Barrie Keeffe, the scriptwriter and playwright best known for writing the landmark British gangster film The Long Good Friday, has died aged 74. His agent Stephen Durbridge announced the news, saying Keeffe had died in London after a short illness.

Born in 1945, Keeffe grew up in east London, attending East Ham grammar school and then working as a reporter for the local newspaper, the Stratford Express. According to former Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade, Keeffe’s interest in activism and politics led him towards plays and scriptwriting: “He loved the paper and his colleagues, but he was frustrated by the fact it constricted his chance to tell the stories he thought it important to tell.”

Keeffe left the paper in 1975, but The Long Good Friday was directly inspired by his experiences there. He later told the Guardian: “I met a lot of gangsters, including the Krays. The grand plans of Harold Shand [the London gangster played by Bob Hoskins] were inspired by them. I was living in Greenwich when I wrote the script. I could see the Docklands from my flat and all the building expansion that was taking place. Then one night I met an Irish republican guy in a pub and after talking to him an idea formed in my mind. My pitch was terrorism meets gangsterism.”

Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren in The Long Good Friday. Photograph: Allstar/Handmade Films

Originally called The Paddy Factor, after the police term for terrorist involvement, Keeffe’s script eventually found its way to Black Lion, a subsidiary of Lew Grade’s ITC, which financed the £900,000 budget. Keeffe also said its notorious crucifixion scene was based directly on something that had happened to an acquaintance after he had crossed the Krays.

Keeffe also had a distinguished career as a dramatist. Barbarians, written in 1977, was an account of three Manchester United-supporting football hooligans, and was revived to considerable acclaim in 2012 and 2015. Sus, written in 1979, took aim at the then controversial practice of police stopping “suspected persons”, which, it was commonly accepted at the time, was used to harass the black community. The play was made into a film starring Rafe Spall in 2010. In 1981, Keeffe co-wrote Chorus Girls with Ray Davies of the Kinks, a musical about a kidnap of Prince Charles.