SHAPIRO: This is Tom Hardy, who gives an eye-popping performance in this double role. HARDY: There's a fascination that people have within gangster culture, and there's an iconography there which is specific to my country. I wanted to know why the legend endures, so I asked a man who has spent a lot of the last year inhabiting the twins. And half a century after their prime, they still come up in casual conversation. SHAPIRO: The Krays died in prison more than 15 years ago. Flanigan to visit the boys in prison, so she did.įLANIGAN: I really looked after them right to the end, and I visited them every month, sometimes every two weeks, took them what they wanted, like their silk ties and their tie pins. Their criminal network caved in on itself, and the men spent the rest of their lives behind bars. The twins were caught, tried and convicted. SHAPIRO: Eventually, the tower collapsed. And Maureen Flanigan says the Krays were always consummate gentlemen to women.įLANIGAN: No swearing in front of us, no bad behavior in front of us. SHAPIRO: At the same time, the twins ran with the world's biggest celebrities. If he wasn't and he had that menacing - people used to leave. If he had a little smile, maybe, or if he had a couple of his young boys with him, then he was happy. What mood is he in tonight? Let's look at his face. She says when Ron would walk into a bar like this, everyone would freeze.įLANIGAN: And you saw grown men - I mean, really hard men - just look, put the glass down and wait. This is where the Krays killed a rival gang member on a crowded night. Flanigan for a cup of tea at the Blind Beggar Pub. I've written my book "One Of The Family: 40 Years With The Krays." I was the mother's hairdresser but later became very, very close friend. MAUREEN FLANIGAN: My name is Maureen Flanigan. SHAPIRO: But this woman insists all of her stories are true. JOHN COOPER: If you speak to any cabbie anywhere in London, they've all got a story of how they met the Krays. We'll hear from him in a minute - first, back to the walking tour. SHAPIRO: The actor Tom Hardy plays both Kray twins in the new film. TOM HARDY: (As Ron Kray) I prefer boys - Italians - sometimes Greek, but I am not prejudiced. And one other thing - in an era when homosexuality was illegal, Ron was unapologetically gay. He took more obvious pleasure in violence.
Ron was erratic, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie was the charismatic one - smooth, slick, glamorous. These men were to London what Al Capone was to Chicago - immaculately dressed, never a spot of blood on them. If the neighbor didn't stop being noisy, then they would have a more serious word. They'd come to the twins and say, I'm having trouble with my noisy neighbor can you help me out? And the Krays would go around an have a quiet word with the noisy neighbor. MARCUS: People wouldn't go to the police. All of the violence was well thought out. The way the myth goes, people say there was no random violence when the Krays ran the city. SHAPIRO: The Kray twins were judge, jury and, quite literally, executioner for this neighborhood. MARCUS: If you look across the road here, there is the location of the family's original home. I wanted to dig into the truth behind the myth.
LEGEND TOM HARDY NETFLIX MOVIE
SHAPIRO: The new movie "Legend" tells the story of these two men, Ron and Reggie Kray. UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As Character) London in the 1960s - everyone had a story about the Krays. It just seemed a lot more - don't know - British, if that makes sense. Claire Kemp has come to dig into her roots and learn more about her hometown's antiheroesĬLAIRE KEMP: Like, the whole culture was completely different - like, the music and, like, going out to the dances and stuff like that. And there's something unusual about the walking tour I'm on. But in the 1960s, it was a working-class, dirty part of Britain that people these days mythologize. SHAPIRO: Today, East London is a patchwork quilt of different cultures. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Singing in foreign language). As we walk through this neighborhood, a group of African drummers on the corner sings a Christian worship song. Ron and Reggie ruled this city in the 1960s. These were the twin princes of London's underworld - the Krays. Two men glower in black and white, ties neatly knotted. SHAPIRO: He's holding up a famous portrait. MARCUS: So that brings me to the infamous Kray twins. The actor Stephen Marcus is giving about 20 people a tour of this city's gritty, glamorous, bloody gangster past. We're walking through East London, where I lived until a few months ago.
MARCUS: You're on the Gangster London Tour.
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