The lyrics were later anglicised for the British version of the song by P. G. Wodehouse, who changed two lines from "You're an O'Neill drama / You're Whistler's mama!" All rights reserved. In an age before commercial air travel, life on board ocean liners was a social stratosphere within itself. It even gives shape to the viewers unconscious thoughts. When American-raised heiress Margaret was 14, her father George would drive from their Ascot home to Eton, to round up good-looking boys for her tennis parties. He also produced 13 Polaroid pictures he had found which showed the duchess and two naked men in her bathroom. Many have retrospectively described her as the first woman to be publicly slut-shamed, and whilst the term is somewhat anachronistic, it was certainly one of the first times a womans sexuality was quite so publicly, roundly and explicitly condemned. One of the explicit photographs presented in court was a Polaroid of the Duchess, wearing nothing but her signature triple-string of pearls, standing next to an unidentified man. Her romances were legend. In 1943, she fell nearly 40ft down a lift shaft, surviving but with a significant trauma to her head: many say the fall altered her personality, and that she was a different woman afterwards. The third comes very shortly after, at 29 minutes, just before Margaret takes Ian to meet her father for his approval of their marriage. In those days, society men did not take personalities into consideration when choosing a wife. I dont think anybody has had such a good time as I had. By 1959, and determined to divorce since Margarets father had decided to stop paying his bills, he had gained access to her Queen Anne house on Upper Grosvenor Street while she was abroad, and called in a locksmith to crack the locks of the private drawers and cupboards containing her memorabilia. Read More: Is A Very British Scandal Based on a True Story? No doubt the television series can tell you the terrible consequences of that marriage. And I have given up hopes of any improvement., Says Phelps, Shes sort of brilliant and tragic in a way, but also triumphant. Ian broke into into Margarets house and hired a locksmith to open a cabinet in which he found compromising photos. His number Youre The Top namechecked the Colosseum, the feet of Fred Astaire and Mrs Sweeny. Lord Denning, who was called upon by the government to track down the "headless man", compared the handwriting of the five leading "suspects", (Duncan Sandys; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; John Cohane, an American businessman; Peter Combe, a former press officer at the Savoy Hotel; and Sigismund von Braun, brother of the German scientist Wernher von Braun) with the captions written on the photographs. If Margaret, Duchess of Argyll gets away with this, what will all women do?, I thought he was such a bastard, Margaret told George Hume in a 1990 interview. Hed pursued her relentlessly, knowing she was rich while his own estate was worth nothing. What Was the Atlantic Wall and When Was It Built? We are no longer accepting comments on this article. When Elisabeth Finch met Jennifer Beyer in 2019, the two women forged a fiercely loyal friendship, and eventually got married. Margaret carried on, though her final chapters were still quite sad. [9][10], According to Lyndsy Spence, a biographer of the Duchess, the Duke of Argyll forged a deed of sale (sometimes called a deed of gift, thus offering various items from Inveraray Castle as security) before their marriage in exchange for her money used to restore his family home at Inveraray, and wiretapped her car. The German diplomat and brother of the Nazi scientist Werner von Braun, who invented the Nazis V-2 rocket, was another possible candidate for the 'headless man' in photo. Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, with her daughter Frances Helen Sweeney . Inveraray Castle, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll, photographed in 2010. He first met Margaret by chance rather than design, sitting opposite her on the Golden Arrow train from Paris to London. She struck a lonely figure many times during the first hour, whether trying to entertain her step-children or plunging into a one-night stand after a party, but she never looked more alone than when the public turned on her. According to The Grit in the Pearl, Ian and Margarets marriage spiraled into mutual infidelities. Well, some ghastly mistakes, she laughed. Sample Page; ; After tying the knot the couple lived in luxury, skiing in St Moritz, sailing in the Bahamas and holidaying in St Tropez. She was thought to be the inspiration for Cole Porters 1934 song Youre the Top. Image Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo. After his death, George Whighams assets were less than had been assumed and the 18,000 a year income from the trust fund barely covered Margarets living expenses. Like everybody, Id do anything to have it all over again. Lord Dennings report has been sealed until 2063: it was reviewed after 30 years by the then Prime Minister, John Major, who decided to keep the testimonies firmly sealed for a further 70 years. Everyone knows her as Oui Oui, because she agrees to everything though Margaret childishly calls her Wee Wee. She became a life-long patron of the designer, as well as Victor Stiebel and Angle Delanghe. I had money. And Margaret was so beautiful and so rich. I dont think anybody has real style or class any more, Margaret told The New York Times. But in the days when society scandals were few and far between, this one was the ne plus ultra. Duchess of Argyll's explicit headless man photo re-enactment. In some, she was entertaining an unidentified lover whose head had been cropped out of the picture and who came to be known as the 'Headless Man'. As Phelps says, She was on trial for being a sexual woman. A Jesuit-educated judge named Lord Wheatley, who was related to Ian, presided, putting Margaret further under the microscope. She was among the VIP guests at his London memorial service. Far from being envious of her lifestyle during the economic depression, the British public adored Margaret Whigham. Her first marriage to Sweeny ended after the war as first he and later she started various affairs. The Duchess, Margaret Campbell, was a British socialite known for her lavish lifestyle and a string of high-profile affairs. That, and three strands of pearls, she reportedly said at the time. Neither the good years, in which I laughed and danced and lived upon a cloud of happiness; nor the bad years of near despair, when I learned what life and people and friendship really were.. Margaret spent the first fourteen years of her life in New York City, where she was educated privately at the Hewitt School. User @strutcakes said: 'Watching A Very British Scandal in front of my parents was not the best idea. Her penury grinds at her, worse and worse and worse., But even in poverty, Margaret refused to change her ways to appeal to the public. The pictures were part of a legal case the duke drew up against the duchess as part of divorce proceedings, alongside a list of 88 men he accused her of having sex with behind his back. Though she did once say "the only Polaroid camera in the country" was kept at the Ministry of Defence. Debutantes were not expected to discuss the great issues of the day but merely to issue pleasant tinkling laughs while the man spoke. Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll on the June 1969 cover of Tatler. The second sex scene took place 26 minutes into the episode. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. Margaret's racy sex life was judged immoral at the time but, as this three-part drama is at pains to show, she wasn't the only one at it. The couple divorced in 1947, and she went on to become engaged again to Lehman Brothers banker Joseph Thomas, although they never married. Foy plays the flamboyantly promiscuous Margaret, Duchess of Argyll who was branded a nymphomaniac by her husband Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll (played by Paul Bettany) in their toxic. George Hay Whigham was a self-made millionaire: although his family was well-connected, they were not wealthy. Just weeks after the divorce was finalized, with Margarets reputation ruined and her bank account drained, Ian went on to marry another wealthy woman and suffered a stroke in the South of France, before being transferred back to Scotland where he later died. As a divorce, she threw lavish parties whose success she attributed to the fact that she only invited beautiful women because she thought it restful for men to rest their gaze on them. After interviewing the 5 main suspects several of whom underwent a medical examination to determine whether they matched up to the photographs and Margaret herself, Denning ruled out Duncan Sandys from being the headless man in question. The duke divorced Margaret in 1963 and she died in 1993 30 years of infamy that starkly contrasted with the splendour of her youth. Her extravagant lifestyle and ill-considered investments left her largely penniless by the time she died. John Dukas, "Dukas' Diary: Advice from the Duchess", Max Aitken, later the second Lord Beaverbrook, Charles Guy Fulke Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick, Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, "The scarlet Duchess of Argyll: Much more than just a Highland fling", "The Dirty Duchess of Argyll was ahead of her time", "Madame Yevonde's Goddesses - in pictures", "The real scandal of the Duchess of Argyll is that she was a victim of celebrity hacking", "Mayfair, the Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Man polaroids Another Nickel in the Machine", "London Journal; A Sex Scandal of the 60's, Doubly Scandalous Now", "Another very English scandal: the wild life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll", "The Argyll divorce: the society scandal that rocked 1960s Britain", "A who's who of the most scandalous, daring and dangerous duchesses in history", "Identity of the notorious Headless Man remains a mystery Argyll divorce secret dieswithstepmother", "Sex, lies and Polaroid film: Mary Killen on the Duchess of Argyll", "Upper Grosvenor Street: South Side Pages 231238 Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings). In 1951 she wed Ian Douglas Campbell, the 11th Duke of Argyll, after meeting him on a train at Pariss Gare du Nord station in 1949. I feel a bit ashamed because until I started looking into her life I had written off Margaret, Duchess of Argyll as no more than a joke figure. But Margarets reign as a femme fatale was to come to an end. That attack wounds her, because it exposes Margarets deepest fears about herself. Life was apparently roses all the way. But when her racy private photographs were stolen, scandal turned the public against her, In Queen Margrethe II of Denmarks last interview before her extensive surgery, she spoke of the royal title drama and Crown Prince Frederiks future on the throne, Crown Princess Mary carries out solo engagement on visit to India with Crown Prince Frederik, Dove / Daily Express / Getty Images / Hulton Archive, Bert Hardy / Picture Post / Hulton Archive / Getty Images. The Duchess, Margaret Campbell, was a British socialite known for her lavish lifestyle and a string of high-profile affairs. Only time will tell exactly what was inside them that was deemed so sensitive. She was not born into the aristocracy, but she was the only child of one of the richest men of his day, George Whigham. Margaret Campbell in 1972. In his summing up before granting the divorce to the duke, the Scottish judge pronounced that Margaret was a highly sexed woman who had ceased to be satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in what I can only describe as disgusting sexual activities to gratify a basic sexual appetite. The marriages meltdown was such a scorched-earth operation that Phelps says it could have easily carried an entire season of American Crime Story. Its a pity the drama does not have time to explain the years of fame that came before her disgrace, and which shaped her. Business, Economics, and Finance. What Did People Wear in Medieval England? Moments after they had sex, he asked Margaret for her hand in marriage. [2], The Sweenys divorced in 1947. One showed the duchess carrying out a sex act on one of the naked men, whose heads were not seen in any of the shots. Their marriage, at the Brompton Oratory, stopped traffic in Knightsbridge for 3 hours and was declared the wedding of the decade by many in attendance. But by the early 1960s, Margarets fortunes had reversed on an epic scale. Fulke Warwick and Max Aitken became engaged to her, but she broke off these engagements before marrying Charles Sweeny, a handsome American golfing hero. Foy has said how uncomfortable they made her feel: Its grim, the grimmest thing you can do. It was evident from the beginning that the . Married in 1951, Margaret was at the height of her fame as a glamorous and stylish socialite, and had even been name-dropped in Cole Porter's song, You're the Top. ', Louise Teboul similarly said: 'Watching A Very British Scandal with my mother-in-law and OH [other half] - didn't realise there was going to be so much sex in it - awkward. The legal bills cost her a fortune. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Her lawyer argues shes being overcharged, and the case seems destined to become the latest front in the ongoing debate over criminal justice in the city. By Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images. Unfortunately, I am only too aware that I am still the same gullible, impulsive, over-optimistic Dumb Bunny, Margaret is quoted as saying by The Telegraph. The Headless Man in the salacious pictures of the duchess disclosed in the divorce case has never been definitively identified. Nearly 30 years after her death, the story of the Duchess and her sensational downfall has been dramatised on screen in the BBC's A . Margaret was publicly humiliated as society first fed on, and then utterly condemned, her sexual relationships.
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