When push came to shove, the Marquess of Queensberry and his fusty old rules were less help than hindrance?
I recently watched ?Legend,? the new film about the Krays. Reginald and Ronald Kray were identical twin brothers who terrorized London during the Swinging Sixties. They were the most feared gangsters of their generation and had a hand in murder, armed robberies, arson, hijacking, bookmaking, protection rackets, shakedowns and assaults.
Reg and Ron were brutal hoodlums, but they were brutal hoodlums with style. Once described as the most dangerous men in Britain, they were West End nightclub owners of considerable renown and vaguely charming if not urbane. They lived a life of fast cars, fast women, hot blood and easy money, and left many broken noses in their wake.
?They were the best years of our lives,? wrote Ron Kray in his autobiography, ?My Story.? ?They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world? and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable.?
The twins mixed with politicians. They mixed with mob bosses. They hobnobbed with Frank Sinatra, George Raft, Judy Garland, and Diana Dors. They hired Eric Clapton to play at one of their clubs.
?I believe that Ron and I were predestined to become known,? Reggie once wrote, ?either by fame or infamy.?
Ronnie was the cerebral one, the Apollonian twin, the Kray who plotted violence with the precision of a vengeful surgeon wielding a scalpel. He was later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.
Reggie ran hot. He was Dionysus on steroids. Prone to violent outbursts for no discernible reason, he was the twin without impulse control who punched first and didn?t ask questions later.
In the film ?Legend,? the dual role of Reg and Ron Kay was undertaken by Tom Hardy, one of the great actors of our time. The movie is jazzy, a big film about two big subjects, and Tom Hardy is brilliant.
Boxing makes a brief appearance in ?Legend,? a nod to Reggie and Ron?s favorite sport.
But that was it.
Lace ?em up
The Krays fought amateur. The Krays fought pro. They were never champions, but did alright around the edges.
The twins frequented boxing booths when they were young. They earned a few shillings here and there fighting one another, but their formal training began at the Robert Browning Youth Club in South London. Reg and Ron took the #8 bus from Bethnel Green to Camberwell three times a week. Their ?old man? paid for the boxing lessons.
?The first famous people we ever met were boxers,? Reggie said. ?Ron and I used to spend a great deal of time in the company of boxing champions, including household names like Sonny Liston and Joe Louis.?
At the age of 12, the twins met Rinty Monaghan and Freddie Mills.
They met Jack Kid Berg. They met Ted Kid Lewis.
In 1948 Reginald Kray won the London Schoolboy Boxing Championship. He won several other schoolboy titles as well.
?I could punch hard with either hand,? Reggie said, ?so much so that I broke eleven jaws that I know of it.?
The Krays were happy to use their fists, but ?Ron and I usually had a knife on us.?
?Ron has a very kind side to his nature, even though he?s a complex character, often contradictory and eccentric,? wrote Reggie in his autobiography, ?Born Fighter.? ?I?ve known him to be vicious when necessary. He is completely fearless.?
?I never felt sorry for anyone who got hurt,? said Ron. ?They deserved it, otherwise it wouldn?t have happened. We?ve both been violent in our time, but we never liked it.?
The Krays turned pro on July 31, 1951, at The Arena, Mile End, in London, England. Reg debuted at lightweight. Ron fought at welter.
Reggie won his first fight on points and had six more fights in quick succession, one in August, one in September, two in October, one in November and December, at which time his pro career ended (7-0, 2 KOs).
Ron?s record is somewhat less distinguished. He knocked out his first opponent. He won his next three fights, before losing two fights, two months after his debut, ending his career with four wins and two losses, with all of his wins coming by way of knockout.
Their ring careers were over because Reg and Ron had been drafted?and it was not a good fit.
?It was deep-rooted in Ron and me at a very early age to be rebellious. That rebelliousness served me well. I have always been anti-authority.?
The Krays didn?t like the army.
The army didn?t like the Krays.
Reg and Ron complained constantly about everything. They said they had headaches. They said they couldn?t sleep. They said they considered suicide.
No one bought the ruse. The twins continued to misbehave and were court-martialed twice for assaulting officers.
The Krays? military career, like their boxing careers, ended abruptly. Their contribution, such as it was, to the cultural zeitgeist had only just begun?and the Krays brushed shoulders with boxing royalty.
Henry Cooper was their friend, as were Rocky Graziano and Archie Moore. So was Barney Ross.
?He was short, thickset, and had a broken nose and grey hair,? Reggie wrote. ?He always wore dark glasses.?
In 1966 Reg visited the legendary Jimmy Wilde.
?A male nurse let us into the ward and took us to see the great man himself. He had twinkling blue eyes and a warm handshake when we met him? He was the greatest fighter Wales ever produced.?
Recalling his pal Maxie Rosenbloom, Reggie said, ?Sad to say, he died in an American lunatic asylum not even knowing who he was. He had no idea he had been world champion.?
Boxing was special to the Krays, but business came first, and second, third, fourth and fifth.
?Discipline in and outside the firm was enforced by Ron and me by persuasion, reason, and by the fact that we were better at violence than the others were,? wrote Reggie. ?We had mastered both boxing and street fighting. In boxing, obviously there are rules and regulations. In street fighting, there are no rules. Anything and everything goes?head butts, kicking, biting, using knees and gouging with the thumb.?
When push came to shove, the Marquess of Queensberry and his fusty old rules were less help than hindrance.
The Krays were sentenced to life in Parkhurst Prison in 1969 after being convicted of murdering Jack ?The Hat? McVitie. Ronnie was also convicted in the shooting death of George Cornell, who reportedly called him a ?fat poof.?
A decade later, Ron was transferred from Parkhurst to Broadmore Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane at Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. He was described at the time ?as a near moron in good physical condition but mentally dull. There are occasional glimpses in his behaviour of a latent violence.?
Ron Kray died in prison in 1995 of a heart attack at 61. Reggie died in 2000, from bladder cancer at the age of 66, after 31 years in jail.
