Editing John Osborne (section)

==== Penelope Gilliatt (1963–68) ====
Osborne met his third wife, writer [[Penelope Gilliatt]], initially through social connections, and then through an interview she conducted with him:<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=175-77}}.</ref>
{{quote|It was not so much chastity that troubled me, but the withdrawal of feminine intimacy. And now, here I was, giving a routine interview to a young, animated woman, seemingly very informed and quick to laugh… I was already engaged in the prospect of mild and easy flirtation. I hadn't marked Penelope down in any appraising way as a future sportive fancy, but I had always been addicted to flirtation as a game worth playing for itself.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=177}}.</ref>}}
One great attraction Penelope held for Osborne was her red hair: "Penelope was a redhead, as was Pamela... I took red hair to be the mantle of goddesses".<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=177}}.</ref> Despite her being married and Osborne knowing her husband, Gilliatt set out to seduce Osborne and succeeded in doing so. "Penelope's behaviour and my own during the weeks that followed were probably grotesquely indefensible", he wrote.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=179-80}}.</ref>

Osborne and Gilliatt were together for seven years, five of which they spent married, and became the parents of his only biological child, Nolan.<ref>The name was chosen in honour of [[Captain Nolan]], who led the famous [[Charge of the Light Brigade]] in the [[Crimean War]]. At the time of her birth, Osborne was researching that war and writing the screenplay of the film his next wife would star in ({{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=255-9}}).</ref> Osborne had an abusive relationship with his daughter and cast her out of his house when she was 17; they never spoke again.<ref>{{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|pp=421–2}}</ref> Osborne and Gilliatt's marriage suffered through what Osborne perceived to be an unnecessary obsession on her part with her work, writing film reviews for ''[[The Observer]]''. "I tried to point out that it seemed an inordinate amount of time and effort to expend on a thousand-word review to be read by a few thousand film addicts and forgotten almost at once."<ref>{{registration required|date=March 2023}} {{cite news|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/01/the_uneasy_partnership_of_pauline_kael_and_penelope_gilliatt.html|title=The Other Film Critic at the New Yorker|first=Sarah|last=Weinman|author-link=Sarah Weinman|date=January 13, 2012|newspaper=Slate|access-date=March 15, 2023}}</ref> Osborne wanted Gilliatt to give up her multiple careers and move with him to a country house where she would tend his needs. Osborne had put a refrigerator in the couple's bedroom and filled it with champagne to alleviate his night terrors. Both began to have struggles with alcoholism.

He treated with contempt what he saw as Gilliatt's growing pretentiousness. "She was to become increasingly obsessed with fripperies and titles … She took to calling herself 'Professor Gilliatt'."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|p=240}}.</ref> Strains in the marriage led to Osborne conducting numerous affairs behind her back, including one with his future wife, [[Jill Bennett (British actress)|Jill Bennett]].