GAY ICONS 3: 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 unraveled 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 were supposed 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. 

Joe Orton: photo Douglas H. Jeffrey

This, we should remember, was a time when homosexuality was still not decriminalized in Britain. In 1953 shortly after being knighted as one of Britain’s finest actors, Sir John Gielgud was arrested for trying to pick up another man in a public lavatory. He appeared in court where he was fined. But he was also recognised by a newspaper reporter. Publicly humiliated, for over a year Gielgud was tormented by the fear that his career was over. He even contemplated suicide. 

At least he did not suffer the even greater humiliation earlier endured by Alan Turing, the brilliant code breaker whose work is acknowledged as having shortened World War 2 in Europe by at least one year, if not two. Having had his house burgled, he reported the crime and admitted the fact that he had had a sexual tryst with a young man who had known the burglar. Arrested under the anti-gay 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, in 1952 the judge at his trial gave him a choice: imprisonment or chemical castration. As we all know from the relatively recent movie “The Imitation Game”, he accepted the latter. 

With a criminal conviction, his security clearance was withdrawn and he was banned from his government work as a cryptanalyst. In 1954 he could take the shame no longer. He committed suicide. It took until 2013 before he was officially pardoned by the Queen. Subsequently in 2017 a new law was introduced, named appropriately Turing’s Law, in which pardons were given to many, but not all, homosexuals earlier convicted under the old anti-gay law. To date more than 65,000 pardons have been issued. Sadly, nearly 80% are already dead, including Oscar Wilde. Turing’s legacy has also been honoured since 2021 when his face appeared on the back of the Bank of England’s £50 notes.

This, then, was the background to Joe Orton’s public displays of his own gay nature. But Joe did not care in the slightest. 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 on a scholarship aged 17 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 really fancies her chances with this Mr. Sloane. But when her younger brother Ed arrives, he too fancies this stranger. What they are not aware of is that Sloane is a psychopath who later in the play 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. It was the ideal Orton ending.

 

“Sloane” transferred to Broadway, where the subject matter all but ensured it would  bomb. It did. But it was performed more successfully in 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 even 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 London newspapers, bombarding readers 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. One evening 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 very 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.

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 in this context being a very obvious anagram for "arse"! How Joe would have loved it!

 

[macaroni21]

The Joe Orton Diaries! I read it in my formative years. It was so engrossing I must have read the whole thing in one sitting, skipping classes and all.

Most memorable were his accounts of his visits to Tangier (Morocco), renting a house or sharing with friends, and having boys come over. It was so exciting. He was such a good writer, those adventures jumped off the pages as real and alive. He wrote of somnolent bars with shady side businesses, pimps, boys of unreliable honesty, and duds in bed.

Little did I imagine in my younger days that that "lifestyle" and very similar experiences would be mine as well today!

Oh, what joy! - the glorious book and the degenerate lifestyle!