Good-time girl who toppled Tory Govt
the back of a chair is among the most famous British images of the 1960s. She spent the rest of her life trying to escape her unwanted notoriety.
Born in 1942, Keeler left school at 15 and soon after started working as a showgirl on Greek St in the heart of London's Soho district, known at the time for its strip clubs and sleazy entertainment.
Keeler met men like Profumo after befriending a high-society osteopath, Dr Stephen Ward, who introduced her to a number of powerful figures.
Profumo first set eyes on Keeler when she emerged naked from Lord Astor’s swimming pool, her costume having been snatched off her by Ward. Although he was then accompanied by his wife, the actress Valerie Hobson, Profumo was obviously fascinated by the 19-year-old Keeler and before he left asked Ward for her telephone number.
That Sunday, though, Keeler went home with Soviet naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov, with whom she was being encouraged by Ward to have an affair. According to some theories, Ward was a minor gofer for MI5, supplying girls for intelligence operations, and saw the liaison as a way of discovering information about Ivanov’s activities.
Ward eventually killed himself, taking an overdose of sleeping pills the night before he was convicted of some but not all charges related to immoral earnings. He died after the conviction without regaining consciousness.
Keeler was imprisoned for nine months after admitting perjury and conspiring to obstruct justice.
Life after the Profumo scandal was not kind to Keeler. After she came out of prison she married twice, but both marriages were disastrous. Her first marriage, in 1965, to James Levermore, a builder, lasted 12 weeks.
Her second, in 1971, to Anthony Platt, the director of a metal company, ended after 18 months when Platt fled abroad as his business crumbled, leaving her penniless.
She had sons by both marriages. Her eldest was brought up by Keeler’s mother and as the two women were not on speaking terms, she lost touch with him. Her younger son she brought up herself, first in a caravan park in Wokingham, Berkshire, before moving back to London and he seems to have been the one bright spot in her life.
Keeler’s first two ghosted autobiographies, written in 1968 and 1983, did not, by her account, yield much in the way of ready cash and by the late 1980s she had been reduced to living on welfare in a rundown 11th-floor council flat at World’s End, Chelsea.
Careworn and nervous, she had lost all interest in her looks and, seemingly, in life, her main occupations being chain smoking, watching television and complaining to the social services.
Keeler expressed regret in a 1986 interview.
“I was just a 19-year-old girl having a good time. I loved every minute of it. But if I had known then what was going to happen, I'd have run off and not stopped until I had reached my mum,” she said.
In a memoir The Truth at Last: My Story written with journalist Douglas Thompson, Keeler said: “My life has been cursed by sex I didn't particularly want.”