About Me
THIS IS -NOT- THE REAL MANDY RICE-DAVIES. IT IS A PAGE OF INTEREST.
Play to hear Mandy's song:
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(AKA Marilyn Rice-Davies/currently Marilyn Foreman)
For two years in the early sixties Mandy Rice-Davies, the girl with the bit-part in the Profumo Affair, lived at 1 Bryanston Mews West in Marylebone not far from the Edgware Road. It was owned by the infamous slum landlord Peter Rachman and featured a two-way mirror and a tape-recorder under the bed.Rice-Davies initially came down to London from her family home in Sollihull in 1960. Although just sixteen she was Miss Austin for the launch of the new mini at the Earl's Court Motor show. She was impressed with the glamorous receptions and parties that went with the week of modeling and soon decided to move to London permanently. She found herself a job as a showgirl at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho, an intimate club for 110 guests with deep-red carpets and gilt furniture. It was a place where topless showgirls mingled with gangsters, celebrities and royals - it was said that Princess Margaret was a member.
It was at Murray's that that Mandy met Christine Keeler, one of the protagonists of the Profumo affair - ‘It was dislike at first sight,’ Rice-Davies recalled, and the feeling was mutual. However they both found themselves at the same parties and the two became close friends, working well together and seemingly complimenting each other - Rice-Davies was shrewd and had a head for money, Keeler did not and was generally disorganized. They also worked well in the bedroom, bringing them money for expensive clothes and lifestyles.
It was Christine Keeler who introduced her to Stephen Ward, the well-connected osteopath and pimp and it was through him, and the orgiastic parties he organized, that she met many powerful politicians including Viscount Astor - a member of MacMillan's Government in the early sixties. These characters became the major players in probably the greatest, well the most fun anyway, political scandal of the 20th century - the Profumo Affair.
(Christine Keeler)
Rice-Davies, ironically, never actually met John Profumo
although she will always be connected to the scandal because of her brilliant,
withering and pithy riposte to the prosecution council -
"He would, wouldn't he?"
when told at Stephen Ward's court case that Viscount Astor denied
ever having slept with her or even having ever met her. This brazen riposte perfectly summed up the public's perception that the Establishment was riddled with hidden scandal and hypocrisy. At the end of the trial Stephen Ward couldn't prove that Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler's rent hadn't come from the proceedings of prostitution and he was was convicted on two counts. On bail, Ward killed himself on the last day of the trial before hearing the inevitable verdict.
Mandy Rice-Davies had been the mistress of Peter Rachman a man now so infamous that his name is included in English dictionaries - 'the exploitation and intimidation of tenants by unscrupulous landlords.' Mandy was introduced to Rachman by Stephen Ward (they had been partners in a failed topless coffeebar venture) soon after she had arrived in London, and although their affair began on a professional basis it apparently turned into a pretty genuine relationship. Christine Keeler described them as "well matched, they had a material happiness together."
Unlike his other girls the 17 year old Mandy accompanied him on visits to the theater, opera and even Wimbledon and also hostessing his gambling sessions attended by aristocrats and gangsters. Rachman, by all accounts, was a pretty unpleasant man and looked, not unlike, an Ian Fleming villain. He was short and fat, with very tiny hands and feet, no neck and a head that looked like a football. He also had a fetish about hygiene insisting that all his silverware be sterilized and untouched by human hands.
Rachman became ill toward the end of 1962 and on November 29 died at Edgware General Hospital with his wife Audrey at his bedside after a second heart attack. It was assumed by everyone who knew him that he would be very rich, but after the creditors had picked the bones of his estate it was valued at a mere £8000. His property empire was just an elaborate juggling act and with his death the balls all came tumbling down. Even his Rolls Royce was on HP with installments overdue.
Mandy Rice-Davies had just returned from Paris and although she had recently finished her affair with Rachman, immediately fainted when told of his death by Stephen Ward. When she came round the first thing she said was "Did he leave a will?"
Rachman's infamy, it could be said, came by chance when his name was connected to the the Profumo Affair. He was already dead from the heart attack when the scandal had reached its peak and by the time he died Rachman had practically extricated himself from his slum empire. Even the rent tribunals with their horrific evidence had remained unreported in the press.
If he had chosen any other girl than Mandy Rice-Davies as a mistress, subsequently letting her live in his Marylebone mews flat from where she and Christine often operated, the chances are his name today, other than mentions in obscure housing-law, would be completely unknown.
Unlike Christine Keeler, who never really recovered from the notoriety the Profumo Scandal accorded her, Rice-Davies revelled in the publicity, eventually marrying an Israeli businessman, Rafi Shauli. She went on to open a string of successful nightclubs in Tel Aviv called Mandy's, Mandy's Candies and Mandy's Singing Bamboo. Rice-Davies also sang on a few unsuccessful pop singles for the Ember label in the mid-'60s.
With an obvious way for words, she once commented,
"My life has been one long descent into respectability."
