Kenneth Williams - Just Williams: An Autobiography (Abridged) - Read by Kenneth Williams


Source Cassette Tape
Duration approx 3:13 hours
FhG MPEG 1 Layer III 64 Kbps CBR
44100Hz, 16-bit, Mono

Sadly it is Abridged, but what can you expect for 50p in a Charity shop. Oddly there is no intro or outro which is strange for BBC tapes.

The book

These readings by Kenneth Williams from his autobiography were first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1985. They incorporate his 1930s childhood in London, barrack-room life in Singapore during the last months of World War II, his stage career in the 1950s and 1960s, and radio and cinema fame.


The man

Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February 1926 in Bingfield Street, King's Cross, London. The son of barber Charles Williams, he was educated at Lyulph Stanley School. Although his education was nothing special, he was a voracious reader throughout his life and in his interviews he could often quote entire poems or literary extracts purely from memory. His relationship with his parents — he adored his supportive, theatrical mother, Louisa ("Lou" or "Louie"), but hated his homophobic, morose and selfish father — was key to his personality, Williams later claiming that all his acting and comedic talent came from his mother. Williams became an apprentice draughtsman to a mapmaker and joined the army in 1944 at the age of 18. He was part of the Royal Engineers survey section in Bombay when he first performed on stage, with Combined Services Entertainment along with Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols.

His professional career began in 1948 with roles in repertory theatre, but few serious parts suited his camp delivery. His failure to become a serious dramatic actor disappointed him, but potential as a comic performer gave him his break. He was spotted playing the Dauphin in George Bernard Shaw's St Joan in 1954 by the radio producer Dennis Main Wilson, who was casting Hancock's Half Hour, a radio series starring Tony Hancock. Williams went on to lend his distinctive vocal and comedic talents to the series until almost the end of its run, five years later. His nasal, whiny, camp-cockney inflections (epitomised in his "Stop messing about..." catchphrase) became hugely popular with the listening public and would endure in popular lore for many years. Despite the success and recognition the radio show brought him, Williams' own personal view was that theatre, film and television were 'superior' forms of entertainment to radio shows.

When Hancock decided to move the show away from what he considered to be 'gimmicks' and silly voices, Williams found himself having less to do on the programme. Tiring of his increasingly reduced appearances, Williams joined Kenneth Horne in Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964), and its sequel, Round the Horne (1965–1968). In the latter, his roles included Rambling Syd Rumpo, the eccentric folk singer; Dr Chou En Ginsberg, MA (failed), Oriental criminal mastermind; J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, professional telephone heavy breather and dirty old man; and Sandy of the camp couple, Julian and Sandy (Julian was played by Hugh Paddick), and the double-act was notable for their double entendres and homosexual slang known as Polari. Williams and Hancock started out as good friends and would regularly discuss philosophical matters in one another's company, their discussions sometimes lasting an entire night. However, after Hancock cut many of Williams' appearances on the show, they fell out and Williams distanced himself from Hancock from then on. His reaction to the news of Hancock's suicide in Sydney, Australia, on 24 June 1968, as recorded in his diary, was one of indifference to the death of his former friend and criticism of Hancock's decline in both his career and personal life. This was a stark contrast to his fond thoughts and praise of Hancock in his diaries from previous years.

Williams appeared in West End revues including Share My Lettuce with Maggie Smith and written by Bamber Gascoigne, and Pieces of Eight with Fenella Fielding, which included material written by Peter Cook, then still a student at Cambridge University, including One Leg Too Few and Interesting Facts, that would both become well known routines in Cook's own stage performances. Williams' last revue was One over the Eight, with Sheila Hancock. Williams later starred opposite Jennie Linden in My Fat Friend in 1972. He also appeared with Ingrid Bergman in a stage production of George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion in 1971. Particularly in the theatre, Williams was famous for breaking character, ad-libbing and talking to the audience.

Williams worked in television and British films, notably the Carry On series (1958–1978) with its British double entendre-laced humour, which were highly successful but for which he, along with the rest of the cast, was poorly paid. In his diaries Williams claims he earned more in a British Gas commercial than the entire Carry On series — although that might only be true if one adds the fee he earned from the highly popular spin-off cartoon series Willo the Wisp (taken up by the BBC rather than the commercial TV network). In his diaries he was often highly critical of the Carry On films, both of his own performances and those of his fellow actors. This was the case with many of the films, television programmes, stage plays and radio shows he appeared in. Despite this private criticism, he appeared in more of the Carry On films than any of his fellow actors, and spoke fondly of them in his interviews. Peter Rogers, producer of the series, maintained a good relationship with Williams. He recollected, "...Kenneth was worth taking care of, because while he cost very little — £5,000 a film — he made a very 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. He was a frequent contributor to BBC2's What's My Line? in the 1970s and presented several editions of the children's story-reading series Jackanory. He also appeared on Michael Parkinson's interview programme on eight occasions, during which he told many anecdotes from his career. In addition, Williams was one of the stand-in hosts on the Wogan talk show in 1986.

On October 14, 1962 Williams' father, Charles, was rushed to hospital after drinking carbon tetrachloride which was stored in a bottle of cough mixture. Williams refused to visit him and on the following day went out for lunch then to the cinema. Charles died during the afternoon and an hour after being informed, Williams went on stage in the West End where he gave one of his better performances. The coroner's court recorded a verdict of accidental death due to corrosive poisoning by carbon tetrachloride with no explanation of how the poison came to be in the bottle.

Several years later Williams turned down an offer of work with Orson Welles in America which would have been a major career move. According to his own account he had declined as he did not like America and had no desire to ever work there. However, a more likely reason was that he had been denied a visa because Scotland Yard had considered him a suspect in his father's death.

Williams insisted he was celibate, and his diaries suggest this was — at least from his early 40s onwards — in part because he found his homosexuality difficult to deal with and the attendant lifestyle distasteful. He lived alone all his adult life and appears never to have had a steady companion or a romantic relationship of any great significance. His diaries contain many references to unconsummated or barely consummated dalliances, which he describes as "traditional matters" or "tradiola" (homosexuality was a criminal offence in the UK before 1967). He did, however, befriend the gay playwright Joe Orton (who wrote the role of Inspector Truscott in Loot (1966) for him) and enjoyed holidays with Orton and lover Kenneth Halliwell in Morocco. Other close friends included Stanley Baxter, Gordon Jackson and his wife Rona Anderson, Sheila Hancock, Maggie Smith and her playwright husband, Beverley Cross. By turns gregarious and reclusive, Williams was also fond of the company of fellow Carry On regulars Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims and Bernard Bresslaw.

Although making a good living, Williams lived in small flats in north London from the mid-1950s until his death. After his father died his mother, Louisa, always lived close by him — even in the next-door flat by the end of his life. The best-known flat Williams lived in was in the block on Osnaburgh Street, which is now demolished.

Williams rarely revealed details of his private life, though he spoke to Owen Spencer-Thomas about his loneliness, despondency and underachievement in two half-hour documentary programmes entitled Carry On Kenneth on BBC Radio London. In later years his health declined, along with that of his elderly mother (she died in July 1991), and his depression deepened. He died on 15 April 1988 in Camden. The cause of death was an overdose of barbiturates. An inquest recorded an open verdict, as it was not possible to establish whether his death was suicide or accident. However, Williams' diaries reveal he had often had suicidal thoughts throughout his life, and as far back as his earliest diaries he noted that there were times when he couldn't see any point in existence at all.


Enjoy and Seed!!