Ronnie and Reggie Kray had a bond that could never be broken - but would ultimately lead to their downfall.
The identical twins brothers, who were born in the East End of London in 1933, loved Hollywood gangster movies and desired to be both feared and famous.
In the words of Ronnie: "In the 60s, the Beatles and the Stones ruled the music world; Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world and me and Reg ruled London. We were f***ing untouchable."
A new ITV documentary airing tonight, Secrets of the Krays, follows the rise, reign and fall of Britain's most notorious gangsters with never-before-seen evidence and candid interviews from friends, former gangsters and relatives.
The Kray twins committed murder, armed robbery, arson and ran protection rackets while mixing with big name celebs such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Barbara Windsor.
They became underworld icons and ruled London's East End for almost two decades - until they were finally banged up for their crimes.
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When Ronnie shot dead a member of a rival gang, it sparked a chain of events that would eventually lead to the twins' imprisonment.
The Kray syndicate's toughest rivals were the Richardsons, who were considered the most sadistic mob in London, with a penchant for pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes with bolt cutters and even nailing their victims to the floor.
In March 1966, Ronnie walked straight up to gang member George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel and shot him publicly in the head.
The following year, the pair lured a minor member of the Kray gang, Jack 'the Hat' McVitie, to a basement flat in Stoke Newington on the pretence of a party.
They rowed over McVitie's failure to fulfil a £1,500 contract paid to him in advance to kill a rival, then Reggie pointed a handgun at his head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge.
Instead, the twins' cousin held McVitie in a bearhug and Reggie stabbed him to death with a carving knife – pulling out his liver, which later had to be flushed down the toilet.
Detective Chief Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read of Scotland Yard frequently came up against the East End "wall of silence" which discouraged anyone from providing information to the police when he first went after the Krays.
By the end of 1967, Read had built up enough evidence against the Krays with incriminating witness statements and evidence, but none made a convincing case on any one charge.
However, Scotland Yard eventually decided to arrest the pair and 15 other members of the Firm in May 1968 in the hope that other witnesses would be forthcoming once the Krays were in custody.
While in prison they came up with a plan for members of their gang to confess to the murders, but some refused to be cajoled into pleading guilty and a barmaid at the pub testified to seeing Ronnie kill Cornell.
In March 1969, the Krays were sentenced to life imprisonment over the two murders, with a non-parole period of 30 years - the longest sentences ever passed at the Old Bailey for murder.
The brothers were kept apart in prison, with Reggie first sent to HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight and Ronnie locked up at HMP Durham.
Under a large police guard, they were both allowed to attend the funeral service of their mother Violet in August 1982 following her death from cancer a week earlier.
Ronnie, who was a Category A prisoner, was denied almost all liberties and spent spells in solitary confinement for fighting with guards.
He is said to have struck up a sick friendship with Ian Brady, the notorious Moors murderer who killed five children with Myra Hindley in the 1960s.
In a letter to a penpal, Brady wrote: "Ronnie Kray and I did the cooking at Durham A Level Security Wing, in the 1960s after three riots there."
The convicts' bond appeared even more twisted after it emerged the Krays had also befriended Ann Downey, whose daughter Lesley Ann, 10, was abducted, raped, tortured and killed by Brady and Hindley.
Discovering a stash of letters after Ann's death, son Terry said: "They are not the kind of letters you would expect from criminals like the Krays.
"Everyone knows how vicious the Krays could be. Maybe mum was trying to find out more about Brady in prison."
There was also a troubling confession made behind bars, according to a prison pal and lover of Reggie.
Bradley Allardyce, who spent three years in Maidstone prison four cells along from Reggie, said the gangster revealed to him the crime that haunted him the most.
An inquest into the death of Reggie's first wife, Frances Shea, found that she took her own life in 1967 at the age of 23.
However, Allardyce claimed Reggie revealed that his brother Ronnie was responsible for her death.
