DAVID Blakely was the partner of nightclub owner Ruth Ellis, who murdered him on Easter Sunday 1955.
The ITV series A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story will dramatise the events that led Ruth to kill her partner and it kicks off in March 2025.
Born racer
Blakely was born in Ecclesall, Sheffield, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father.
He was raised by his mother, after his parents divorced, and his stepfather Humphrey Wyndham Cook.
Educated at Shrewsbruy, Blakely showed a remarkable intelligence from a young age and became interested in motor racing.
In his HRG racing car, he won second place at Brands Hatch on Boxing Day 1954.
From 1951-1953, he came 1st, 3rd, 4th and 6th at Silverstone and Goodwood.
However, Blakely’s career was cut short after a brief relationship with the soon-to-be murderer Ruth Ellis.
Killed by his girlfriend
Ruth was a nightclub manager, who worked in West London after moving the capital from Berkshire.
She had survived a tough upbringing, where she had been abused by her dad which forced her to leave home at a young age.
Ruth gave birth to a baby at the age of 18 and worked as an escort, before becoming a nightclub manager.
During this time, she made numerous celebrity friends.
Blakely started dating Ruth in 1953, but their relationship quickly became violent.
The racecar driver was physically abusive to his new girlfriend and even caused her to have a miscarriage in 1955, after a particularly harrowing incident.
On Easter Sunday that same year, Ruth took a taxi to find Blakely while armed with a revolver.
Upon seeing the racer, she jumped out of the taxi and fired six shots at him.
After killing her ex-partner, Ruth asked Blakely’s friend a simple question: “Will you call the police, Clive?”
Ruth in court
In court at the Old Bailey, Ruth wore a fitted black suit and sported freshly dyed platinum hair.
When asked if she meant to kill Blakely, she said: “It’s obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him.”
Ruth was convicted of murder within twenty minutes of the jury deliberating and was later executed on July 12, 1955.
In the days leading up to her hanging, Ruth wrote to Blakely’s parents and said that she will “die still loving” their son.
Her death was extremely controversial and kickstarted a national conversation which led to the abolition of capital punishment.
A Cruel Love
Blakely’s murder will be dramatised in the ITV series A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis story.
Ruth will be played by Lucy Boynton who will star opposite Laurie Davidson as Blakely.
Joe Armstrong will play DCI Davies, the man who caught Ruth.
True crime fans can catch the thrilling series when it kicks off on March 5, 2025.
The show will begin at 10pm on ITV1.
