By Elliott West
“I wonder if anyone will ever know the emptiness of my life”.
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams, photograph courtesy of The Daily Express.
Introduction
Kenneth Williams is best known for his radio performances on hit comedy series such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Round The Horne and his many characters in 26 of the 31 Carry On films. Yet beyond the acid wit and charm of this highly intelligent raconteur lay a tortured soul who could never embrace his sexuality rather than describing himself as chaste and devoid of sexual feelings, the worst-kept secret that was transparent in his camp nature but one that still felt the need to keep amongst his closest friends and under the lock and key of his private diaries that ran over 43 volumes and captured the ongoings of 40 years of his life from the age of 16. Kenneth forever lived in the shadow of his parents Charlie and Lou, his father a hairdresser by trade who Williams secretly despised, a man who had a hatred for loose morals and effeminacy and his mother who he could never cut the apron strings from, a matriarch who remained as a neighbour to his King’s Cross flat for the remainder of her life.
This was a man who loved to be the centre of attention, the ideal guest for a chat show host, who always had a funny story up his sleeve but someone who loved the solitude of his own company, happy to flash his bare bottom to the builders working on a development in the Euston Road but who hated guests using his toilet in his minimalist flat that still had the factory cellophane around the cooker in the kitchen. Williams loved to wallow in his medical woes which consisted of a combination of flatulence, haemorrhoids and abdominal pain. Ills that he took a cocktail of medication from a cabinet in his galley kitchen.
The Loudest Laugh
Kenneth Williams loved to hog the limelight. When he worked with Tony Hancock in his long-running BBC radio show, Ken was the person who popped up in bit parts but made the most of it and produced some hilarious performances that had the audience in stitches. Yet this attention made Hancock paranoid, a comedian who always aspired to better things and ended up parting days with Williams and his sidekick Sid James. Tony accused Williams of his characters not being lifelike but these charactures had been perfected since his army entertainment days when he first dabbled as a mimic, doing the voices of Winston Churchill and Nellie Wallace. Whether it was the brilliance of the gay slang of polari of Julian and Sandy or the artificial language in song of Rambling Sid Rumpole, both reveal a small insight into the private life of Kenneth Williams. A man who got his sexual pleasure from looking at himself in the mirror and someone who had little control over his emotions. He was like a running tap that had a broken washer, gushing and running at double speed.
Yet the opposite of laughing is crying and it is clear from his diaries that Williams wasn’t happy in his own skin. He loved to attack others just to disguise his lack of self-worth. Kenneth contemplated suicide from an early age, an act that is mentioned continuously in his entries. Yet even after reading his diaries, you are still left wondering who was the real Kenneth Williams. A man who had multiple suppressed personalities and who even his closest friends struggled at times to understand and cope with.
Scraps From The Table
Kenneth had the world at his feet and could have been a very successful classically trained actor, forging close friendships with Harold Pinter and Joe Orton. Yet he chose the entertainment path instead and subsequently never reached his full potential. He should never have accepted the programme International Cabaret as a host and probably should have jumped ship when the Carry On film scripts in the latter years, Carry On Emmanuel, the last film in 1979 was an obvious example. Yet despising the scripts, Ken loved the closeness of the Carry On family. A family that he never had. Here he could shock and entertain with few being offended as they knew him so well. Pinewood Studios where the films were made on a shoestring budget under the direction of Peter Rogers, you could often hear one of Kenneth’s infamous farts whistling around the sets. Even in his last years, he was willing to take part in the never to be made Carry On Dallas and would have appeared in the ill-fated Carry On Columbus if he had lived.
The Last Days
Towards the end of his life, Kenneth Williams was in constant pain, suffering from a stomach ulcer that he ignored for far too long, preferring to self-medicate instead. He looked tired, and his skin was turning grey, sitting rigidly in the chat show chair, most notably in one of his last television appearances on the Joan Rivers Show. The eyes didn’t burn as bright and his nose didn’t flare as widely as it used to. Retiring to the solitude of his North London flat, it is unclear what happened in the last hours of his life. In pain, he reached out to the antacid tablets in his medicine cabinet, confused by his ravaging pain. Perhaps he intended to make this his last act in 1986 by committing suicide. His final diary entry, the day before his death reads ‘What’s the bloody point?’. Whether it was an accidental overdose or an intended suicide., the inquest delivered an open verdict, and this was a tragic ending. A comical depressive genius, a talent who died at the tender age of 62, a man who made his audience roll around in fits of laughter.
