Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll
Encyclopedia
Margaret, sometime Duchess of Argyll
(born Ethel Margaret Whigham, 1 December 1912 – 25 July 1993), was a notorious British
Socialite
, best remembered for her 1963 divorce case against her second husband, the 11th Duke of Argyll, which featured salacious photographs and scandalous stories.
millionaire who was chairman of the Celanese Corporation of Britain and North America. She spent the first 14 years of her life in New York City
, where she was educated privately. Her beauty was much spoken of, and she had youthful romances with playboy Prince Aly Khan
, millionaire aviator Glen Kidston
, car salesman Baron Martin Stillman von Brabus
, and publishing heir Max Aitken
. In 1930, she was presented at Court in London
and was known as deb (or debutante
) of that year. Shortly afterwards, she announced her engagement to Charles Guy Fulke Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick. However, the wedding did not take place, for her head had been turned by Charles Sweeny, an American
amateur golfer, and she decided that she was not sufficiently in love with Lord Warwick.
wedding dress, that the traffic in Knightsbridge was blocked for three hours. For the rest of her life, she was associated with glamour and elegance, being a firm client of both Hartnell
and Victor Stiebel
in London before and after the war. She had three children With Charles Sweeny: a daughter, who was stillborn at eight months in late 1933; another daughter, Frances Helen (born 1937, she married Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland
), and a son, Brian Charles (born 1940). The Sweenys divorced in 1947.
In 1943, Margaret Sweeny had a near fatal fall down an elevator
shaft while visiting her chiropodist on Bond Street
. "I fell forty feet to the bottom of the lift shaft," she later recalled. "The only thing that saved me was the lift cable, which broke my fall. I must have clutched at it, for it was later found that all my finger nails were torn off. I apparently fell on to my knees and cracked the back of my head against the wall." After her recovery, Sweeny's friends noted that not only had she lost all sense of taste and smell due to nerve damage, she also had become sexually voracious. As she once reportedly said, "Go to bed early and often." Given her numerous earlier romantic escapades, including an affair with the married George, Duke of Kent in her youth, this may have been a change in degree rather than basic predisposition.
, but he fell in love with another woman and the engagement was broken. She also had a serious romantic relationship with Theodore Rousseau, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
who was, she recalled "highly intelligent, witty and self-confident to the point of arrogance." That romance also ended without the couple formalising their liaison, since the mother of two "feared that Ted was not 'stepfather material.'" Still, she noted in her memoirs, "[W]e continued to see each other constantly." She also allegedly had an affair with Joseph Slatton, who was married to Jacqueline Kennedy's cousin. This affair occurred during a time when Slatton had access to the White House
and led to his resignation from his Washington post in 1962.
(She was not mentioned in the original version of the song. P. G. Wodehouse
anglicised it for the British version of Anything Goes
, changing two lines from "You’re an O’Neill drama / You’re Whistler’s mama!" to "You’re Mussolini / You’re Mrs Sweeny")
photographs of the Duchess nude save for her signature three-strand pearl
necklace. There were also photographs of the bepearled Duchess fellating
a naked man whose face was not shown. It was speculated that the "headless man" was Duncan Sandys
, the Minister of Defence, who offered to resign from the cabinet. (Duncan Sandys, later Lord Duncan-Sandys, was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill
.) This claim has been repeated since.
Also introduced to the court was a list of as many as eighty-eight men the Duke believed had enjoyed his wife's favours; the list is said to include two government ministers and three royals. The judge commented that the Duchess had indulged in "disgusting sexual activities". Lord Denning
was called upon by the government to track down the "headless man". He compared the handwriting of the five leading "suspects" (Duncan-Sandys; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
; John Cohane, an American businessman; Peter Combe, a former press officer at the Savoy Hotel
; and Sigismund von Braun, brother of the German
scientist Wernher von Braun
) with the captions written on the photographs. It is claimed that this analysis proved that the man in question was Fairbanks, then long married to his second wife, but this was not made public.
Granting the divorce, Lord Wheatley, the presiding judge, said the evidence established that the Duchess of Argyll "was a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men." The duchess never revealed the identity of the "headless man," and Fairbanks denied the allegation to his grave.
