Profumo scandal showgirl Christine Keeler dies in hospital aged 75
Christine Keeler, the former showgirl and model at the heart of the Profumo scandal of the 1960s, has died aged 75.
Her son, Seymour Platt, said she died on Monday at the Princess Royal University Hospital, near Farnborough.
“My mother passed away at about 11:30pm,” he said.
Ms Keeler was the woman at the heart of the notorious Profumo affair in 1963 which rocked the Establishment, and ultimately contributed to the downfall of the beleaguered Conservative government the following year.
She was the central figure in a story of sex, intrigue and espionage which led to the shaming of John Profumo, who was forced to quit his job as War Secretary and to leave Parliament altogether.
He was having an affair with her – but she was also conducting an affair with Commander Eugene Ivanov, a Russian intelligence officer and the Soviet assistant naval attache in London.
The security implications shook the government.
It was only after Mr Profumo was forced to admit that he had lied to the Commons in March 1963, when he denied any impropriety with Ms Keeler, that Mr Macmillan accepted the full enormity of the scandal.
Christine Margaret Keeler was born in 1942. She left school at the age of 15 and left her home in Wraysbury a few months later. She worked as an office junior, a showroom assistant and a barmaid.
Before she was 16 she was working as a showgirl in a club in Greek Street in the heart of London’s red-light Soho district.
It was during this period that she found herself launched into the unsavoury world of high-society osteopath Dr Stephen Ward, who introduced her and other girls to aristocrats and leading figures in the late 1950s and early 60s, and it was while she was partying with him at the Cliveden estate that she was introduced to John Profumo.
She was married twice – both times ending in divorce – and had two sons.
The story of the Profumo affair was made into a film, Scandal, released in 1989.