A naked man is seen standing in an art deco restroom, with his head visible. Only his buttocks and the top of his muscular thighs are visible from the frame. He is completely covered by flashbulbs that reflect off mirrors.
The infamous photograph of the “headless man” was scandalized in 1960s Britain. It is also the basis for a BBC drama featuring Claire Foy that aired last Wednesday. The man in the picture has never been identified, but the glamorous woman before him – engaged in what has always delicately been described as ‘a sex act’ – saw her reputation left in tatters.
Despite Margaret the Duchess was lying, Margaret the Duchess of Argyll was evicted by her pearl necklace, her large ring on her third finger and her severe-parted hairstyle.
She was publicly shamed when the explicit black-and-white Polaroid image – one of a series of five – was submitted to the courts by her husband, the Duke of Argyll, as part of the most sensational divorce trial of the age.
Despite Margaret, Duchess Of Argyll’s denials (pictured), Margaret was given away by her pearl necklace, her large ring on her third finger and her severe-parted hairstyle.
Although none of these photographs were ever published, even their most factual descriptions made news around the globe. Lord Wheatley was quick to call Margaret ‘completely sexual’ and a ‘wholly immoral’ judge.
The revelations shocked the public as well. It was the first glimpse of the private and sinister lives of one the most wealthy families in the country.
The Duchess’ story and the shocking downfall of Margaret has been shown on BBC television nearly thirty years since her death.
The writer, Sarah Phelps, has claimed that Margaret was not – as has been asserted by others – a sexually-voracious harridan who deserved her public shaming, but was in fact an early victim of ‘revenge porn’ at the hands of the manipulative Duke.
Scenes with the headless man and Duchess are recreated. The naked love interest of the Duchess is shown gasping for pleasure while holding her camera in the other hand so that she can take photos in the mirror.
Nearly 30 years after her death, the story of the Duchess and her sensational downfall has been dramatised on screen in the BBC’s A Very British Scandal, which features Claire Foy (pictured) as Margaret and aims to paint her in a different light
But it, like most other analyses of the scandal, has failed to establish the true identity of the man in the image – or why it remains such an enduring mystery.
When she was 80 years old, the Duchess took the details to her grave. It is believed that the photograph was taken in 1956. However, it seems almost certain that the man is now deceased.
Was the Duchess really the greatest confidante? Are there other things to be concerned about than protecting reputation?
Some intriguing possibilities exist involving American politics, American interests, and Hollywood stars. Many names have been swirling for decades.
The vengeful Duke, Ian Campbell had 88 suspects. This list was compiled using the dinner guest lists of the Duchess.
He was the one who stole Margaret’s 1959 diaries and the stash of compromising photos, hidden behind a desk in the flat at the Duchess on Mayfair’s Upper Grosvenor Street. This was exactly the evidence that he required to convince the judge of his divorce.
The images had to be destroyed. However, The Mail conducted an investigation on Sunday, 1999. A source who owned the photo, reached out to The Mail. One of the suspects was a Lehman Bros Banker.
The images had to be destroyed. However, The Mail conducted an investigation on Sunday, 1999. A source who owned the photograph, reached out to The Mail.
The image was then shown to a reporter along with the court papers that appeared to confirm it. The image was not printed and the reporter rejected it.
Four additional images showing a naked man on a bed, in an apparent state of arousal were included in the court records. These photos were also provided to court.
Although his head appears out of frame once again, he seems young and strong.
Below the photos, captions in blackcaps are written in handwriting and read: ‘Before, During, Oh! The captions below the photos are in blackcapitals and read “Before”, “During”, and “Oh!”
The man complained that he was unable to reach her. He also said that he understood that she had been sick and that he sent them the photos as a reminder of the time they were apart.
The image was then shown to a reporter along with the court papers that appeared to confirm it. It was decided not to print it, as the graphic content is too disturbing to be published in family newspapers. Pictured is Douglas Fairbanks Jr., an American actor and one of the suspects in the “headless man” case.
However, the court could not confirm his identity or determine if he was the same person featured in each of these images.
However, the Duke was persuaded. He had whittled down his list to just one man – Sigismund von Braun. A married German diplomat, Sigismund von Braun, was said to have had an affair with the Duchess around the same moment that photographs were taken.
As their marriage was in ruins, the Duchess left Inveraray castle, their ancestral home in Argyll to move into her London apartment.
The single letter ‘B’ was often found in diaries, which were assumed to be code for Braun by the Duke. Margaret invited Hildegard to Inveraray once with the German. He made it a point that Margaret spend most of her time by herself, taking long walks with him.
He was once an associate of the Nazi party but resigned and then assisted in the Nuremberg trials.
Wernher von Braun, his brother, was the one who invented the V-2 Rocket, which Germany used so effectively during WWII.
Sigismund did not deny having an affair with Margaret – although Margaret insisted it ended in 1951, before she met the Duke, and before the picture was taken. No further evidence has been found and there is no proof to support the suspicions of the Duke.
Another name in the frame is William H Lyons – known as Bill, another ‘B’ – a scion of a wealthy American family and sales director for Pan American Airways. It is believed that this was directly from the horse’s mouth. Lady Colin Campbell who married Lord Colin Campbell of Duke of Argyll, said that Margaret claimed it was Bill from the photographs and that the whole family knew about this.
‘To those of us who were close to her, it was hardly a surprise – Bill was her lover, after all,’ Lady Campbell has written.
They were married for six years. Margaret called Bill her “third husband” despite the fact that Bill was also married.
