Claire Foy will play Margaret, Duchess, of Argyll, in a Boxing Day drama. Those who were close to the true aristocrat revealed their secrets to society. Tatler How she looked’strikingly gorgeous’ with a “ghoulish” quality similar to Morticia Addams.
In 1993, the Duchess Of Argyll died at age 80. In their 1963 toxic divorce hearing that turned out to be the most expensive and longest of all the 20th-century, her husband, the 11th Duke Argyll, branded her a nymphomaniac (played here by Paul Bettany).
He said that she was a devoted wife to 88 people, which included Hollywood celebrities and cabinet ministers.
This trailer, which will air on BBC1 on Boxing Day, shows the shocking mix of sex and theft, forgery. Bribery, addiction, and explicit photographs that drew so many columns inches back then.
However, was the real world as scandalous and shocking as this series portrays? This is where insiders can share their stories about the real-life Duchess.
Claire Foy will play Margaret, Duchess, of Argyll, in a Boxing Day drama. Those who had known the true aristocrat revealed to Tatler that she was’strikingly gorgeous’ and had a ghoulish’ quality similar to Morticia Adams.
The programme comes from the team behind the BBC’s A Very English Scandal, which starred Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw as politician Jeremy Thorpe and his lover, Norman Scott – left: the Duchess of Argyll, right: Claire Foy as the Duchess
Margaret Campbell, Duchess Argyll (1912-1993) outside Strand’s law courts.
LADY COLIN CAPBELL: “She called me her most feisty.”riend’
Jamaican- British author Lady Colin Campbell, 72, was briefly married to Lord Colin Campbell – the son of Ian Campbell, who was married to Margaret.
Lady Colin is a writer of books on the royal family. Margaret refers to her as Margaret’s ‘daughter in-law’.
Lady Colin Campbell (Jamaican-British author) was 72 when she was briefly married by Lord Colin Campbell. He was the son Ian Campbell who was married with Margaret
“I was her best buddy.” My nickname was “sweetie” because she called me that every day. This supposed promiscuity – there’s no evidence for it. She was so fastidious that she wouldn’t want her hair mussed up,’ the author told Tatler.
“I Remember” [a mutual friend] who said that he’d never known her to be with a man who wouldn’t have recoiled at the sight of a naked female body. However, she had many romances with Bill Lyons (head of Pan Am). He’s the one that Margaret told me was in the Polaroid.’
NICHOLAS COLERIDGE: ‘She was like Morticia from the Addams Family’
Nicholas Coleridge, 64, is the Chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a former president of Condé Nast International – who own Vogue and Tatler.
Speaking to Tatler, the former journalist said the duchess was ‘terrifying to behold’.
Nicholas Coleridge, 64, is the Chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a former president of Condé Nast International – who own Vogue and Tatler
“Once beautiful with amazing cheekbones and imperious, pin-thin, she was also very tall. She had an almost ghoulish quality to her that reminded me of Morticia from The Addams Family.”
He added they first met when he was 21 in the late 1970s – and at the time Tatler was ‘rehabilitating her reputation by commissioning a social column of unparalleled drivel’ which he helped to edit.
Nicholas said that Nicholas would be seated ‘disconcertingly near’ her on the couch and that her hand would rest on her knee.
RODDY MATRINE: “Everyone was stunned by her.”
Roddy Martine (75) is a journalist and author. He said that once, he hosted a party at Edinburgh Festival and Margaret entered it like “the arrival of The Queen of Sheba”.
“All present were stunned by her dark, questioning eyes and dramatic long hair. It was her late seventies when she died, yet her instinctive elegance, style, and exceptional beauty have remained timeless.
He added that Margaret coolly inhaled her cigarette while she danced with ‘a prominent barrister, a prima ballerina, and The English Gentleman author, Douglas Sutherland’.
APRIL ASHLEY. ‘She wouldn’t have liked to see a film about herself’
April Ashley was a transgender model and had an extremely high-profile divorce case. They met every weekend at cocktail parties.
April Ashley (transgender model) was acquainted with the Duchess. She also had a high profile divorce case. They met every weekend at cocktail parties.
Tatler’s April stated that Margaret was a ‘delightful woman, very charmant, and very beautiful’.
She said that she could feel her sadness and melancholy.
‘Now they’ve made a film about her; I don’t think she’d have liked that,’ she went on.
ADAM HELLIKER
Former Daily Mail columnist Adam Helliker, 63, at London gentlemen’s club – the St James’ Club.
‘She was sitting on a sofa and beckoned me to sit – not at her side, but motioned with her hand that I should kneel at her feet.
‘I opened the conversation with: “Well, Your Grace, what’s the worst thing that’s ever been said about you?’”
Both of us knew full well I was referring to the “Headless Man” She expertly batted away my enquiry with the catch-all reply: “Well, some of the tittle-tattle is true, and some is not… let’s talk about something else, shall we?”
Adam Helliker (63), former columnist for Daily Mail, is at London’s gentlemen’s club, the St James Club
Tatler’s January Issue now on stand