Christine Keeler

Christine Keeler (born February 22, 1942) is a former English model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair.

Biography

Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was raised by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury. At age 15, she found work as a model at a dress shop in London's Soho quarter. At 17, she gave birth to a son after an affair with 'Jim', an African-American sergeant from Laleham Air Force base. She discovered she was pregnant only after he had returned to the United States, and she tried to abort the baby herself with a knitting needle, but failed. The child was born prematurely on April 17, 1959, and survived just six days.

That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London. She initially worked as a waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street and there met Maureen O’Connor, a girl who worked at Murray’s Cabaret Club in Soho. She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl. While at Murray's she met Dr. Stephen Ward. Soon the two were living together with the outward appearance of being a couple, but, according to her, it was a platonic "brother and sister"-type relationship.

The Profumo Affair

Main article: Profumo Affair

In July of 1961, Ward introduced her to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Profumo entered into an affair with Keeler, not realising that she was also sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the embassy of the Soviet Union.

The affair was terminated by the government’s Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, who spoke to Profumo on the advice of Sir Roger Hollis, the head of MI5. On 9 August 1961, Profumo wrote to Keeler advising her he could no longer see her.

In the 1989 film about the Profumo Affair entitled Scandal, actress Joanne Whalley portrayed Keeler.

Relation with Gordon and Edgecombe

Among Keeler's collection of lovers were two West Indians - Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe. Gordon, with a previous criminal record, was infatuated with Keeler, who would later allege that he had assaulted her in the street and held her captive for two days. She filed charges but was persuaded to drop them by Gordon's brother.

Keeler eventually rejected Gordon's advances and bought a revolver to protect herself from him. Edgecombe was enlisted to act as her minder. On 27 October 1962, Edgecombe and Gordon were involved in a fracas at a Soho club, resulting in Edgecombe slicing Gordon’s face with a knife, a wound that required seventeen stitches. Following the fight, Edgecombe went into hiding from the police and Keeler changed her address to hide from Gordon. Edgecombe contacted Keeler to request her help in finding a solicitor before the police found him but Keeler refused to help and told him that she intended to testify against him in court.

In the early afternoon of 14 December 1962, Edgecombe arrived at Ward’s Wimple Mews flat, where Keeler had been visiting her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, who was living with Ward. Keeler refused to let him in, so Edgecombe shot at the door with the revolver that had belonged to her. The alarm was raised and Wimpole Mews was soon swarming with police and journalists. Edgecombe escaped in a taxi and was arrested later at his Brentford flat.

Keeler was imprisoned for nine months for perjury in a related trial involving 'Lucky' Gordon. Meanwhile Stephen Ward was charged with living on the earnings of prostitution, including earnings from Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. Ward took an overdose of drugs on the last day of his trial and did not recover consciousness to hear the verdicts. He was found guilty of living off immoral earnings, but cleared of procurement. He later died of the overdose.

The portrait

Lewis Morley's portrait was one of the most iconic of the 1960s

At the height of the Profumo Affair in 1963, Keeler sat for a portrait which became famous. The photoshoot with Lewis Morley was to promote a film, The Keeler Affair, that was never distributed. Keeler had previously signed a contract which required her to pose nude for publicity photos and was reluctant to continue, but the film producers insisted, so Morley persuaded Keeler to sit astride a plywood chair such that whilst technically she would be nude, the back of the chair would obscure most of her body.

At the time, Morley and Keeler were already famous, but the photo propelled the Arne Jacobsen model 3107 chair to stardom. However, the actual chair used was an imitation, with a hand-hold aperture cut out of the back to avoid making it an exact and infringing copy.

Recent appearances

In 2001, already the author of several books on the affair, Keeler worked with editor Douglas Thompson to write her autobiography titled The Truth at Last: My Story.

She is also the subject of songs by Phil Ochs & the Glaxo Babies entitled Christine Keeler, her name appears in the Porcupine Tree song Piano Lessons, in "Street Songs" by Hamish Imlach and in "Post World War II Blues" by Al Stewart.

Keeler appears alongside fellow scandal-beauty Mandy Smith in the promotion video for Bryan Ferry's 1987 hit single "Kiss and Tell".

Publications

• Keeler by Paul Nicholas, Alex Holt, Gill Adams (Stage Production) 2007
• Sex Scandals by Christine Keeler and Robert Meadley, Xanadu Publications 1985 (ISBN 0-947761-03-9)
• Scandal by Christine Keeler, Xanadu Publications 1989 (Basis of the movie of the same name.)(ISBN 0-947761-75-6)
• The Businessperson's Guide to Intelligent Social Drinking by Richard Basini and Christine Keeler, Congdon & Weed 1989 (ISBN 0-312-92070-9)
• The Naked Spy by Christine Keeler, Ivanov Yevgeny and Sokolov Gennady, Blake Publishing 1992 (ISBN 1-85782-092-4)
• The Truth At Last: My Story by Christine Keeler with Douglas Thompson, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 2001 (ISBN 0-283-07291-1)
• Wicked Baby by Tara Hanks, PADB, 2004 (ISBN 1-904929-45-1)

References

• Morley's recollection of the Keeler photoshoot from the Victoria and Albert Museum.
• The Skatalites released an instrumental single called "Christine Keeler" in 1965. It was based on the Mel Tormé hit "Comin' Home Baby."