[14] In 2013, the daughter-in-law of the 11th Duke, Lady Colin Campbell, stated that the "headless man" was an American executive named Bill Lyons. The mystery man in the explicit photo became known as the 'headless man&# Audiences never finds out the identity of this man, but in later scenes with a female friend, it is suggested that Margaret would regularly sleep with men she met the same evening. Margarets marriage to Ian, and the nasty, heavily publicized breakup that followedthe longest and costliest divorce proceeding in British history at the timedominate the shows three episodes. Another quote gives an insight into her personality: "Always a poodle, only a poodle! Inveraray Castle, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll, photographed in 2010. Margaret was identifiable by the diamond clasps of her trademark three-strand pearls and distinctive hairstyle. Far from being envious of her lifestyle during the economic depression, the British public adored Margaret Whigham. [4], On 21 February 1933, following her conversion to Roman Catholicism,[2] Margaret married Sweeny at the Brompton Oratory, London. [10], Granting the divorce, Lord Wheatley, the presiding judge, said the evidence established that the Duchess "was a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men". [5] Such had been the publicity surrounding her Norman Hartnell wedding dress that the traffic in Knightsbridge was blocked for three hours. . 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. Margaret agreed to marry him. He also compared the handwriting on the photos with handwriting samples from the men, and did apparently determine who the man in question was, although his identity remains a secret. Margaret is played by Claire Foy (our young Queen in The Crown), with a script by Sarah Phelps. The third comes very shortly after, at 29 minutes, just before Margaret takes Ian to meet her father for his approval of their marriage. You do feel exploited when you are a woman and you are having to perform fake sex on screen. 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. After tying the knot the couple lived in luxury, skiing in St Moritz, sailing in the Bahamas and holidaying in St Tropez. During said courtroom saga, Margaret was asked about the men who appeared in her diarysome of whom were reportedly gay, which at that time was a punishable crime. How King Charles and Prince William Plan to Protect the Monarchy Against an Uncertain Future, The daughter of Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani was overwhelmed as a child by a wave of tragedy and looked for a gasp of air to breathe, even as sharks circled all around. Now, she tells, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Margaret Campbell, the famously beautiful Duchess of Argyll, had been a celebrity - and a source of scandal - from even before her debutante days. After she married American golfer Charles Sweeny, Cole Porter counted her among the worlds greatest glories. But shes iconic, says Phelps, who is thrilled that U.S. viewers will learn of this unconventional woman when A Very British Scandal premieres. Fulke Warwick and Max Aitken became engaged to her, but she broke off these engagements before marrying Charles Sweeny, a handsome American golfing hero. Image Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo. Second World War veteran or not, he is without any redeeming grace or even charm. I was as good of a witness as I could be. Who took her seriously at the time? A wealthy heiress and one of the most colourful figures of the swinging sixties, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, married the Duke of Argyll, her second husband, in 1951. That word round-heel sums up the pious hypocrisy of the era. The claim was watertight and Margaret knew she would be unsuccessful but wanted to give her rival a run for the money. It goes all around the world. The Father of History: Who Was Herodotus. She radiates that discomfort and shame, until we feel it ourselves. Photographs submitted to the Edinburgh court, according to The New York Times, reportedly showed a naked man gratifying himself and pictured her, dressed in nothing but three strands of pearls, performing a sex act on a naked man in the mirrored gilt and silver bathroom of her Mayfair apartment.. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . The Headless Man in the salacious pictures of the duchess disclosed in the divorce case has never been definitively identified. Margarets privacy had been violated and sexual desires condemned because she was a woman. Margaret with her first husband, Charles Sweeny, on their wedding day at Brompton Oratory, 1933. Margaret Argyll never learnt to boil a kettle and never once made her own bed. Her second husband - and the subject of the BBC's A Very British Scandal - was Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. It was a constant ball. The Duchess, Margaret Campbell, was a British socialite known for her lavish lifestyle and a string of high-profile affairs. I told the truth. He told her about his five years in a prisoner-of-war camp and she listened. Not a serious thought in my head. Well, some ghastly mistakes, she laughed. And thank God Ive had it., George Whigham made sure Margaret had a different couture dress for each event and was so tireless in promoting his daughter that he was accused of hiring press agents. When the CEO of Scholastic died suddenly last year, he left control of the family empire to a former colleaguehis ex-girlfriend. Margaret Whigham was a sensation to British society when she arrived from America as a teenager in the 1920s. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The mystery was only recently put to bed by Lady Colin Campbell, who disclosed in 2013 that the man was the American executive Bill Lyons. . He had made a fortune successfully marketing a new type of artificial silk called Celanese. For years after the scandal, she retained her beauty and some social cachet, but her fortune dwindled. In those days, society men did not take personalities into consideration when choosing a wife. On 22 March 1951, Margaret, 38 at the time, married Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. She tried the Law Lords, [which] decided that Ian is perfectly within his right to use as evidence against his wife material that he burgled from her house. Born on 1 December 1912, Margaret Whigham was the only daughter of a Scottish businessman and millionaire, George Hay Whigham and his wife, Helen Mann Hannay. 