REMEMBERING JOE ORTON

here's a cute little vintage image entitled- SAINT ORTON
By Peter De Potter- a tribute to JOE ORTON

JOE ORTON was an english author & playwright, thought to be the next big thing, before the untimely death at the hands of his lover- KENNETH HALLIWELL.

among joe orton's plays were-

The Ruffian on the Stair (first performance 1964)
Entertaining Mr Sloane (first performance 1964)
Loot (first performance 1965)
The Erpingham Camp (first performance 1966)
The Good and Faithful Servant (first performance 1967)
Funeral Games (first performance 1968)
What the Butler Saw (first performance 1969)

and his novels-

Head to Toe (published 1971)
Between Us Girls (published 2001)
Lord Cucumber and The Boy Hairdresser (co-written with Halliwell) (published 1999)

Before joe's success, a lack of serious work led the boys to amuse themselves with pranks and hoaxes.
Orton and Halliwel would steal books from the local library and subtly modify the cover art or the blurbs before returning them to the library. A volume of poems by John Betjeman, for example, was returned to the library with a new dustjacket featuring a photograph of a nearly naked, heavily tattooed, middle-aged man. The couple decorated their flat with many of the prints. They were eventually discovered and prosecuted for this in May 1962. The incident was reported in Daily Mirror as "Gorilla in the Roses". They were charged with five counts of theft and malicious damage, admitted damaging more than 70 books, and were jailed for six months (released September 1962) and fined £262.

Orton and Halliwell felt that that sentence was unduly harsh "because we were queers."

The collection of book covers can be viewed here-
www.joeorton.org

the defaced library books are now considered historic works of art.





On 9 August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death with nine hammer blows to the head, and then committed suicide with an overdose of 22 Nembutal tablets washed down with the juice from canned grapefruit.

The 22 November 1970 edition of The Sunday Times reported that on 5 August 1967, four days before the murder, Orton went to the Chelsea Potter pub in the King's Road. He met friend Peter Nolan who later gave evidence at the inquest that Orton told him that he had another boyfriend and wanted to end his relationship with Halliwell, but didn't know how to go about it.
The last person to speak to Halliwell was his doctor, who arranged for a psychiatrist to see him the following morning.
Halliwell had felt increasingly threatened and isolated by Orton's success, and had come to rely on anti-depressants and barbiturates.

The bodies were discovered the following morning when a chauffeur arrived to take Orton to a meeting to discuss a screenplay he had written for the Beatles.


(joe orton- circa- 1965)