Lady Astor dies aged 87, half a century after Profumo

LADY Astor, whose glittering highsociety life was ruined by the Profumo affair, has died aged 87.

Her passing comes just a few weeks after the death of Christine Keeler, who had been swimming naked in the pool at the Astor family’s stately home, Cliveden, when she met Minister of War John Profumo.

After the affair between Keeler and Profumo became public knowledge in 1963, along with her simultaneous affair with a Soviet military attache, the minister had to resign, and the Conservative Government was left in crisis.

In the associated trial at the Old Bailey, Lady Astor’s husband Viscount ‘Bill’ Astor became a national object of ridicule over his alleged one-night stand with Keeler’s friend Mandy Rice-Davies.

Told that Viscount Astor denied the affair, Rice-Davies famously replied: ‘He would, wouldn’t he?’

Lady Astor’s social world was left in ruins. Her husband died in 1966 and friends shunned her.

Lady Astor, pictured, was born Bronwen Pugh, and became the public face of the Balmain fashion house after leaving the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Standing almost 6ft tall, she had impressive poise and bearing, leading some to describe her as the forerunner of modern supermodels. She was once praised for dragging a coat down a catwalk behind her ‘as if she had just killed it and was taking it to be her mate’. For nine months she also was a popular BBC TV presenter.

Despite her relatively humble, middleclass origins, in 1960 she became the third wife of former Tory MP Viscount Astor, and gamely took on the task of running the Cliveden estate.

She had a frosty reception from her mother-in-law Nancy Astor, the American-born phenomenon who had become the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons.

After the Profumo scandal, Lady Astor moved to an 11th-century manor house in Surrey, converted to Catholicism, and qualified as a psychotherapist.

She was windsurfing in her 80s, and did a final catwalk show just seven years ago.