LIFE AND WORK

  JOE ORTON TIMELINE  
       
Joe pictured at 'The Coppice' circa 1949-50.
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1933 TO 1959

 
1933 January 1st: John Kingsley Orton born in Leicester
1944 Orton fails Eleven Plus exams
1945-7 Attends Clark’s College, Leicester
1949 Orton begins his first diary
1950 April: Starts taking elocution lessons with ‘Madame Rothery’
  November: Applies to Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA)
1951 May: Starts at RADA, meets Kenneth Halliwell
  June: Orton moves in with Halliwell at 161 West End Lane, London NW6
  June: Orton stops writing his first diary
1953 April: Orton and Halliwell graduate from RADA
  April – July: Orton gets job as Assistant Stage Manager at Ipswich Repertory
  Orton and Halliwell begin collaborating as writers.
Write The Silver Bucket (manuscript lost)
1954-6 Orton and Halliwell collaborate on a number of novels; Lord Cucumber, The Mechanical Womb, The Last Days of Sodom and The Boy Hairdresser. All are rejected by publishers.
1957 June: Orton writes to publisher Charles Monteith saying that he and Halliwell have begun writing separately. Orton writes novel Between Us Girls
  Orton begins writing as ‘Edna Welthorpe’ and other pseudonyms, which continue throughout his career
1959 Orton and Halliwell move to flat in Noel Road, Islington, London
  Orton writes play, Fred and Madge
  Halliwell writes novel, Priapus in the Shrubbery
  Orton and Halliwell start stealing books from Islington library and altering book jackets
   
 
   
 
Image © The Orton Estate   Text © Leicester City Council  

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