ACTING legend Michael Caine has revealed how he met the Kray twins in London’s nightclubs – and how everyone reacted to the gangsters.
The star of classic films such as Get Carter, The Ipcress File and Alfie, 89, rubbed shoulders with London’s underworld in his younger days but avoided criminal activity.
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Ronnie and Reggie Kray were both notorious in the 1950s and 60s for their ruthless East End crime empire.
Sir Michael Caine, speaking to Audible UK’s YouTube channel said: “I met them in a discotheque. They came in there and everybody went so quiet.
“They had a disco, a sort of bar disco in Knightsbridge, in a cellar and I remember going down there and seeing them.
“Once I was at a dinner with Barbara Windsor, and she knew them, and they were in the same restaurant.
“So I met them about three or four times but I tried very hard not to become a close friend because they were scary.”
‘THEY WERE SCARY’
He added: “The mood changes as they walk in. They loom larger than any of the colourful characters, frequenting the hideaway, cooler than any of the celebrities at the bar and with more fans they were the true stars of the show.”
Sir Michael said: “They weren’t a relaxing couple to be with, quite honestly, and I grew up in the Elephant and Castle.
“There was an Elephant and Castle gang, which was as fierce as them and I knew them very well.
“So I thought I knew enough gangsters, I just want to be an actor and be quite simple and quiet and we’re not going to hit anybody or slash anyone with a razor.”
ODD QUIRK
A pal of the twins, Steve Wraith, recently revealed the brothers had an odd quirk when talking to people who were visiting them.
He told Shaun Attwood’s podcast that they would always sit in the middle of the room so they could keep an eye on what was going on at all times.
The identical twins were born within ten minutes of each other on October 24, 1933, in Haggerston, East London.
In the early 50s the brothers started their gang, The Firm, which would shape their criminal activities.
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Under The Firm umbrella they were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults and murder over close to two decades.
Their brother Charlie provided the business brainpower behind the operations, while the twins became the public face of The Firm.
One of their first moves was to buy a run-down snooker club in Mile End, where they started several protection rackets.
They moved to the West End to run a gambling club, Esmerelda’s Barn, in Knightsbridge, in the 1960s.
They were widely seen as prosperous nightclub owners and part of the Swinging London scene, even persuading a peer to join them on the board to give the club a veneer of respectability.
MURDER
The twins’ fortunes changed when Ronnie shot and killed George Cornell, a member of rival gang the Richardsons, at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel.
No one was convicted for the 1966 killing at the time.
Then, in December of that year, the Krays helped Frank Mitchell escape from Dartmoor prison.
Reggie was allegedly encouraged by his brother in October 1967 to kill Jack “the Hat” McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had failed to fulfil a £1,000 contract to kill Leslie Payne.
They lured him to a flat in Stoke Newington on pretence of a party.
There Reggie stabbed McVitie in the face and stomach and killed him, driving the blade into his neck.
In the same year Detective Leonard “Nipper” Read reopened his case against them. He had met with a “wall of silence” when investigating the Krays before.
ARRESTS
However, by the end of 1967 Read had built up enough evidence against the Krays, and on May 8, 1968, the brothers and 15 members of their gang were arrested.
Ronnie remained in Broadmoor Hospital until his death on March 17, 1995, after suffering from a heart attack at the age of 61.
Reggie was released on compassionate grounds in August 2000, eight-and-a-half weeks before his death from cancer.
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