biography
The Black Widow – Linda Calvey was Britain’s most notorious gangster bride
The left photo shows Linda Calvey in her prime. She liked to send it to her fans as a postcard. Drawn with “The Black Widow” and a heart.
©Mirror Books/Linda Calvey/PR
Linda Calvey had her husbands address her as “Lady Boss” and pulled off 30 robberies with her gang. She uses her erotic attractiveness to lure men into her web. Her great love, the gangster Ronnie Cook, she killed with a shot in the head.
Linda Calvey was behind bars for 18 years. For 30 years she was a mainstay of London’s underworld. As a young woman, she met the infamous Kray twins. She was later called the Black Widow. The most dangerous men fell for her, it all ended badly for everyone. The lucky ones ended up in prison. The others died in a hail of bullets and her great love is said to have executed her herself. Her biography is now being published – in proper style, the book is presented in the pub where gangster king Ronnie Kray shot gangster George Cornell in 1966.
Linda Calvey was introduced to the East End’s criminal milieu as a young girl. In the late 1960s, at the age of 19, she fell in love with bank robber Mickey Calvey. A career criminal who bled to death in a shootout with police in 1978. “I married a bank robber when I was 22 because I fell in love with him,” she says today. “I knew Mickey Calvey was a gangster when I met him at his party after he got out of prison. I went into that world with my eyes wide open.”
She began her career as a getaway driver, but quickly rose to become a gunman. It was only after Mickey Calvey’s death that her own criminal career really took off. Calvey swore on his coffin that she would take care of the family. She said: “My love for him drove me crazy. On the outside I was me, on the inside I was a demon.”
Linda Calvey: “I was a seductress”
She separated from her children and became a leading figure in the underworld. In total, she is said to have stolen more than a million pounds in 30 robberies. Police have referred to their boys as the “Black Widow gang”. She herself is said to have insisted on being addressed as “Lady Boss” and led a wild life – in nightclubs, with closets full of furs and with men. Her name “Black Widow” alludes to her violent nature and erotic attraction. She proudly says: “I was a seductress. I lured men into my net. And I always knew which one I was getting.”
As the queen of London’s underworld, she met gangster Ronnie Cook, whom she is said to have later murdered. When Cook was imprisoned in 1981, Calvey had his name tattooed. He was sentenced to 16 years for his part in a robbery that netted the gang a whopping £26million.
While in prison herself, she had contact with some of the kingdom’s most notorious criminals. She did it with Myra Hindley and ten-time serial killer Rose West. Until her death, Myra Hindley was the most hated woman in the kingdom for her involvement in horrific child murders, and Calvey cut her hair in the cell. “Myra was very picky about her hair as it was the only control she had left. She sent me Christmas cards and called her mum to say she had a lovely friend.” Calvey doesn’t call Myra Hindley girlfriend, she believes Hindley was twisted and insane to the end.
Read about the Moor killer: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children – the British hated them more than Hitler for it
Even the notoriously violent Reggie Kray – who ruled London’s underworld with his brother – is said to have coveted her and proposed to her while she was incarcerated. She knew Reggie Kray from the clubs of the 1960s, they wrote letters to each other in prison. He told her to be strong. “He asked me on the phone to marry him. I said it’s not good for either of us.” She feared she would never be fired if she became the wife of the most famous gangster of the 1960s. Described by others as unpredictable and violent, Black Widow says of him, “He was a romantic soul and spoke very softly.”
The talented Gibbons twins were also in the prison. Read about this: To the death – the mad love of the dumb Gibbons twins
execution on the knees
Linda Calvey still believes she will be acquitted of Ronnie Cook’s murder. Your hopes now rest on DNA tests. Maybe a retired officer would read her biography and admit she was framed for the murder, Calvey said. In her account, Cook was killed while on leave from prison by a hitman who broke into her home. “There was a loud bang when the street door was forced open,” she recalls. “Ron was shot in the arm. The man pulled his mask off. He fired a second shot which killed Ron, then ran away leaving me in my kitchen with Ron dead on the floor.”
The police have a different explanation. While Cook was in prison, the Black Widow had a passionate affair with gangster Brian Thorogood. But his wife hired a private detective and knew. Calvey was now afraid that Cook would find out about their affair. That’s the police theory. So Calvey is said to have hired the killer. She bought Cook a few days’ leave to lure him into her home. The killer is said to have been waiting for the couple there. But he missed Cook and only hit him in the arm. Then Calvey grabbed the gun himself, Cook had to kneel in the kitchen and was shot by his lover – the Black Widow.
Source: Mirror Books
Also read:
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children – the British hated them more than Hitler for it
Christine Keeler – the most beautiful woman in London, who ended up as the “whore of the nation”.
Beautiful, paranoid and infinitely cruel – Griselda Blanco was the queen of cocaine
The countess loved an oligarch – because of his debts she is now losing her house and furniture