Wow, this lady and her sidekick, Mandy Rice-Davies, were a pretty hot item back in the 60s. Keeler had an affair with John Profumo (among many others), who was a rising star in the Conservative government, and on a fast track to be Prime Minister. It was a huge scandal in Britain and was all over the papers in the US as well.
Looking at the linked article, I didn’t realize until then that Profumo’s wife was Valerie Hobson – she played Elizabeth (the literal “Bride of Frankenstein”) in the 1935 Universal movie Bride of Frankenstein (replacing Mae Clarke, who played the role in the 1931 Frankenstein). She also appeared in Werewolf of London and much later was in Kind Hearts and Coronets and Great Expectations. An interesting career.
Apparently Profumo became a volunteer janitor at an East End charity after the scandal and kept at that work until his death forty years later.
He and his wife Valerie devoted themselves to the charity for the rest of their lives, becoming the chief fundraisers. Profumo was awarded the CBE in 1975 for his charitable work, so he was forgiven I suppose.
Is she the one from that iconic image of a naked woman sitting on a backward chair?
The very same.
The scandal was regarded with some amusement in France and was widely misunderstood. One newspaper reported ‘British Minister resigns for having a mistress. French Minister resigns for not having one’. The French imagined it was the prudish character of the Anglo-Saxons that was at issue here. In fact, Profumo resigned because he lied to Parliament. The importance of honour and integrity in public office was presumably another concept that puzzled the French.
Keeler was very young and really did not know how to handle the commotion of the scandal and the court case caused. It was the early days of the contraceptive Pill and the UK there was a something of a moral panic.
The scandal had everything: glamour, sex, criminals, class, Russian spies, politics and race. Just as the UK had started to party again as its economy began to recover from the damage of WW2. The real loser was Stephen Ward, the guy who introduced pretty showgirls to powerful men. He was condemned by the judge, ruined and driven to suicide on the basis of some very questionable evidence from Keeler and Rice-Davis. There were some troubled consciences.
Okay, sex, glamour, politics, espionage, check, check, check, check. But how was race involved?
Two of Keeler’s lovers after Profumo, Aloysius Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe, were black, which would have been scandalous in itself at the time. When she broke up with Edgecombe, he fired shots at Stephen Ward’s house where she was staying, which brought the whole thing to public attention.
Those were the days! Scandals had a certain style back then.
What are we stuck with? Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. :rolleyes:
When I read that she had died, I was stunned to find out she was only six years older than me. I remember the scandal well, but when the news referred to her as a call girl, I assumed she was well into her late 20s or early 30s. For a 19-year old, she really got around.
May she rest in peace.
She once admitted that she had had sex for money, but wasn’t proud of it and only did it because she was desperate. She then stated that it was sex she’d engaged in for love or lust that caused her the most problems in life. Gorgeous girl at the time, and my 14-year-old self was quite smitten. I’m sorry she didn’t have a better or happier life.
One of the thousands of jokes at the time concerned a gun;the Chris-Keeler.45. When fired, it sounded like SLUT! SLUT! SLUT!