All Gone Now

They're all passed away now. And I'm on Medicare.

But in 1963 Mandy-Rice Davies and Christine Keeler were just what a male teenager needed to crash through puberty with.  Mandy passed away a few years ago, and now Christine joins the departed.

You do have to be of a certain age to know who these then young ladies were. They were the "Party Girls" who were part of a sex scandal that rocked Britain in the early 60s. We've all heard about sex, and sex then, as sex now, sells. Big time.

A cabinet minister, John Profumo resigned. The Prime Minster, Harold Macmillan resigned. This of course led to the jokes rippling through the high school that went:

"Why are the British lousy cabinet makers?"
"I don't know."
"A few screws and the cabinet falls apart."

We also cracked each other up with gems about the inept play of a New York Mets outfielder, Ron Swoboda.

"I hear Ron is having problems in the outfield."
"Huh, Really?'
"Yeah, he's pulling a lot of boners lately."

It never took much to get us going. And some things don't change.

Christine Keller has now passed away. Today's NYT obituary relates the whole affair of the affair, in which Christine, a "Party Girl," helped bring down the British government by servicing a British Cabinet Minister of War and a Russian embassy attache, Cmdr. Eugene Ivanov. Not simultaneously, but close enough that it was feared secrets were spilled. The "pillow talk" possibilities were enough to scare the beejeebers out of two cold war adversaries.

Christine met John Profumo at a 1961 party hosted by a power broker who supplied eye candy at his gatherings. Apparently Christine, 19-years old at the time, was swimming nude in the pool and caught the 40-year old Profumo's eye. She later described him as a smooth operator who was no stranger to extra-marital affairs. Profumo's wife stood by him after he resigned in 1963.

Christine became huge news on both sides of the Atlantic. Mandy, seen above with Christine in the back of a limo, was Christine's roommate. It is easy to see why a male teenager might be smitten, and why a 40 year-old lecherous cabinet minister might be attracted to her.

My daughter's husband has a nephew in high school who tells us the nephew is smitten with Ivanka Trump and Hope Hicks, the White House communications director. They may not be call girls, but they are attractive enough to have appeal.

Christine's escapades endured for years, thanks to a memoir and two movies. By way of contrast, one of our own versions of nearly the same events, the resignation of New York's governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008 after his use of escort services, and particularly Ashley Dupre, brought the governor down and onto the cover of a magazine depicting that his brain was lodged between his thighs. It was embarrassing, but not long lived. President Clinton had some trouble as well, but not of the variety in which money changed hands. His 1998 troubles however endure to this day.

When Mandy Rice-Davies passed away in 2014 I did some Googling before my post and came across a fairly recent photo of Christine. It looked like a British tabloid photo, and showed the years hadn't been kind to Christine. It was hard to tell if there were the remains of a fine woman about her. Glamour was nowhere in sight.

Sex sells. The beat goes on.

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