Ronald Kray and Reginald Kray were English identical twin brothers and organised crime figures who operated in the East End of London from the late 1950s to 1967. With their gang, known as the Firm, the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling and assaults. At their peak in the 1960s, they gained a certain measure of celebrity status by mixing with prominent members of London society, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
Leonard John McLean was an English unlicensed boxer, bouncer, bodyguard, businessman and actor. He was known as "The Guv'nor", "the King of the Cobbles" and "the hardest man in Britain".
John George Pearson was an English novelist and an author of biographies, notably of Ian Fleming, of the Sitwells, and of the Kray twins.
The Krays is a 1990 British biographical crime drama film directed by Peter Medak. The film is based on the lives and crimes of the British gangster twins Ronald and Reginald Kray, often referred to as The Krays. The film stars Billie Whitelaw, Tom Bell, and real life brothers Gary and Martin Kemp, both of whom were members of the band Spandau Ballet.
Adrienne Corri was a Scottish actress.
Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby,, often known as Bob Boothby, was a British Conservative politician.
William Charles "Billy" Hill was an English criminal, linked to smuggling, protection rackets and extreme violence. He was one of the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London from the 1920s through to the 1960s. His gang managed cash robberies and, in a scam, defrauded London's high society of millions at the card tables of John Aspinall's Clermont Club.
Jack McVitie, best known as Jack the Hat, was an English criminal from London during the 1950s and 1960s. He is posthumously famous for triggering the imprisonment and downfall of the Kray twins. He had acted as an enforcer and hitman with links to The Firm, and was murdered by Reggie Kray in 1967.
Bernard O'Mahoney is an English author, security detail, and former soldier. After taking control of security at a nightclub he became associated with Tony Tucker, a drug dealer who was shot along with two others in what is known as the Rettendon murders.
Born Fighter is an autobiographical book written by Reginald Kray. In 1969 he and his twin brother Ronnie Kray received life sentences for the murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie. First published in London in 1990 in hardback by Century and paperback in 1991 by subsidiary Arrow Books.
My Story is an autobiographical book written by Ronnie Kray. He, along with his twin brother Reggie, were said to be some of the most feared gangsters in British history.
Freddie Foreman is an English publican, gangster, former associate of the Kray twins and convicted criminal.
Frank Samuel Mitchell, also known as "The Mad Axeman", was an English criminal and friend of the Kray twins who was later murdered at their behest.
Legend is a 2015 biographical crime thriller film written and directed by American director Brian Helgeland. It is adapted from John Pearson's book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, which deals with their career and the relationship that bound them together, and follows their gruesome career to life imprisonment in 1969.
David Litvinoff was a consultant for the British film industry who traded on his knowledge of the criminal elements of the East End of London. A man for whom there are few truly reliable facts, it is unclear how genuine his expertise really was, though he certainly knew the Kray Twins and was particularly friendly with Ronnie Kray, according to a biography published in 2016. He entertained his showbiz friends with stories of the Krays' activities and his niece Vida described him as "the court jester to the rich, smart Chelsea set of the sixties".
Leonard Ernest "Nipper" Read, QPM was a British police officer and boxing administrator.
Esmeralda's Barn was a nightclub in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge, London, that was owned by the Kray twins from 1960 until its closure in 1963. The Krays used the club as a way of expanding their criminal activities into London's West End.
The Astor Club was a nightclub which operated in Mayfair, London from the 1930s to the late 1970s. The haunt of royals and car dealers, gangsters and landed aristocrats, it was a fixture in London nightlife, with the most famous years of the club being the decades between 1950 and 1970. The Astor was one of the most prestigious of a number of nightclubs and "hostess clubs" which flourished particularly in the period between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the opening of the 1960s and 1970s discothèques. Such watering-holes had almost all disappeared by the 1980s, when discos and nightclubs merged into the nocturnal "clubs" of those years, a situation which led up to the present-day London night-time economy.
Charles James Kray was an English amateur boxer and convicted criminal. He was the elder brother of Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
