Noteworthy Deaths

Model, dancer in U.K.'s 'Profumo Affair'

LONDON -- Mandy Rice-Davies, a key figure in the "Profumo Affair," a sex-and-politics scandal that rocked Cold War Britain, has died at age 70.

Her PR firm, Hackford Jones, said Friday that Rice-Davies died Thursday evening "after a short battle with cancer."

Rice-Davies was an 18-year-old model and nightclub dancer in 1963 when her friend Christine Keeler had an affair with War Secretary John Profumo. Keeler had also slept with a Soviet naval attache, and the resulting collision of sex, wealth and national security issues rattled Britain's establishment, almost toppled the Conservative government and fascinated the nation.

The scandal led to pimping charges against Stephen Ward, a well-connected osteopath who had introduced Keeler to Profumo at a country-house party thrown by aristocrat Lord Astor.

During Ward's trial, Rice-Davies was told that Astor had denied her allegation that he had slept with her. "He would, wouldn't he?" she replied from the witness box. The phrase became famous, and Rice-Davies' sparky spirit endeared her to the public.

Rice-Davies later performed on stage and in cabarets in several countries, ran a chain of restaurants in Israel, and was married three times to wealthy men.

She never escaped the shadow of the 1963 events, which were thrust into the spotlight again in 1989 with the movie Scandal, which starred Joanne Whalley as Keeler, Ian McKellen as Profumo and Bridget Fonda as Rice-Davies.

Metro on 12/20/2014

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