[3][4] Francis Davidson Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London,[5][6][7][8] the youngest of five children of a partly Native American seaman and an Irish-Norwegian washerwoman.

It was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime, with the blackout and rationing, combined with the lack of professional policemen due to conscription, providing ample opportunities for criminal activities such as stealing from houses while the occupants were in air-raid shelters.

Although he was conscripted, Fraser later boasted that he had never once worn the uniform, preferring to ignore call-up papers, desert, and resume his criminal activities.

After being sent to HM Prison Durham for taking part in bank robberies, he was again certified insane and this time was sent to Broadmoor Hospital.

The following year, the British mobster Jack Spot and wife Rita were attacked, on Hill's say-so, by Fraser, Bobby Warren and at least half a dozen other men.

[22] In 1999, he appeared at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London in a one-man show, An Evening with Mad Frankie Fraser (directed by Patrick Newley), which subsequently toured the UK.

Fraser also appeared as East End crime boss Pops Den in the feature film Hard Men, a forerunner of British gangster movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and had a documentary made of his life, Mad Frank.

[23] Fraser gave gangland tours around London, where he highlighted infamous criminal locations such as The Blind Beggar pub.

[24] In 1991, Fraser was shot in the head from close range in an apparent murder attempt outside the Turnmills Club in Clerkenwell, London.

[27] On 21 November 2014, he fell critically ill during leg surgery at King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill[28] and was placed into an induced coma.