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 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!" "For 50 years it has been safely, maybe too safely, kept . It took the judge more than three hours to read out his damning judgment at the end of one of the longest, most expensive and toxic divorce cases of the 20th century . Women who had watched proceedings from the gallery wrote in support of Margaret. Margaret would realize her new husband, who was said to be a gambling and alcohol addict, was broke. Margaret did have bursts of romantic happiness but, for one reason after another, none was lasting and successful. Debutantes were not expected to discuss the great issues of the day but merely to issue pleasant tinkling laughs while the man spoke. [1] Her numerous early romances included an affair with Prince George, Duke of Kent. 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. As part of proceedings, Lord Denning, who had compiled a government report on one of the decades other scandals, the Profumo Affair, was tasked with investigating Margarets sexual partners in more depth: primarily this was because ministers were concerned Margaret might be a security risk if shehadbeen involved with senior government figures. She fell in love at first sight with Prince Aly Khan; they got engaged but her parents refused to let her marry him because of his religion. I had a really wonderful time from the period between 43 and 51. Foy has said how uncomfortable they made her feel: Its grim, the grimmest thing you can do. Margaret's rumoured affair with the ex-press officer at the Savoy was named as one of the key affairs in the divorce proceedings. But Ian Campbell would also be her doom. He is still married, yet he has no qualms about asking her father (Richard McCabe) for her hand and a loan. 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 . Many of the 88 men listed were in fact homosexual, but given that homosexuality was illegal in Britain at the time, Margaret stayed quiet in order not to betray them on a public stage. The presiding judge, in his 50,000-word judgement, described Margaret as a completely promiscuous woman' who was wholly immoral because she engaged in disgusting sexual activities. You would go and stand outside the churches where such women were getting married, just to be a part of the huge excitement and touch the hem of history.. Only time will tell exactly what was inside them that was deemed so sensitive. The 26-year-old turned herself in this week following a search that captivated certain corners of New York. In 1943, she suffered a catastrophic fall that left her with 30 stitches and a broken vertebra, temporarily unable to walk. This richly detailed, three-part costume drama which continues tonight portrays her second marriage to the Duke of Argyll and the notorious divorce battle that ended it. According to The Grit in the Pearl, Ian and Margarets marriage spiraled into mutual infidelities. One rumour suggests it was the former Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys (who later became the son-in-law of Winston Churchill). 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 1963 divorce hearing, whichbecame the longest and most costly of the 20th century. She was brave in the war and did not complain about falling 40 feet down a lift shaft when she went to visit her chiropodist on Bond Street. Nobody, nobody, nobody. Ethel Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (ne Whigham, formerly Sweeny; 1 December 1912 25 July 1993) was a Scottish heiress, socialite, and aristocrat who was most famous for her 1951 marriage and much-publicised 1963 divorce from her second husband, Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. polaroid the headless man picture duchess polaroid the headless man picture duchess (No Ratings Yet) . Of the 88 men she had been seen having dinner with, a substantial number were gay but, as the malicious duke knew, Margaret could never testify this was so, since in those days it was illegal to be homosexual. A POLAROID picture was one of the key pieces of evidence in the scandalous divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. It was speculated that this "headless man" was the Minister of Defence Duncan Sandys (later Lord Duncan-Sandys, son-in-law of Winston Churchill), who offered to resign from the cabinet. [1] After the end of her first marriage, Margaret was briefly engaged to a Texas-born banker, Joseph Thomas of Lehman Brothers, but he fell in love with another woman and the engagement was broken. The marriage did not last long before fractures began to form, and the duke, suspicious that his wife had been unfaithful, hired a locksmith to break into her private drawers while she was away in New York. She became a life-long patron of the designer, as well as Victor Stiebel and Angle Delanghe. She struck an archaic figure at these 1980s social events, being perfectly groomed and coiffed, bejewelled and couture-clad, with ramrod deportment, but in an era when informal post-hippie was the fashionable vibe. The Queen epitomises everything selfless, noble and honest about a traditional ruling class. . On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Ivana Marie Zelnkov escaped from behind the Iron Curtain to storm New York City and help create the twisted miracle of Donald Trump. Lauren Pazienza, Whose Shove Allegedly Killed a Beloved Manhattan Vocal Coach, Argues She Is Getting a Raw Deal. Four years later, the Sweenys divorced. In several photos, Margaret was wearing only a string of her trademark pearls. Its a pity the drama does not have time to explain the years of fame that came before her disgrace, and which shaped her. With irrefutable evidence, Argyll was granted his divorce. After ending a first marriage that yielded a son and daughter, she went on a dating streak that ended with a marriage to Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyllsecuring her familys formal entry to aristocracy, and access to Inveraray, a proper castle in Scotland. Ian was charming, witty and aristocratic, and although he was married at the time to his second wife (he only married rich women), Margaret took him back to her flat and went to bed with him after the train arrived in London. How did it come to this? Margaret had eight miscarriages and a stillborn child before managing to produce two children: one became the Duchess of Rutland and mother to the current duke, the other a sensible businessman. Margaret Campbell in 1972. He was American airline executive William "Bill" Lyons, according to Duchess Margaret Campbell's ex-daughter-in-law. I have to admit I read that and I was like, Go mom, laughs Clea Newman Soderlund, speaking about her fathers posthumous memoir, Paul Newman Says Wife Joanne Woodward Turned Him Into a Sexual Creature in Posthumous Memoir. 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