Christine Keeler

Christine Keeler (born 1942) is the model and showgirl whose involvement with a government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963. She left home at the age of sixteen and worked in London as a cabaret performer. Along with her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, she came under the influence of Dr Stephen Ward, who brought her into contact with the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. Profumo entered into an affair with Keeler, not suspecting that she had also been introduced to a Russian diplomat by Ward, who apparently hoped for some personal gain as a result. She was briefly imprisoned for her part in what was effectively a prostitution ring; Ward committed suicide before he could be convicted.