The Kray Twins of East London

Image Making, Celebrity Gangsters, and Their Legend

Abstract

The paper addresses the thin line between the world of criminals and celebrities. It focuses on questions how role models and their media representation as well as biographies, memoirs, and their film adaptations have created and kept up the image of gangsters, more specifically, the infamy of the two East London criminals, Reggie and Ronnie Kray since the 1950s. After an introduction to aspects of organised crime, mafia, and a few examples of famous gangsters and the role models of the Kray twins from American Al Capone and Frank Sinatra to the English gangster Billy Hill, the paper highlights the life, representation, and image-making methods of the Krays in postwar London until they died in prison (Ronnie in 1995 and Reggie in 2000) as well as their strange, ever-growing popularity and fame even 20 years after their death. The author argues and aims to prove that the systematically built and promoted Kray brand and their legend served as the forerunner to and paved the success of the 2015 American blockbuster under the same title, Legend, and further documentary films and biopics on the Kray twins ever since.