Mandy Rice-Davies

Mandy Rice-Davies
Mandy Rice-Davies (1964)
Mandy Rice-Davies in 1964
Born Marilyn R Davies
(1944-10-21)21 October 1944
Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales
Died 18 December 2014(2014-12-18) (aged 70)
London, England
Nationality British
Known for Profumo affair
Spouse(s)
Rafael Shauli
(m. 1966; div. 1971)

Charles LeFevre
(m. 1978; div. 1978)

Ken Foreman
(m. 1988)

Marilyn Davies, known as Mandy Rice-Davies (21 October 1944 – 18 December 2014) was a Welsh model and showgirl best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair, which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963.

Early life

Marilyn Davies was born near Llanelli, Wales, and, during her childhood, moved to Solihull, Warwickshire.[1][2] Her father was a policeman before becoming a technologist for Dunlop Rubber, and her mother was a former actress. She attended Sharmans Cross Secondary Modern School.[3][4] As a teenager in her early years she worked at Woods Farm in Shirley assisting with the horse yard there. She appeared older than her age and at 15 she gained a Saturday job as a clothes model at the Marshall & Snelgrove department store in Birmingham. At 16 she went to London as 'Miss Austin' at the Earls Court Motor Show,[5] and then worked as a dancer at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho.

Role in Profumo scandal

It was at Murray's Cabaret Club where she met Christine Keeler who introduced her to her friend, the well-connected osteopath Stephen Ward, and to an ex-lover, the slum landlord Peter Rachman.[6] Rice-Davies became Rachman's mistress and was set up in the same house where he had previously kept Keeler, 1 Bryanston Mews West, Marylebone. Rice-Davies often visited Keeler at the house she shared with Ward at Wimpole Mews, Marylebone, and, after Keeler had moved elsewhere, lived there herself, between September and December 1962. On 14 December 1962 while Keeler was visiting Rice-Davies at Wimpole Mews, one of Keeler's boyfriends, John Edgecombe, attempted to enter and fired a gun several times at the door.[7] His trial brought attention to the girls' involvement with Ward's social set, and intimacy with many powerful people, including the then Viscount Astor at whose stately home of Cliveden Keeler met the War Minister John Profumo. Profumo's brief relationship with Keeler was at the centre of the affair that caused him to resign from the government in June 1963, though Rice-Davies herself never met him.[8]

"He would, wouldn't he?"

Stephen Ward was found guilty of living off immoral earnings (money obtained from Rice-Davies and Keeler among others) – the trial having been instigated after the embarrassment caused to the government.

While giving evidence at Ward's trial, Rice-Davies made a famous riposte. When James Burge, the defence counsel, pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her, she dismissed the denial by stating, "Well (giggle) he would, wouldn’t he?"[9] (often misquoted "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?").[10] By 1979, this phrase had entered the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and is occasionally abbreviated as MRDA ("Mandy Rice Davies applies").[11]

Later celebrity

A Private Eye cover at the time of Profumo had a photograph of "the lovely" Rice-Davies with the caption (without any headline or other identification), "Do you mind? If it wasn't for me – you couldn't have cared less about Rachman".[12] Rice-Davies released a 45 EP on the Ember label (EMB EP 4537) in May 1964 entitled Introducing Mandy, which included cover versions of songs such as "All I Do Is Dream of You" and "You Got What It Takes".

Rice-Davies traded on the notoriety the trial brought her, comparing herself to Nelson's mistress, Lady Hamilton.[13] In 1966 she married Israeli businessman Rafi Shauli and moved to Israel. The couple had one daughter together and Rice-Davies converted to Judaism.[14] She also opened nightclubs and restaurants in Tel Aviv. They were called Mandy's, Mandy's Candies and Mandy's Singing Bamboo. In 1980, with Shirley Flack, Rice-Davies wrote her autobiography, Mandy. A year later she appeared in the Tom Stoppard play, Dirty Linen. In 1989, she wrote a novel titled The Scarlet Thread. The Ottoman Empire provided the backdrop and the novel was described as a stirring wartime saga in the spirit of Gone with the Wind.[15] Subsequently, journalist Libby Purves, who had met Rice-Davies when Mandy was published, invited her to join a female re-creation on the River Thames of Jerome K. Jerome's comic novel Three Men in a Boat. This expedition was commissioned by Alan Coren for the magazine Punch, the other members of the party being cartoonist Merrily Harpur and a toy Alsatian to represent Montmorency, the dog in the original story. Purves recounted how she "immediately spotted that this Rice-Davies was a woman to go up the Amazon with" and, among other things, that "only Mandy's foxy charm saved us from being evicted from a lock for being drunk on pink Champagne."[16]

