A COLD War sex scandal that rocked the British government has been turned into a steamy new Sunday night drama. The Trial Of Christine Keeler is based on a true story that scandalised the 1960s. Parallels can even be drawn to the ongoing media storm around the late US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. […]
A COLD War sex scandal that rocked the British government has been turned into a steamy new Sunday night drama.
The Trial Of Christine Keeler is based on a true story that scandalised the 1960s.
Parallels can even be drawn to the ongoing media storm around the late US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the summer of 1961, Christine Keeler was a showgirl at an exotic club in London’s Soho when she had an affair with John Profumo, then Secretary of State for War.
In the week Christine met and first had sex with Profumo — keeper of Britain’s nuclear secrets — she also slept with a Russian spy.
Two years later, when the scandal broke, the Profumo Affair threatened to topple Tory PM Harold Macmillan’s government.
The six-episode BBC1 drama, which starts on Sunday at 9pm, shows how osteopath Stephen Ward introduced Christine to Profumo and to Soviet spook Yevgeny Ivanov.
Keeler’s friend Douglas Thompson says: “Christine was a victim of a man just like Jeffrey Epstein.
“Stephen Ward supplied young women to much older, powerful men.
“When their affair began, Christine was 19 and Profumo was a 46-year-old government minister married to a successful actress.
“Like Epstein, Ward was a middle-aged man with friends in high society, who recruited young women for friends to have sex with.
“When the scandal broke and he faced jail, Ward killed himself — as Epstein apparently did.”
Douglas, who helped Christine write the memoirs on which the TV series is based, adds: “She always said her first time with Profumo was more force than seduction.
“Nowadays what happened would be described as date rape.”
Keeler — played in the drama by Sophie Cookson — was earning £8 a week at Murray’s Cabaret Club when she met Ward there.
In her book Secrets And Lies, Christine wrote: “At night, Murray’s was a strange, underground fantasy place where the rich and famous queued for your attention.
“The days were an endless series of dinner and party invitations.”
It was here that Ward met the young women he introduced to society figures.
Ward invited Christine to stay at his flat though they never slept together. Christine claimed: “I loved him but we were never lovers.
“Stephen could only make love to those he despised. I was recruited by a clever, charismatic but dangerous man who fooled the intelligence services of the West.
“He has been portrayed as an immoral rascal. He was dismissed as a Communist sympathiser who was only of harm to himself, a somewhat silly, vain man.
“In reality, he was a spymaster who befriended hosts of prominent and powerful people in the British government, aristocracy and even members of the Royal Family. With associates, he lured many of them into compromising situations.”
Ward organised orgies for society figures and Christine said: “I enjoyed sex and I indulged in it when I fancied the men but I was no hypocrite.
“It was others who were disguising their peccadilloes in dinner jackets, diamonds and evening dresses, indulging in weird fantasies.”
An orgy shown in the new series is based on a night Christine arrived at the London home of society hostess Mariella Novotny to give Stephen a lift home.
Christine recalled: “When I arrived at the house, I couldn’t find him.
“So I went in on my own and wandered into a bedroom where Mariella was rolling about on the bed, wearing a black corset which exposed her breasts. There were five naked men on the bed with her, all of whom looked respectable.
“They were not a rough crowd but groomed, manicured men — the barrister/MP type.
“Mariella was giving them what they wanted. None of them took a blind bit of notice of me.
“Stephen, who was naked but just watching, seemed most amused.
“He said Mariella had served up roast peacocks and ‘prairie oysters’ — bulls’ testicles — but all everyone was interested in was the sex.
“Girls marched around in high heels and trashy lingerie. There were whips and handcuffs.”
One man, who Christine once whipped, was thought to be an eminent lawyer and would strip off apart from an apron and mask.
She said: “It shows the dangerous social lives some of the top people in Britain were indulging in.
“For Stephen, the sex was just a means to help his espionage activities.
“I know Stephen loved me. Nevertheless, he would have killed me as easily as light my cigarette. He was bad and ruthless.”
On July 8, 1961, Ward took Christine to Cliveden House, Bucks.
There she met Profumo — played in the new drama by Ben Miles.
