The showgirl who struck at the heart of government: Notorious Profumo sex scandal model Mandy Rice-Davies dies after short battle with cancer 

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Mandy Rice-Davies, a key figure in the 1963 Profumo affair, has died aged 70 after a short battle with cancer, it emerged this morning.

The former model was central to the furore which erupted after John Profumo, then Minister for War, lied in the Commons about his affair with her friend Christine Keeler, who was also sleeping with a suspected Russian spy.

The scandal contributed to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in October 1963 and the toppling of his Conservative government the following year.

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Mandy Rice-Davies (pictured last year), who was a key figure in the Profumo affair, has died from cancer

A spokesman for the Hackford Jones PR agency said: 'It is with deep sadness that the family of Marilyn Foreman, also known as Mandy Rice-Davies, have confirmed that she passed away yesterday evening after a short battle with cancer.' 

The lurid disclosures of high-society sex parties and claims that the Secretary of State for War John Profumo had shared a mistress with a Russian defence attache enthralled and scandalised early 1960s Britain.

Miss Rice-Davies, a nightclub dancer, gained notoriety when in the witness box of the Old Bailey she dismissed a denial by Lord Astor that he had slept with her, saying: 'Well, he would, wouldn't he?'

Her response seemed to encapsulate a new lack of deference to the old order as the country emerged from the austerity of the immediate post war years.

Her claim to have had an affair with the peer - whose mansion at Cliveden was the setting for the scandal - was denied many years later by his wife, but she always stuck to her story.

'What was Bill (Lord Astor) doing? I didn't seduce Bill. I didn't even flutter an eyelash at him. I wasn't a temptress. He seduced me. In those days women did not leap upon men,' she said. 

Rice-Davies (pictured at the time of the affair) was a friend of Christine Keeler before the scandal emerged

She and Miss Keeler (pictured together in 1963) gained huge notoriety in the 1960s after it emerged the then-Minister for War, John Profumo, had liaisons with Miss Keeler

Mandy Rice-Davies was born in 1944 in Solihull to Welsh parents, who plainly found her something of a trial. She said that at school she won so many prizes that she had to give some of them back to give the other children a chance.

Her twin loves as a child were her Welsh mountain pony, Laddie (doing paper rounds to support him), and the medical missionary Albert Schweitzer.

At the age of 12 she wanted to become a missionary. 'I wanted to hug lepers, hug trees and to join him if I could. But then I did some research and changed my mind.'

She left school without qualifications and took a £3-a-week job in the china department at Marshall & Snelgrove in Birmingham, starting to model during tea-time at the store. But bored with this, she packed a suitcase and went to London.

Within a week, she secured a job as a dancer at Murray's Cabaret Club in London's Soho district, where she began mixing with the rich and famous - something she continued to do throughout her life. 

Rice-Davies is perhaps best known for a witness box dismissal of Lord Astor's denial he had slept with her, to which she said: 'Well, he would, wouldn't he?'

The scandal involving Keeler led to the resignation of then-Minister of War John Profumo (left)

The Earl of Dudley, one of Murray's oldest clients, took such a shine to Rice-Davies that by 17 she had had her first offer of marriage. 'I could have been a dowager duchess by the time I was 22,' she said.

She also began her association with Christine Keeler, a fellow dancer, and with an osteopath named Dr Stephen Ward. It was this which was to catapult her into the sleazy but exciting world of high society sex parties, particularly at Cliveden, the fairy-tale Berkshire mansion of the Astors.

This was the scenario which led to the disgrace and downfall of John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, who falsely denied in the Commons that he had slept with Christine Keeler.

The Old Bailey trial of society osteopath and procurer of women Dr Stephen Ward, who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of both Rice-Davies and Keeler, made Rice-Davies a household name.

She said later: 'As soon as I realised that the whole thing was about to blow up, I went and told my parents absolutely everything that could possibly come out, and they were very supportive. Looking back on it, I was remarkably naive.'

Later, she was to move in with notorious landlord Peter Rachman, and stayed with him for two years. Rachman died soon after they split up.

Afterwards, as the years rolled by, Rice-Davies was to appear in a Tom Stoppard play and in films. After the Ward trial, she accepted an offer to sing in a cabaret in Germany, and found solace with a half-French, half-Italian baron named Pierre Cevello.

From Germany, she moved on to Spain and then to Israel, still singing in cabaret. She married an Israeli businessman, Rafael Shaul, ran a chain of restaurants with him, a dress factory and acted in a Hebrew theatre.

They had a daughter, Dana, but after ten years they divorced. Then she married a Frenchman called Jean Charles - but only for about a week, she claimed.

Rice-Davies poses in a provocative photoshoot from 1963, the year of the Profumo scandal

Pictured (right) last year with Andrew Lloyd Webber (centre) and Charlotte Blackledge (left), who played Rice-Davies in the musical Stephen Ward, which was set around the scandal

Soon afterwards she met her third husband, British businessman Ken Foreman and they married on a private island and lived on Grove Isle, a salubrious part of Miami. They had other homes, in the Bahamas and Virginia Water, Surrey. 

