English writer, artist and murderer Kenneth Halliwell was BOTD in 1926. Born in Bebington, Liverpool to a prosperous middle-class family, his mother died when he was 11 from a wasp sting. A talented student, his education was interrupted by World War Two. He registered as a conscientious objector, working as a coal miner to avoid a prison sentence. After his father’s suicide in 1949, he moved to London to study drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1951, he began a relationship with fellow student Joe Orton, eventually living together and becoming Orton’s literary mentor. They collaborated on several novels, including The Boy Hairdresser, which remained unpublished in their lifetimes. In 1962, they were prosecuted and imprisoned for defacing library books, illustrating covers with pornographic images cut from physique magazines. On his release from prison, Orton began writing radio plays, and became a West End celebrity with his sex comedies Entertaining Mr Sloane and Loot. Orton and Halliwell had an open relationship, frequently holidaying in Tangier to have sex with young men. Halliwell became increasingly jealous of Orton’s popularity and resentful that his contributions to Orton’s work were unacknowledged. In 1967, he bludgeoned Orton to death in their flat, then killed himself via a drug overdose. Orton’s final play What the Butler Saw was staged in 1968 after his death. Public interest in Halliwell was revived after the publication of Orton’s diaries in 1986, providing graphic details about their relationship and sexual experiences in Tangier. Halliwell’s relationship with Orton was dramatised in Stephen Frears’ 1987 biopic Prick Up Your Ears, scripted by Alan Bennett and starring Alfred Molina as Halliwell.