PEOPLE-RICE-DAVIES/FILE Mandy Rice-Davies, key figure in UK 1960s sex scandal, dies aged 70

Record ID: 860978

  • Title: PEOPLE-RICE-DAVIES/FILE Mandy Rice-Davies, key figure in UK 1960s sex scandal, dies aged 70
  • Date: 19th December 2014
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE - DECEMBER 20, 2013) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** MUSICAL COMPOSER SIR ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER ARRIVING WITH PROFUMO AFFAIR MODEL MANDY RICE-DAVIES STEPHEN WARD MUSICAL POSTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) MUSICAL COMPOSER, ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER AND PROFUMO AFFAIR MODEL, MANDY RICE-DAVIES, SAYING: Reporter: "How are you feeling right now?" Andrew Lloyd Webber: "Extremely nervous." Mandy Rice-Davies: "Me too." Andrew Lloyd Webber: "We're both nervous but we must get in." Mandy Rice-Davies: "Or else the curtain's not going to go up." LLOYD WEBBER AND RICE-DAVIES POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHS
  • Embargoed: 3rd January 2015 12:00
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  • Location: United Kingdom
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  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5SS7M9776365STJ27A1CZS1U4
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  • Story Text: EDITORS NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Mandy Rice-Davies, a former model who was at the centre of one of Britain's biggest political sex scandals - the 1960s Profumo Affair - has died aged 70 after a short battle with cancer, her publicist said on Friday (December 19).
    Rice-Davies lived with Christine Keeler, who had simultaneous affairs with Britain's then Minister of War John Profumo and a Soviet naval attaché, a potential Cold War security breach which rocked the then Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.
    The 1963 scandal, which led to Profumo's resignation and disgrace, attracted widespread public interest as lurid details of the ménage à trois emerged.
    It also produced one of British legal history's most memorable courtroom ripostes when Rice-Davies took the stand at the trial of Stephen Ward, the man who brought Keeler and Profumo together, who was being prosecuted for living off immoral earnings.
    Rice-Davies was told that another establishment figure, Lord Astor, had denied her claims that he had been having sex with her.
    "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?" she responded cheekily.
    Unlike Keeler, who faded into relative obscurity after the affair, Rice-Davies maintained a regular presence on London's social scene. She wrote her autobiography "Mandy" in 1989 and made several television appearances in later years.
    One of her last public appearances was when she attended the opening night of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on aspects of the scandal, Stephen Ward, in December 2013.
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