Mandy Rice-Davies Dies - Former model and showgirl Mandy Rice-Davies, who is best remembered for her prominent role in the infamous "Profumo affair" which shook Britain in the 1960s, has died of cancer.
According to reports, 70-year-old Mandy Rice-Davies died on Thursday evening after a brief battle with cancer. Her PR firm Hackford Jones confirmed the news of her passing.
Mandy Rice-Davies became somewhat of a household name in 1963, when she was a 19-year-old model and night club dancer.
Her friend Christine Keeler's affair with Britain's War Secretary John Profumo and other powerful men including a Soviet official was arguably the biggest political sex scandal of that era.
Local reports say a comment Mandy Rice-Davies made in the witness box during the trial of Dr Stephen Ward, an osteopath endeared her to the British public for years.
Ward was facing pimping charges for introducing Keller to Profumo at an aristocratic party hosted by Lord Astor. During the trial, court officials told her that Lord Astor had denied accusations that he had slept with her. "Well, he would, wouldn't he", she replied.
Mandy Rice-Davies reinvented herself after the trial which led Profumo to step down from office a year later and caused precipitated the fall of the Conservative Government.
Ward was found guilty of the charges and he committed suicide at a friend's house on the night before the jury announced the verdict.
"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," Mandy Rice-Davies one said in a statement.
Unlike Keller, who folded and went into hiding after the trial, Mandy Rice-Davies traveled across the world performing on stages in different countries and had several businesses including a chain of restaurants in Israel. She got married three times to wealthy men and lived in the public eye.
In 2013, she agreed to assist Andrew Lloyd-Webber with his 2013 musical titled "Stephen Ward." Webber described Mandy Rice-Davies as an very well read and intelligent woman.
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