PSYCHO REGGIE WAS ABOUT ME
Hardman’s love letters to Lily
GANGSTER Reggie Kray had a “flirty” relationship with Paul O’Grady’s hilarious Lily Savage character.
The East London hardman became pen pals with the Blind Date host in the 1990s and sent dozens of love letters, Paul has revealed.
But Paul did not twig straight away that Kray’s letters, written from behind bars, were actually meant for his drag persona Lily.
He revealed that the bisexual gangland leader, who ruled the capital’s East End with twin Ronnie and brother Charlie, “had a crush” on his outrageous blonde alias.
Discussing the most bizarre celebrity he ever flirted with, 64-year-old Paul said: “I once got a letter from gangster Reggie Kray.
“So I politely wrote back, and then got another lovely letter back.
“I then realised it was Lily Savage he was writing to, not me. Apparently, he had quite a crush on Lily.”
Wonderful
Reggie’s fondness for Paul in drag might date back to his childhood when mum Violet dressed him and Ronnie as girls.
Their mother’s friend Maureen Flanagan – who worked as a consultant on Tom Hardy’s Legend film about their lives – said of the family: “What a wonderful woman she was, a wonderful loving mother who just happened to be the mother of the most notorious men in London at the time. To her they were two princes that she dressed immaculately from little babies.
“She dressed them like girls actually because she’d lost a little girl just before they were born.”
Maureen went on: “She wouldn’t hear no wrong because in the house they were two gentlemen and out in front of women they were gentlemen.”
The Kray Twins were the most feared gangsters in the East End’s underworld in the 1950s and 60s.
As nightclub owners, they also mixed with stars such as singer Frank Sinatra.
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