12 Friday Jun 2020
Posted in Art and Photography, Marilyn Monroe, Profumo Affair
≈ Comments Off on Sal Jones Gives Christine (and Marilyn) the Last Laugh
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A Smile is a Smile, Background Bob, Christine Keeler, Cliveden, Nahum Baron, Noah Jones, Profumo Affair, Sal Jones, The Last Laugh, Thursday Club
London-based artist Sal Jones, whose paintings were featured in the recent exhibition, Dear Christine: A Tribute to Christine Keeler, has painted another portrait, ‘The Last Laugh,’ based on a candid photo taken by the pool at Cliveden during that fateful summer of 1961. Continue reading
23 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in History, Politics, Profumo Affair, Television
≈ Comments Off on ‘Keeler, Profumo, Ward and Me’
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Andrew Lloyd-Webber, BBC, Caroline Kennedy, Christine Keeler, Cliveden, Ernest Marples, Eugene Ivanov, Geoffrey Robertson, George Wigg, Harold Macmillan, John Profumo, Keeler Profumo Ward and Me, Lord Astor, Lord Denning, Lord Hailsham, Mandy Rice-Davies, Natalie Livingstone, Profumo Affair, Stephen Pound, Stephen Ward, Thomas Critchley, Tom Mangold
“The story that defined a decade of great change in Great Britain was my big break in Fleet Street, and I covered and loved every moment of it, from the ridiculous to the tragic …”
Tom Mangold, described in The Times as ‘the doyen of broadcast reporters’, began his career as an investigative journalist on Fleet Street before moving into television as a foreign correspondent, and has since made over 100 documentaries, including many for the BBC’s Panorama. But like many others drawn into the Profumo Affair, Mangold has never quite moved on from the 1963 scandal which still leaves more questions than answers.
Keeler, Profumo, Ward & Me is the third documentary on the subject in which Mangold has played a prominent role within the last decade: BBC Radio Four’s Profumo Confidential, which he presented, and ITV’s Sex, Lies and a Very British Scapegoat both aired in 2013, fifty years after the event. And as BBC1’s six-part drama, The Trial of Christine Keeler, sets the rumour mill in motion again, its final episode was followed immediately by Mangold’s latest account on BBC2. Continue reading
30 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Art and Photography, Profumo Affair, Updates, Wicked Baby
≈ Comments Off on ‘Aren’t You the Baker’s Daughter?’
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Christine Keeler, Cliveden, Miss X, National Portrait Gallery, Profumo Affair, Richard Davenport-Hines, Scandal 63, Stephen Ward, Wicked Baby
Driving out of London, the clubs that stank of beer and sweat. London in July was hot and heavy as a rush-hour ride on the tube. They swept past the airport, on the road to Maidenhead. Christine’s hairdo tangled in the breeze.
“A party in the country is just the ticket, little baby.”
Stephen pulled over at a bus stop where a young girl waited.
“Aren’t you the baker’s daughter? Hop in. We’re off to Cliveden, don’t you know. We’ll sneak you in for a sherry, if you promise to behave yourself.”
This pastel sketch – by Stephen Ward – is of the unidentified girl who attended the infamous 1961 party at Cliveden, where Christine Keeler first met John Profumo. It was found on the reverse of Ward’s portrait of Keeler, which can be seen on the cover of my 2004 novella, Wicked Baby (soon to be reissued via Kindle.)
This discovery was made by the curators at London’s National Portrait Gallery, while preparing their new display, Scandal ’63, which I hope to review. Writing for the Telegraph, Richard Davenport-Hines – author of An English Affair – suggests the model could be none other than ‘Miss X‘, later a witness in Ward’s ill-fated trial.
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