Kenneth Williams & Maggie Smith

[@Bobanderic]

RIP Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams I like to think that they both are just sitting in limbo just having the most entertaining catch up over some cigarettes.

[@PaulBrown-il3wl]

@@Bobanderic yes, this was almost like one of those moments. Kenneth was more subtle and Maggie was strong in her perspective. Two that could disagree yet have discussion that were respectful of each other.

[@maudeboggins9834]

My mother loved to listen to Just A Minute on the radio, Kenneth Williams was a regular on the show & brilliant. I was shocked at his death at 62 in 1988. He could make you laugh just by telling a story of buying a loaf of bread. RIP Dame Maggie Smith & Kenneth Williams. Two now together

[@kayj8057]

I love them both and their relationship. Even watching Downton Abbey, you can see the Kenneth Williams influence in the way she elongates words and some of the cheeky mannerisms. What a fantastic pair. It’s such a shame Kenneth was gone too early!

[@phil4893]

Two very handsome people. They each gave millions of people an enormous amount of wonderful entertainment and laughs. What a great thing to do with a life.

[@unclealand]

Whomever had a hand in nurturing and honing the art of Maggie Smith deserves a place next to God.

[@heiltd1286]

I've got to tell you it's WHOever' not 'WHOMever'. The latter is only used in the accusative or dative, never in the nominative.

[@kenhunt278]

​​Y​@@heiltd1286"Huh?" Thanks for doing it for me; I'd long given up in despair. Trump will surely abolish the concept, as well as language(s) in general.

[@heiltd1286]

@@kenhunt278 We'll be reduced to speaking in grunts and groans. There'll be no need for language nevermind grammatical rules. We're heading there. One need look no farther than the incoherent rubbish people write on social media to see that the trend is firmly established.

[@stuartwray6175]

​@@heiltd1286 one need look no further

[@THESLEEPYMAN]

​@@kenhunt278Nonsense

[@theRealCrazyOne]

Why is Williams so freaking adorable? What a beautiful man he was. Look at that smile at 1:28!

[@Plethorality]

been in love with him since i was 15.

[@colinpartridge6423]

Remember listening to Kenneth Williams on the radio program, Round the Horne. Still makes me laugh just thinking about it. Rambling Syd Rumpo, et al. A unique comedy talent!

[@Mr.Monta77]

Kenneth Williams was a masterful actor and human.

[@johnricercato740]

I used to work near his flat and would see him in the small corner shop, chatting to the owner in a very low-key and rather subdued manner. And then I would see him on Parkinson and it would be as though a light had switched on inside him: he would be the effervescent, witty star, with the audience utterly captivated. A complex man and a genius.

[@jamesdrynan]

What a shame that such an eloquent, talented man led such a lonely existence. He wore the mask of success very well. The fact that Dame Smith saw his innate comedic genius speaks to her own intelligent acting quality.

[@christineallen3808]

I don't mean this as a criticism, just as a point of note, but the correct form of address is Dame/Sir [first name], so in this case Dame Maggie, rather than Dame Smith.

[@ScratchyBaws]

Two adorable Legends.

[@TheStarsInHisHead]

RIP Maggie

[@marionwest3661]

Kenneth was a one off. There never has been, or will be, anyone remotely like him. A sad loss to the world.

[@kingy002]

How have you had time to meet every single person throughout history, and how do you know all of the people that will be born into the future?

[@marionwest3661]

@@kingy002 Because we are all unique.

[@kingy002]

@@marionwest3661 Comedic

[@troygaspard6732]

I will look for more of him now. I love seeing them talking like best buddies, and smoking with inflection. You can see how sharp Smith was to draw off his talent.

[@PaulBrown-il3wl]

There was a chemistry there. Quite amazing to see them both behaving that way.

[@moshepotts]

This just so good & beautiful...Maggie & Ken...asexual lovers/partners...complete truth seekers both of them....how wonderful to see such instinctively pure spirits fuse.........

[@steerpike66]

I had no idea she was connected with him. Here, she's still quite the ingenue, still hip and sixties. It's quite clear that she learned how to Grand Dame from Kenneth, and he from Edith Evans.

[@lulumoon6942]

😍

[@GrilloTheFlightless]

I remember Kenneth Williams saying (it was either in his diaries or in Just Williams - I don’t quite recall) that Maggie Smith once said to him that the trouble with women and romance is that they always want the unobtainable. I sometimes wonder whether that was just a general observation about women, or whether she was hinting that she would have liked to have been with Kenneth, only that he was unobtainable (by being gay obsessively private or asexual as he often claimed to be). Maybe I was reading too much into it.

[@1groundfog]

Kenneth Williams was great at this time...she was lucky to learn from him...