Lady Colin claims they travelled together everywhere as a couple, attending parties, premieres and the ballet and theatre – but that he eventually returned to his Portuguese wife. This would have been possible if it wasn’t for the timing of their relationship. Margaret is said to have first met Bill in 1961 – and Ian found the photographs two years beforehand.
William Lyons from Pan American Airline, also pictured in 1969.
It’s either Bill or Margaret, who was hiding the full extent of their relationship. Margaret wrote in her memoirs that Bill was “the one man” she thought Bill might have named during the divorce, but never mentioned it.
In a biography of the Duchess, the writer Lyndsy Spence wonders whether the Duke did not, in fact, know about the affair with Bill – and that Margaret, keen to maintain some control, did not want him to find out. Certainly, as an American, Bill would have had access to Polaroid cameras – they were made available in the US in 1948, and were extremely rare in the UK.
Polaroid cameras were so rare in Britain, that one friend of the Duchess boasted that only one camera had been used when she took the photos.
This facts changes the direction of the “headless man” investigation. For the new technology had been loaned to the Ministry of Defence, pointing the finger towards not just the government but the Churchill family – and Margaret’s affair with Duncan Sandys, Churchill’s son-in-law and then-Minister of Defence.
Sigismund von Braun was another man who was included on a potential list for headless men photos.
Sandys confessed to a Cabinet meeting that he was rumoured to be the man in the images – although he denied it was true – and offered to resign in the ensuing scandal. Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister, dissuaded Sandys by asking Lord Denning to examine the Profumo scandal and the identity of his headless lover.
John Major was eventually presented with the documents in 1993. Major decided that the documents should be kept secret for another 70 years, although many reasons remain unclear. They will be kept in Kew’s National Archive until at least 2063.
Was there anything they could uncover that would have such a negative impact? The Channel 4 documentary looked at information that was publically available regarding Dennings’s 2000 investigation. It concluded, intriguingly, that the five images were of two separate men – one in the ‘headless man’ image, and the other four, which had handwritten notes on them, of another man entirely.
After a Harley Street doctor verified that Sandy’s pubic hair was not in line with the others, Sandys was thrown out of all four. On television, the Duke is the person being ruled-out.
They were eventually sealed into a file and presented to John Major (pictured in 1993).
Others claim that Sandys’ injuries during World War II rendered him ineligible. He served in active duty until 1941. In 1942, he was severely injured by a car accident. They had caused him significant scarring after he was operated on. Even though the image appears blurry, there is no obvious scarring.
Denning simply focused his attention on the remaining four images, and in particular the handwriting.
Five key suspects were Sandys, Sigismund Von Braun, US businessman John Cohane and Peter Combe. He also had an ex-press officer at Savoy Hotel, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., as well as the American actor Douglas Fairbanks. Only Peter Combe has denied romantic involvement in Margaret’s affairs.
Denning brought all five of them to the Treasury, asking for their assistance in an ‘incredibly delicate matter’. Each one was asked to sign the register of visitors and then had their handwriting analyzed.
According to the documentary, the results were conclusive.
But another mistress, Christine Keeler – who was involved in the other sex scandal of the age when she had an affair with Cabinet Minister John Profumo – later said she was certain it was Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the photos
Peter Jay was a journalist and a young Treasury officer. He said to the program: “The headless man identified as the handwriting specialist and thus identified by Lord Denning though he did not write it down in his report was actually Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Fairbanks was the Prisoner-of-Zenda star and went on to be a decorated US Naval Officer in the Second World War. He always denied appearing in any photographs and threatened to sue anyone who claimed otherwise.
But another mistress, Christine Keeler – who was involved in the other sex scandal of the age when she had an affair with Cabinet Minister John Profumo – later said she was certain it was him.
This tale has a twist. It was not known at the time that Margaret had shared explicit photographs with her lover, whom she wanted to marry.
Following the dissolution of her marriage with Charles Sweeny (the golfer/stockbroker Charles Sweeny), she briefly got engaged to Joe Thomas in Texas. Joe was a partner in Lehman Brothers.
Margaret married Charles Sweeny in 1947 after her second marriage ended. She was a golfer and stockbroker. Margaret then became briefly engaged to Joe Thomas (a Lehman Brothers senior partner). Pictured are Margaret and Charles Sweeny at their 1935 wedding.
Lyndsy’s account says that Margaret bought a Polaroid in New York when the camera was still new. They then made a number of nude photos in different rooms in Margaret’s Mayfair apartment.
Margaret saved a couple of prints and donated two to Thomas. Margaret was said be devastated and embarrassed when Thomas wed Poppi de Salis, a Swiss socialite.
While the photos would have been kept secret, Thomas’s 12-year old son Michael discovered them in his father’s office.
Michael shared his thoughts with Spence about 2018’s biography. My father was the other. The two were described in today’s delicate terms as “full frontal,” leaving nothing to imagination.
This begs the question, were these images of Margaret and Joe Thomas that the Duke found? Is it Thomas or Margaret’s experiments with Thomas that inspired her interest in erotica photography?
The truth is still not clear, just like the black and white images.
Another possibility exists. Another possibility is that Margaret may not have been able to recall the identity of the headless man if she had taken explicit photos and was as fond as her husband thought.
Another possibility exists. Another possibility is that Margaret may not have been able to recall the identity of the man she thought was headless, if she had taken explicit photos and loved as many men as her husband believed. Photographed by Margaret Sweeny and Charles Sweeny