Who is Kenneth Williams?

Who is Kenneth Williams?

Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English comic actor and comedian of Welsh parentage. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne among others.

Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February 1926 in Bingfield Street, King's Cross, London,[3] the son of Louisa ("Lou" or "Louie") Morgan and Charles Williams, a barber and strict Methodist from Wales. Williams had a half-sister, Alice Patricia "Pat", born illegitimately before Louie had met Charlie Williams. Kenneth was educated at Lyulph Stanley School, later becoming apprenticed as a draughtsman to a mapmaker. He joined the Army in 1944 at 18. As part of the Royal Engineers survey section in Bombay, he first performed on stage in the Combined Services Entertainment alongside Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols. He was a voracious reader able to quote poems or literary extracts from memory. Excerpts from the diaries he kept as an adult show that he adored his supportive and theatrical mother but despised his homophobic, morose and selfish father.

When Hancock steered the show away from what he considered gimmicks and silly voices, Williams found he had less to do. Tiring of this reduced status, he joined Kenneth Horne in Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964), and its sequel, Round the Horne (1965–1968). His roles in Round the Horne included Rambling Syd Rumpo, the eccentric folk singer; Dr Chou En Ginsberg, MA (failed), Oriental criminal mastermind; J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, telephone heavy breather and dirty old man; and Sandy of the camp couple Julian and Sandy (Julian was played by Hugh Paddick). Their double act contained double entendres and Polari, the homosexual argot.

Williams worked regularly in British film during the 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the Carry On series (1958–1978) with its double entendre humour; and appearing in the series more than any other actor. The films were commercially successful but Williams and the cast were apparently poorly paid. In his diaries, Williams wrote that he earned more in a British Gas advert than for any Carry On film. He often privately criticised and "dripped vitriol" upon the films, considering them beneath him. This became the case with many of the films and shows in which he appeared. He was quick to find fault with his own work, and that of others. Despite this, he spoke fondly of the Carry Ons in interviews. Peter Rogers, producer of the series, recollected, "Kenneth was worth taking care of because, while he cost very little – £5,000 a film, he made a great deal of money for the franchise."

Williams was a regular on the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute from its second season in 1968 until his death. From 1972, when he felt he was not being appreciated, he would scream, "I've come all the way from Great Portland Street" (it was a short distance to the studio from his home). He also 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.

On television he was a frequent contributor to the 1973–1974 revival of What's My Line?, hosted the weekly entertainment show International Cabaret and was a regular reader on the children's storytelling series Jackanory on BBC1, hosting 69 episodes. He appeared on Michael Parkinson's chat show on eight occasions, regaling audiences with anecdotes from his career. Williams was a stand-in host on the Wogan talk show in 1986; and also voiced the cartoon series Willo the Wisp (1981).

On 14 October 1962, Charlie Williams was taken to hospital after drinking carbon tetrachloride that had been stored in a cough-mixture bottle. Kenneth refused to visit him. The next day Charlie died while Kenneth was out to lunch and the cinema; an hour after being given the news, Kenneth went on stage in the West End. The coroner's court recorded a verdict of accidental death due to corrosive poisoning by carbon tetrachloride.

Several years later Williams turned down work with Orson Welles in America because he disliked the country and had no desire to work there. Many years after his death, The Mail on Sunday, quoting Wes Butters, co-writer of the book Kenneth Williams Unseen: The Private Notes, Scripts And Photographs, claimed Williams had been denied a visa because Scotland Yard considered him a suspect in his father's death.

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