[@scottvincent1783]

Maggie is simply the female version of Kenneth and Vice Versa…. And they both realised that and loved it! Highly intelligent, waspish, nobody’s fools and supremely talented the pair of them! Their like will not be seen again unfortunately ❤

[@sophiewest7769]

I love those 2 ❤. I love him in all the Carry on's 😂 especially carry on abroad. And I quote Kenneth Williams: yes, hello, my name is Stuward Farquhar where Peter Butterworth answers : stupid what...??? 😂😂😂😂😂

[@marinakaye8284]

Yes! I love that joke, too. It's the one I can always recall.

[@marinakaye8284]

And when he makes 'artifacts' sound rude. Or, 'You never had it so good!' lol

[@spicybiscuit88]

I didnt know Maggie Smith was so naughty and camp. And that she and Kenneth shared an intense but (I assume) platonic love.

[@1911olympic]

He was waiting for her. Now they're having laughs together. I hope....

[@robleary3353]

Love and adore the pair of them!

[@skidnap7]

Rest in peace sweet Maggie

[@tothelighthouse9843]

Is there anything better in life than meeting a stranger & ZING! MYSTERY! you discover you connect, & you keep connecting, & have more & more fun together, & become so close & so connected until every time something happens to you the thing you think is "OMG I CAN"T WAIT TO TELL HER/HIM ABOUT IT!"

[@roblewis3565]

Kenneth and Maggie were the same person in many ways.

[@Acme633]

Kenneth Williams was my favorite Carry On actor.

[@sophiewest7769]

Dito

[@rkevinhunt8134]

0:52 love how much care he takes to separate the t sounds in "first time". There's a video somewhere on youtube of Stephen Sondheim coaching a student singer through the line "Don't you love farce?" in Send in the Clowns, where he stresses the musical importance of cleanly enunciating each word in the lyric without eliding them together. This reminded me of that.

[@annchristine47]

Maggie Smith has a very "Glasgow"sense of humor which she obviously gets from her mother.

[@iangalbraith1993]

Yes, and common among Glasgow folk, takes no prisoners

[@67psych]

The end of an era now Maggie is gone . 🥲

[@kingy002]

Utter nonsense. There are many fine actors around today that are just as brilliant as she was.

[@67psych]

@ That’s me be told then. 😂

[@frankburns8946]

Williams could never have married her...not least because he was gay and preferred his own company. He hated people using the bathroom in his spartan flat for heaven's sake! But he loved Smith in the 'true' sense of the word. I've read his books/letters/and more and they are a revelation about life growing up after the war. The only person he could live with was his dear old mum.They shared the same apartment block...he in his apartment and she in hers.He would pop in to watch T.V with her...he didn't own a television...and they went on holiday together. Read his diaries...they are wonderful.

[@DeanBNE]

Frank Burns err, ken was gay and never really accepted it

[@larrymclarnon-pd8xf]

Two gems.

[@Chris-dm1je]

So, they _were_ seen in the same room together. That's my theory blown out of the water.

[@bridgetmcpherson8073]

Ah dear another light puffed out .RIP 😢

[@jessiejames7492]

very unusual .....she and kenneth williams.....well they say opposites attract...what a lovely attraction

[@GrilloTheFlightless]

In many respects they weren’t so opposite. Only this evening, following her passing, I saw Giles Brandreth (who knew them both well) say that they both were very private people, and were both rather caustic at times. A journalist commented on how she could be waspish at times, which Kenneth certainly could be. When you read Williams’ diaries where he recounts their conversations, you soon realise that they had a very similar sense of humour. But their relationship was rather beautiful and dazzling. You can see it in this interview. Interestingly she says how she pinches off Kenneth all the time. A few years ago I read an interview where she says that she based The Dowager Countess on Kenneth. And what she learned from him must have been tremendous. These days he’s mostly remembered for funny voices and Carry Ons, but in the 1950s he was widely regarded as being on his way to becoming one of Britains finest character actors. She was working with him during that era when the audiences and critics took him seriously as an actor and before he’d been more-or-less painted into a corner as a comic turn. I only wish I could have seen them both on stage together, but alas I’m too young.

[@PaulBrown-il3wl]

@@GrilloTheFlightless great comments. What would the world have been without them both. I would’ve liked to have seen Kenneth in a dramatic performance. Are you aware of any ?

[@rachaeldelvaille3886]

See Kenneth Williams in Make Mine Mink-hilarious!! 👍🏾😍

[@cdchantler]

Haha. His impression of her at the end is the same one Ian mckellan did on Graham Norton 😅

[@degsbabe]

And the pile was so soft......all the thieves remarked upon it.

[@DavidJohnson-yq4nz]

Miss Brodie such an iconic film

[@ameliaquartermain4220]

I think they should have gotten married they would have been perfect and maybe Kenneth would still be alive today because SHE would of kept him going to me they both look like they should be together.