In January 2002, he told told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "He suddenly broke down and said 'I'm going to tell you something I've only ever told two people and something I've carried around with me' - something that had been a black hole since the day he found out.
"He put his head on my shoulder and told me Ron killed Frances. He told Reg what he had done two days after."
All those involved are now dead.
Over the decades, the brothers' time in jail proved nearly as eventful as their life on the outside.
Prison officials discovered a business card of Ronnie's that led to evidence that the twins, from separate institutions, were operating Krayleigh Enterprises.
The "lucrative bodyguard and 'protection' business for Hollywood stars" had clients such as singer Frank Sinatra, who hired 18 bodyguards on his visit to Wimbledon in 1985.
Perhaps most bizarrely of all, though, was Reggie's apparent friendship with EastEnders actor Shane Richie.
Shane visited Reggie in jail during the 1990s and wrote in his memoir that he once told the gangster about an agent who had failed to hand over an £8,000 fee.
He said: "I gave him the guy’s name but thought no more of it. I don’t know exactly to this day what happened but word has it Reggie made a call, the agent told him where to go, and, low and behold, his office was burnt down.
Shane added: "Was is it a coincidence? I don’t think so."
The brothers didn't let prison get in the way of their love lives.
Ronnie, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was certified insane and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.
He got married twice, marrying Elaine Mildener in 1985 at Broadmoor chapel before the couple divorced in 1989.
That year he tied the knot with former topless kissogram girl Kate Howard in a ceremony at Broadmoor, but they got divorced in 1994.
Ronnie died on 17 March 1995 at the age of 61 at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire, having suffered a heart attack at Broadmoor Hospital two days earlier.
Reggie, who claimed to have become a born-again Christian, was allowed out of prison in handcuffs to attend his twin brother's funeral.
While Reg was in prison, he married Roberta Jones, who was helping to publicise a film she was making about Ronnie two years after his death.
Following his terminal bladder cancer diagnosis, Reggie was freed from prison on compassionate grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw in August 2000.
He spent his final few months with wife Roberta before dying in his sleep at the age of 66 on 1 October 2000.
The twins' celebrity status was cemented at the funeral of Reggie, as among the wreaths from mourners were displays from famous admirers including The Who singer Roger Daltry and pop star Morrissey.
There was also a wreath believed to be from the American Mafia - next to a photo of Manhattan was the message: "In deep respect, from your friends in New York."
The thugs had a string of A-list stars in their contact book, many of whom were business associates as well as pals.
Their cousin, Kim Peat, visited the twins in jails like Broadmoor, where Ronnie’s butler served visitors tea from a silver pot.
Admitting she became acutely aware of her relatives’ infamy at their funerals, she said: "I'd never seen anything like it. At Ronnie’s in 1995, the streets were lined and kids climbed lampposts to get a better look."
Secrets of the Krays, which was first released on BritBox last year, follows the Kray twins' rise to fame with exclusive interviews with friends and relatives.
There is also rarely seen archive footage and items including Reg Kray’s personal scrapbook, charting their crimes and court appearances as if they were prized possessions.
The first episode, which airs tonight on ITV at 9pm, follows their path through protection rackets, thuggery and violence to their arrival as national figures following their move into the West End in 1964.
There are interview with world-famous photographer David Bailey; Krays family friend Maureen Flanagan; Kim Peat - the twins’ neighbour and cousin; former gangster Chris Lambrianou, who was sentenced to 15 years alongside the Krays; 89-year old Nemone Lethbridge, who was the Krays’ barrister and Fred Dinenage, who co-wrote the twins autobiography.
It tracks their first tentative steps into the world of crime and their emergence as protection racketeers in the mid-50s, as well as the remarkable story of Ronnie's imprisonment in 1956.
He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic while in confinement in a mental hospital - but extraordinarily escaped after he and Reg exploited their identical appearance to deceive hospital staff.
The documentary also follows their move into a world of power, scandal and influence as they met leading political figures of the time.
*Secrets of the Krays starts tonight on ITV at 9pm
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