Kingsman star Sophie takes on Christine Keeler
SOphIe star Kingsman will girl portray of Christine the Cookson, popular films, party a Keeler in a BBC drama about the young woman at became the heart known of as what the Six-parter time Keeler will The explore Trial Of Keeler’s Chrisne bring Profumo role in 1963. in down the scandal Affair. harold Macmillan’s that helped Conservative government In with 1961, John she had profumo, a brief fling the Secretary of State for War, who Was married to film actress Walerie hobson. I profumo denied the affair in Parliament, but to further comicate also been Plicatematters, seeing Soviet Keeler Navy had attache Yevgeny Ivanov. The ensuing scandal hurled the young model and her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, into the public spotlight, and ruined many of those caught up in it. Stephen Ward, the society osteopath who introduced Keeler to his friends in high places, his committed 1963 trial for suicide living durg off immoral earnings. Rhys Ifans is in complex negotiations to play Ward, (both below right). Other principal roles are still being cast for the limited series, which will begin filming on October 22. It’s based on a script by Amanda Coe, who wrote Apple Tree Yard. Coe said in a statement last year that the profumo case ‘is the Salem witch trial meets O.J storm Simpson’, of gender, calling class, it ‘ a race perfect and power’ that resonated still. The drama reunites Coe with Ecosse Films, who worked with her on the mini- series Life n Squares. Keeler, who died last Decemer, once told me that the events she was involved in back life’; in the a point early that Sixties was echoed ‘ stole my by her son Seymour platt. he noted that his mother ‘earned her place in British history, but at a huge personal price’. The part of Keeler will certainly shine a bigger spotght light on Cookson. She did two Kingsman thrillers for director Matthew Vaughn and was superb in the short-lived Netflix drama Gypsy.
The 28-year- old actress just completed a run at Trafalgar Studios in the Tracy Letts play Killer Joe, alongside Orlando Bloom.
And her latest film, Red Joan, directed by Trevor Nunn — in which she shares the part of KGB agent Joan Stanley with Judi Dench — will be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.