She was to say later: 'If I could live my life over, I would wish 1963 had not existed. The only reason I still want to talk about it is that I have to fight the misconception that I was a prostitute. I don't want that to be passed on to my grandchildren. There is still a stigma.'

She also insisted there were no secrets which she would take to the grave. 'Everything is out. That is why I have no concerns whatsoever about anything. 

IN HER OWN WORDS: WRITING IN THE MAIL ON SUNDAY EARLIER THIS YEAR, MANDY RICE-DAVIES GAVE AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT OF THE PROFUMO AFFAIR

'I dropped out of school just before my 16th birthday, and went to work in Marshall and Snellgrove, Birmingham's closest equivalent to Harrods.

'I asked my father if I could leave home and go to London. He said no, so I plotted my escape and went anyway. My biggest fear was living a drab, boring life. Well, I certainly didn't end up doing that.

'I was still only 16 when I became a dancer at Murray's Cabaret Club, and there I met a showgirl called Christine Keeler. It was dislike at first sight.

'Within days she tried to sabotage me by stealing the top to my stage costume. In the end she relented and threw it back to me just in time for the performance.

'We [later] became firm friends. She was good fun and knew scores of people. She was 19 to my 16. 

Rice-Davies always insisted she was not a prostitute and campaigned to have Stephen Ward - who she insisted was made a scapegoat by political powers-that-be - cleared of his conviction

Rice-Davies (left) moved to the capital from her childhood home in Birmingham in the 1960s and met MIss Keeler (pictured together, right) when the pair both worked in a Cabaret Club

'Then, one day, Christine said she wanted to introduce me to someone, and that is how I met Stephen Ward.

'Stephen was erudite and witty with an easy charm, and artistic, too, drawing the portraits of the many prominent people he knew.

'By the standards of the day, he was also dangerous: he loved the company of women and took not a blind bit of notice of the prevailing moral code.

'I had agreed to pay Stephen £6 a week rent to stay in [his] house, money that, later, the prosecution would insinuate I was giving to Stephen by way of immoral earnings.

'Then everything fell apart. First came the attempted shooting of Christine by a West Indian drug dealer, Johnny Edgecombe, at Wimpole Mews [west London]. I was there at the time.

'This brought the affair between Christine and the Secretary for War, John Profumo, to the attention of journalists who already knew about a liaison between Christine and a Russian naval attaché called Eugene Ivanov.

'Amid claims that Christine's intimacy with the two men presented a security risk, Profumo chose to deny the affair to the House of Commons – a disastrous lie that led to his disgrace and, eventually, the demise of Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government.

The attitude of Rice-Davies and Keeler was seen to represent a new lack of deference to old powers

She refused to be bowed by the scandal and continued to enjoy acting, singing and marrying wealthy men

'When I heard that Stephen was to be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings, my first thought was: 'They've got to be kidding.' He was also accused of allowing an abortion to take place at his London house, which was equally unbelievable.

'In June 1963, Stephen was arrested, refused bail, and appeared at Marylebone Magistrates' Court, where Christine and I were called as witnesses.

'It was the height of Cold War spy fever, fuelled by the James Bond movie Dr No and the recent defection of Kim Philby, following Burgess and Maclean to the Soviet Union.

'I think that the Government was eager to shift attention away from security risks – however far-fetched – and on to the shenanigans of the 'fast set'.

'There could be no better way of doing this than by putting Stephen's louche lifestyle on trial.

'Then there was the unstoppable rise of youth culture. The likes of Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard were seriously considered a subversive influence on the nation!

'On July 31, Stephen was found guilty on two counts of living off immoral earnings.

'Already characterised in the most vile terms possible by the prosecution, the judge's summing up drove him to suicide before the verdict could be announced.

'My parents bore the scandal with remarkable stoicism and stood right by me. As my father had been a policeman, his policeman's nose was twitching from the very beginning of the whole sorry business.

'He knew a stitch-up when he saw one.

Rice-Davies continued to appear in public life after the scandal, appearing in theatre and writing books

She said her biggest fear as a young woman was of ending up 'living a drab, boring life'

'Fortunately, there was a life after the scandal and a good one, too. Although shattered by the circus of the trial, I was determined to overcome the stigma. Besides, I had to find work.

'I was offered a job singing at a club in Germany and I accepted with alacrity even though the only place I'd ever sung before was in the church choir.

'I toured in my own nightclub act, which eventually took me to Israel where I met my first husband, and together we had a daughter. We opened a chain of discotheques and restaurants.

'In 1980, wanting my daughter to have an English education, I returned to Britain. Here, too, I was busy.

'I was invited to act in Tom Stoppard's Dirty Linen in the West End, appeared in TV serials and in several films. I wrote two novels.

'In 1986, I met my current husband, businessman Ken Foreman. We married two years later and have lived happily ever after.

'The last time I saw Christine was in the 1980s when we did a photoshoot together. We parted on amicable terms and I haven't seen her from that day on, but for some reason she has been rather waspish towards me in her numerous autobiographies.

'I honestly don't know why, because the truth is that the names and images of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies will be linked together for all eternity.'