establishments that had been almost untouchable in British culture, like the police, the church and the government.

Soon Joe's superior writing skills resulted in one of his plays being produced on BBC Radio. A modest success, he then embarked on what was to become his first major hit. "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" is very much a play of its time. Kath, a bored middle-aged spinster, runs a boarding house. One day a strikingly handsome blonde young man calls looking for a room. Kath fancies this Mr. Sloane. When her younger brother Ed arrives, he too fancies the stranger. But Sloane is a psychopath who goes on to murder their ailing father. When brother and sister find this out, they come to an agreement. In return for not reporting the crime, Sloane will spend a few months bedding Kath and then the next few months bedding Ed.

“Sloane” transferred to Broadway, where the subject matter all but ensured it would  bomb, and more successfully to various other countries. It was also made into a film after Orton’s death. This was black comedy with serious sexual overtones. Some were outraged. As Orton became more famous with his ensuing plays "Loot" and "What the Butler Saw", one Edna Welthorpe was a constant presence in the letters' columns of the major daily newspapers, writing about "the filth" and "moral disgrace" of Orton's plays.  Welthorpe came across as a fierce guardian of public morals. Yet she was none other than Orton himself! Ever the prankster, he was merely engaging in a bit of self-promotion. He laughed all the way to the bank!

One man who admired his work was Brian Epstein, the gay manager of The Beatles. Epstein was looking for a writer for the group’s third movie. At Epstein’s London house, Orton met Paul McCartney. During dinner McCartney told him he had loved “Loot” but generally did not like plays. “The only thing I get from the theatre is a sore arse,” he claimed. Orton noted that at one point there was a knock on the front door.  “Five very young and pretty boys trooped in. I rather hoped it was the evening’s entertainment.” Sadly for Joe, they were a very popular Australian group recently arrived in London which Epstein was considering managing, The Easybeats. Orton agreed to work on the movie. Five weeks later he delivered the script. It was rejected. The group did not see themselves as Orton’s cross-dressing murderers.  At least Orton received his £10,000 fee, a fortune in those days.

As Orton's success grew worldwide, Halliwell's career went nowhere. Popping all manner of pills to keep depression at bay, he grew both intensely jealous of Joe's success and desperately afraid he would leave him. They took a long holiday in the very gay resort of Tangier bedding all the trade that came their way.

Joe sunning himself in Tangier

But it did nothing to allay Halliwell's fears. Joe soon told a journalist friend that he had started another relationship and would finally leave Kenneth. Did Kenneth find out? Perhaps. But his increasingly tormented mind could take no more. Within days he had bludgeoned Joe to death before committing suicide. It was August 1967. Joe was just 34 years old. Many regarded him as one of the brightest creative talents the theatre had ever known.

Apart from his plays, Joe's life and success is perhaps best known today from the biography written after his death. In 1987 this was made into a film with Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina and Vanessa Redgrave. Appropriately both had the title, "Prick up Your Ears", ears being a very obvious anagram for "arse"! How Joe would have loved it!