Rice-Davies appeared in a number of television and film productions,[17] including Absolutely Fabulous and episode 6 of the first series of Chance in a Million. Her film career included roles in Nana, the True Key of Pleasure (1982), and Absolute Beginners (1986) as Colin's mother. In the 1989 film Scandal, about the Profumo affair, Bridget Fonda portrayed Rice-Davies alongside Joanne Whalley as Keeler.

She was closely involved in the development of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Stephen Ward the Musical about society osteopath Ward's involvement in the Profumo affair, in which she was portrayed by Charlotte Blackledge. The musical opened on 19 December 2013 at the Aldwych Theatre. On Radio 4's Midweek on 5 February 2014 Rice-Davies said of Stephen Ward, "I didn't fall for him, but I did have an affair with him."[18] She once described her life as "one slow descent into respectability".[19]

Death

Rice-Davies died, aged 70, from cancer on 18 December 2014 in London.[20][21] She is survived by her third husband, millionaire waste management businessman Ken Foreman, and her daughter Dana.[22]

References

  1. ↑ "Mandy Rice-Davies Obituary". The Telegraph. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  2. ↑ "Mandy Rice-Davies Obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  3. ↑ "Mandy Rice-Davis". Spartacus-educational.com. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
  4. ↑ Lockley, Mike (22 March 2013). "Mandy Rice-Davies: "My life has been one long descent into respectability"". Birminghammail.co.uk. Retrieved 3 August 2017.
  5. ↑ Shirley Green (1979) Rachman. London, Michael Joseph: 157
  6. ↑ Shirley Green (1979) Rachman. London, Michael Joseph: 159
  7. ↑ Ludovic Kennedy (1964) The Trial of Stephen Ward: 10
  8. ↑ David Profumo (2006) Bringing the House Down
  9. ↑ Robertson, Geoffrey (19 December 2014), "Mandy Rice-Davies: fabled player in a very British scandal", the Guardian, retrieved 14 July 2015
  10. ↑ This has become a popular phrase among politicians in Britain. Examples of this phrase:
  11. ↑ Phillips, Tim (2011), Fit to Bust: How Great Companies Fail, Kogan Page Publishers, p. 108, ISBN 978-0-7494-6014-3
  12. ↑ Private Eye, 26 July 1963; The Life and Times of Private Eye (ed. Richard Ingrams, 1971), page 85.
  13. ↑ The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (J. M. & M. J. Cohen, 1971) 190:69
  14. ↑ Rice-Davies, Mandy (13 July 2008). "Relative Values: Mandy Rice-Davies and her daughter, Dana". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
  15. ↑ Allan, Jani. Mandy Rice-Davies - High-life scandal to low-profile success Sunday Times (South Africa). 10 September 1989
  16. ↑ Libby Purves in Country Life, 17 November 2010
  17. ↑ Mandy Rice-Davies on IMDb
  18. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Midweek, John Wardley, Mandy Rice-Davies, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Marc Lucero". BBC.
  19. ↑ Pelling, Rowan (1 October 2013). "Mandy Rice-Davies' wise words for those caught in flagrante". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
  20. ↑ "BBC News - Profumo affair's Mandy Rice-Davies dies at the age of 70". BBC News.
  21. ↑ "Profumo affair's Mandy Rice-Davies dies aged 70". The Daily Telegraph. 19 December 2014.
  22. ↑ "Mandy Rice-Davies - obituary". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 August 2017.
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