Notorious British gangster Reggie Kray, who with his twin brother Ronnie ruled London's East End underworld in the 1960s, has died after a long battle with cancer, friends said yesterday.
Kray (66), was freed from jail on compassionate grounds in August because of inoperable bladder cancer, after serving more than 30 years for the murder of Jack "the Hat" McVitie, a London gangland figure. He had been given just weeks to live.
Reggie was jailed in 1969 along with Ronnie, who died in Broadmoor prison in 1995.
The Kray twins spearheaded a lethal criminal racket by day and rubbed shoulders with celebrities by night.
Their elder brother Charlie died in jail in April, while serving a sentence for plotting to smuggle cocaine.
Former girlfriend and family friend, actress Barbara Windsor, remembered a polite, charming man, and criticised a court decision not to free him earlier. "I'm really sad. I wish he'd had a little bit more time out of prison," she told Sky television.
"Life is life. If you commit murder that's wrong, terribly wrong. But he got 30 years . . . he should have been let out then. was quite enough. I met [the Krays] through show business. They were charming, polite."
Others remembered him for his gangster prowess.
"That was the last big monarch of the underworld," said a family friend, Mr Dave Courtney. "That's what makes it history, like cowboys [and] knights in shining armour."
Kray had been due to make his first public appearance this week since leaving hospital.
However, his poor health kept him confined to the hotel in the eastern city of Norwich where he had been staying since his release.
He died in his sleep overnight just days before the chronicle of his three decades in prison was due in bookshops next week.
He died without being able to fulfil his dying wish - a countryside stroll with his wife, Roberta (41).
The publisher of A Way of Life said earlier this week that Kray had expressed "a certain amount of repentance" after his 32 years behind bars.
In an excerpt from the book published by a British tabloid Kray reveals that deep despair in the 1980s drove him to try to commit suicide by hacking at his arms with the blades of a disposable razor and glass broken from his spectacles.
The one-time terror of gangland London also warned would-be toughs to stay on the straight and narrow.
"Young kids should remember that prison is not a glamorous place," Kray said. "Take a tip from me and look for a career other than crime. Do not follow in my footsteps."
He is likely to be given a huge send-off by London's criminal underworld with Kray's lawyer, Mr Mark Goldstein, predicting "a very large funeral and a very large turnout".
An estimated 50,000 people lined the 12-mile route between St. Matthew's Church and Chingford Cemetery to bid farewell to Ronnie, whose coffin was carried on a horse-drawn hearse and followed by a 30-car cortege.