It’s so fitting. Producers of Succession, a hit TV show about a feuding media family that is mega-rich and wealthy, chose to film in a luxurious Italian villa, which has a shocking history.
Not only is it in the land of the Borgias – a family who are a byword for sin and immorality – but the property itself was home to a Tory politician whose shocking affair with a vice girl almost brought down Edward Heath’s government.
What’s more, his death triggered an internecine family feud as rancorous as anything seen in Succession, involving three bitter sisters going to court over an inheritance battle with their brother, whose third wife’s sister is a close friend of the Duchess of Cambridge.
Villa Cetinale, which can be hired for around £50,000 a week, is described in Conde Nast Traveller as Tuscany’s ‘ultimate party place’.
It’s so fitting. Producers of the hit TV series Succession, about a mega-rich, feuding media family, have chosen to film in sumptuous Italian villa with a scandalous history – Villa Cetinale
This was the final episode of Succession’s current series, which will end tomorrow on Sky Atlantic.
Members of the super-rich Roy family fly from America, where their media empire is based, for the wedding of the ageing-but-ruthless boss’s former wife, Lady Caroline, to a dodgy Englishman.
Sadly there’s no mention of Villa Cetinale being Antony Lambton’s former home. Antony Lambton was Minister for the RAF in the Tory government.
When the husband of the woman, Norma Levy, attempted to sell the photographs to the News of the World, he was caught. With fellow Ministers fearful of another Profumo scandal, Lord Lambton quit and subsequently told TV interviewer Robin Day that he had used ‘whores for sex’ because ‘people sometimes like variety. It’s as simple as that’.
Pictured: Succession stars Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook
He also admitted the pressure of work made him seek out prostitutes and implied that ‘the futility’ of his job as a Minister was one of the reasons he had got up to mischief (‘idle hands’).
Villa Cetinale near Siena is loved by British royalty and aristocracy as well as models and rock stars. Prince Charles and Mick Jagger are part of the guestbook.
For the £50,000 rental – with a dedicated staff of chefs, cleaners and waiters to cater to your every need, apart from food and drink which are extra – you have access to 13 bedrooms, swimming pools, gardens, secret grottos, chapels and extensive woods.
Built in 1680, the villa was dedicated to Pope Alexander VII. According to the property’s website, its history has a dark side. The English traveller Joseph Forsyth wrote in 1800: ‘Cetinale owes its rise and celebrity to the remorse of an amorous cardinal who, to appease the ghost of a murdered rival, transformed a gloomy oak plantation into a penitential retreat, and acted there, all the austerities of an Egyptian hermit.’
CALL-GIRL Norma Levy (pictured below in bed with Lord Lambton)
Reaching the retreat requires going up 200 steps – the Santa Scala (Holy Stairs). According to legend, Pope Alexander VII instructed the cardinal on his knees to climb these steps.
Today, it’s owned by Lord Lambton’s 60-year-old son Edward (Ned) Lambton, the 7th Earl of Durham. In a band that was short-lived, the Frozen Turkeys were the Old Etonian’s lead singer.
Christabel, his first wife, later married Jools Holsen, TV presenter and musician. Catherine Fitzgerald, now with Dominic West, is Catherine Fitzgerald.
Lord Lambton originally approached his third wife, Marina, a model 22 years his junior, by sending her a Facebook message declaring: ‘I know I am way too old for you but I love you.’ They were married just over a year later.
Marina is the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge’s friend Rose, who is married to David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley.
NOTE: Former Lord Lambton outside of the luxury villa