Twin brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray were a couple of small-time crooks who grew to become celebrity gangsters in London in the 1960s. Hailing from London’s then-notorious East End, they initially worked as petty criminals, involved in the nightclub business, and running protection rackets on the side. At their height, they took over a West End gambling establishment graced by many well-known celebrities. The pair avoided prosecution for their crimes for many years, before finally going down for a string of murders in 1969.
Under different circumstances, the Krays may well have lived and died in obscurity. However, in 1964, Ronnie Kray shot to fame thanks to a tryst with a well-known Conservative aristocratic politician, something that was illegal at the time. The following year, an iconic portrait of the criminal pair drinking tea (pictured), further increased their celebrity. A string of books and films about the pair kept their legend alive while they were in prison, netting them thousands in royalties.
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Although the twins charmed many people throughout the course of their lives — even generating a campaign for their release in the 1990s — they both committed some fairly ghastly crimes, and violence followed the Krays wherever they went. For example, during one particularly notorious incident, Ronnie is known to have branded one of his enemies with a white-hot poker. Ultimately, Ronnie would be jailed for shooting another mobster, who insulted him with a homophobic slur, and Reggie was caught for stabbing a gangster to death in North London.
