Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams

Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface ‘I was more pleased than I ever dreamed I would be’
1 ‘Brushed over with false gaiety’ February1926 –February1944
2 ‘Happy days, what a laugh! Oh! Life!!’ February1944 –December1947
3 ‘The dream from which there is no awakening’ December1947 –February1950
4 ‘What is right in this haphazard career?’ February1950 –October1954
5 ‘Too popular. Quite so. Reely. I don’t mind’ September1954 –June1959
6 ‘I could no more share a flat with Anyone than I could fly’ November1954 –June1957
7 ‘Lots of old pals. It was all delightful’ May1957 –April1959
8 ‘Throwing temperaments in sapphire mink’ April1959 –December1960
9 ‘I have been taught the severest lesson of the theatre, and taught it pitilessly’ September1960 –December1962
10 ‘God has given me the opportunity to use the theatre in its moral sense’ January1963 –April1964
11 ‘It was Felicity’s twenty-first!’ July1964 –December1965
12 ‘You always talk to the one you don’t like’ February1965 –August1967
13 ‘You can’t be childish at 42 and get away with it but nonetheless, I shall try’ August1967 –August1968
14 ‘It’s all whoops and bonnet over the windmill!’ September1968 –December1969
15 ‘I adore this woman and will forgive everything from someone who has her sweetness, radiance and generosity of spirit’ February1970 –June1973
16 ‘Critics will say “tired, laboured, unfunny”, etc, but it don’t matter and I do need the money’ December1972 –August1977
17 ‘The tide is receding and leaving some incongruous wrecks exposed’ October1969 –December1983
18 ‘Nobody should live past sixty-five, because nobody should have to face deterioration’ January1984 –April1988
AFTERWORD ‘It’s fascinating, it’s a little defeat of death’
Acknowledgements
Illustration Credits
Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations