Orton, Joe ___ 1933-1967 ___ British ___ playwrite

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Orton grew up in Leicester, the oldest of five children. He left school at 16, but was admitted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1951 after an audition. There he met Kenneth Halliwell. For a while, Orton worked as an actor and stage manager but was then sent to prison for a few months with Halliwell for defacing public library books. Once out of prison, Orton took up writing in earnest and, by his early 30s, had established a name for himself as one of the innovators of a new genre in theatre: Black comedy. 'Entertaining Mr Sloane', first produced in London in 1964 and in New York in 1965, shocked audiences with its combination of genteel dialogue and violent sexual drama. Few other plays followed, notably 'Loot' and 'What the Butler Saw'. In 1967, he was beaten to death by Halliwell, whose own failure as a writer and artist had been in sharp contrast to his lover's success. Halliwell committed suicide the same night. In the last year of his life, Orton kept a series of diaries that chronicled his literary success and many sexual encounters.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1966-1967 ___ literary love/sex self people Morocco

WEB TEXT LINKS
about and some quotes

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
University of Leicester - possibly

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Orton Diaries
 

May 2005, April 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.