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The EastEnders and The Bill actor who was given £400 by the notorious Kray twins to 'go to acting school'

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Vincent
Published date18 June 2021
When Billy, who went on to play Don Beech on The Bill and Johnny Allen on EastEnders, was growing up in East London, he boxed for West Ham Boxing Club, then owned by the notorious Kray twins.

Due to this efforts in the ring, Reggie and Ronnie Kray gave Billy £400 to go to East 15 Acting School, allegedly because they 'liked his attitude'.

READ MORE: EastEnders' Billy Murray thinks Hollywood legends Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would struggle to make it on the soap

Billy told the Radio Times: “When I went to pay the money back they said ‘Don’t worry about it. But I’ve been paying it back ever since, all these years later I’m still mentioning their names and what they did for me!”

The Kray twins' gang was involved in extensive criminal activity throughout the 1950s and 60s until the pair were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Billy, now 79, has had a successful acting career spanning many decades.

He played Don Beech, a good cop turned bad, on The Bill from 1995 to 2004, and Johnny Allen on EastEnders between 2005 and 2006.

Johnny was the main villain on the soap for a while, terrorising characters including the Mitchells, Pauline Fowler, and Jake Moon, and received the award for 'Best Villain' in...

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