[@robzrob]

Amelia Quartermain Dead right, Amelia. Imagine them doing the chat shows together, they would have been brilliant.

[@ameliaquartermain4220]

robzrob I dunno why but I can see them walking down the street in London linking arms and laughing their heads off

[@acesigma06]

Skinny Dongle I think she’d need quite a different frontal arrangement for him to be interested

[@kyawkyawwin1]

Impossible - he hated any sort of intrusion in his life, whether into his home or heart.

[@peteradaniel]

Why would want a woman to marry a gay man? The relationship would have been horrific for both parties.

[@davidhall8049]

Bless them both

[@RSmith6948]

It’s very interesting that as a young woman Maggie Smith had close friendships with two gay men: Kenneth Williams and Paul Lynde (whom she met in New Faces on Broadway.) Says something about the sensibilities of all three.

[@kabardinka1]

Paul Lynde and Alice Ghostley had a similar symbiosis.

[@garryferrington811]

When Williams says "first time" you can hear both "t's" pronounced.

[@aidenajarvis6808]

Maybe they would of loved each other, I mean Maggie smith is doing Kenneth doing dame Evans

[@kyawkyawwin1]

RIP Dame Maggie.

[@Sameoldfitup]

We have known the days...

[@jan7143]

Ken was brilliant t

[@KZ-vj6km]

I honestly can'tt believe that Maggie didn't know she had to colour lines and speak spontaneously as an actress of course she did know that she didn't just have to learn the lines and say them. Nobody of her brilliance can possibly have thought that.

[@williamsmiler184]

Fookin Legend!

[@d0nh3nry]

And by the magic of the internet, here is the full interview of Maggie and Ken filmed on the stage of the National Theatre at the Old Vic by Clive Goodwin, 1967: watch?v=BgU9dqV8GlU

[@PassportToPimlico]

How odd that Kenneth Williams sought men for physical intimacy yet he got spiritual intimacy from women.

[@PassportToPimlico]

@@quuhod It's not. He seemed to have very few personal relationships with men yet he was very close to women. No one ever got that close to him to be considered a partner. On the Carry On films he was very close to Barbara Windsor and Hattie Jacques but apparently not with his male co stars.

[@kyawkyawwin1]

Not odd at all, you obviously aren't a pouffe.

[@gerardmackay8909]

If you read his diaries (which I have cover to cover) as well as a biography or two it becomes clear how he craved but at the same time was horrified by intimacy. It’s not strictly true however to claim all his spiritually significant relationships were with women. He was absolutely devoted and steadfast in his close friendships with both Gordon Jackson and Stanley Baxter and he was crazy about Joe Orton too who was so tragically murdered the year this clip was filmed

[@PaulBrown-il3wl]

@@PassportToPimlico regardless of sex there are times when there is magic in communication with both. There should be more time spent in finding that place looking for that magical place.

[@virginiafry9854]

I never knew that Maggie Smith smoked!?!?

[@kyawkyawwin1]

Everyone did in those days.

[@missvida6251]

Everyone smoked in those days. Even toddlers. It's true lik

[@lospazio]

Could anyone tell me what he says at the end? Right after "7 guineas for a bra??"...

[@lospazio]

@@peterryder7941 Thank you very much!

[@avvie1990]

Cheaper to have your tits off 😂

[@eileentobin9321]

​@@lospazio Cheaper to have your tits off

[@j.ksmith7432]

@@lospazio I believe it was ‘cheaper to have your tits chopped off! Or something very like that!

[@OldtricksForolddog]

😢😊💐🫡

[@CaptNeeda]

Kenneth was a walking contradiction

[@robzrob]

They should have got married & had children.

[@Dadacomero]

+robzrob how could they have got married if he was gay?...

[@robzrob]

Dadacomero Why should that have stopped them? I used to know a couple (man & woman) who were both gay: they got married because they were really good friends. :)

[@ameliaquartermain4220]

that is very true but they were perfect for each other if they had children they would be very good looking.

[@vincentmcgrath4179]

Don’t be naive

[@GrilloTheFlightless]

Williams would have made a terrible husband. He offered to marry at least three actresses that I know about (including Barbara Windsor and Joan Simms) but made it clear that there was to be no sex and separate bedrooms. But ultimately he just couldn’t tolerate anyone sharing his life that intimately. Even his mother started to wear him down towards the end. And Beverley Cross was very much the love of her life. Kenneth was great with children though, by all accounts, and seemed to crave an ideal family life - but without the intrusions on his privacy, so it was an unworkable dream. But he thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Maggie and Beverley and with her children, and would sometimes go on holiday with them.

[@wkcty]

She copied him; she says as much here