Long afterward, it was claimed that there were actually two "headless men" in the photographs, Fairbanks and Sandys — the latter identified on the basis of the Duchess's statement that the "only Polaroid camera in the country at that time had been lent to the Ministry of Defence
." As for the Duke of Argyll, he remarried in 1963, for the fourth time, to an American, Mathilda Coster Mortimer Heller, and died of a stroke in 1973, aged 69.
In her youth, Margaret's father had told Rosie d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, a close friend of hers, that he feared for what his high-living only child would do once she had her entire inheritance. Consequently, Whigham blocked his daughter's access to the principal of her inheritance through various protective legal prohibitions. However, after his death, Margaret's lawyers successfully voided most of the safeguards. In 1978, her debts forced Margaret to move from her house to a hotel suite with her maid. Shortly before her death, she found herself unable to pay the hotel bills, and her children placed her in a nursing home in Pimlico
, London. Here she was photographed by Tatler
magazine, for whom she had previously been a columnist, sitting on the edge of her bed in a grim single room.
In April 1988, on the evening after the Grand National
, she appeared on a Channel 4
After Dark discussion about horseracing "so she said, to put the point of view of the horse", later walking out of the programme "because she was so very sleepy".
Margaret, sometime Duchess of Argyll, died in penury in 1993 after a bad fall in the nursing home where she spent her last years. She was buried alongside her first husband, Charles Sweeny, in Brookwood Cemetery
in Woking, Surrey.
, a chamber opera about the Duchess's last days, was composed by Thomas Adès
, with a libretto by Philip Hensher
, for the Almeida Opera in 1995. It received its premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival
. The opera has gained some notoriety, as it musically depicts a voracious fellatio
scene which is all but graphically portrayed by the actors. Its most arresting scene, however, remains that in which insanity is hinted at during her trial, expressively composed not for musical instruments, but rather the sound of several fishing-reels slowly turning.
Duke of Argyll
Duke of Argyll is a title, created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1701 and in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1892. The Earls, Marquesses, and Dukes of Argyll were for several centuries among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, noble family in Scotland...
(born Ethel Margaret Whigham, 1 December 1912 – 25 July 1993), was a notorious British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
, best remembered for her 1963 divorce case against her second husband, the 11th Duke of Argyll, which featured salacious photographs and scandalous stories.
Birth and youth
Margaret was the only child of Helen Mann Hannay and George Hay Whigham, a ScottishScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
millionaire who was chairman of the Celanese Corporation of Britain and North America. She spent the first 14 years of her life in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where she was educated privately. Her beauty was much spoken of, and she had youthful romances with playboy Prince Aly Khan
Prince Aly Khan
Prince Ali Solomone Aga Khan , known as Aly Khan was a son of Aga Khan III, the head of the Ismaili Muslims, and the father of Aga Khan IV. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth...
, millionaire aviator Glen Kidston
Glen Kidston
George Pearson Glen Kidston was a record-breaking aviator and motor racing driver from Britain. He was a member of the well known Bentley Boys of the late 1920s, and possibly the wealthiest of that already wealthy set. His father, A.G. Kidston, was a grandson of the original A.G...
, car salesman Baron Martin Stillman von Brabus
BRABUS
Brabus, founded 1977 in Bottrop , Germany , is a high-performance aftermarket tuning company which specializes in Mercedes-Benz, Smart and Maybach vehicles....
, and publishing heir Max Aitken
Sir Max Aitken, 2nd Baronet
Sir John William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 2nd Baronet, DSO, DFC , formerly 2nd Baron Beaverbrook, was a British Conservative politician and press baron, the son of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook....
. In 1930, she was presented at Court in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and was known as deb (or debutante
Debutante
A débutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached the age of maturity, and as a new adult, is introduced to society at a formal "début" presentation. It should not be confused with a Debs...
) of that year. Shortly afterwards, she announced her engagement to Charles Guy Fulke Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick. However, the wedding did not take place, for her head had been turned by Charles Sweeny, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
amateur golfer, and she decided that she was not sufficiently in love with Lord Warwick.
First marriage
On 21 February 1933, and after converting to his Roman Catholic faith, Margaret married Charles Sweeny at the Brompton Oratory, London. Such had been the publicity surrounding her Norman HartnellNorman Hartnell
Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell, KCVO was a British fashion designer. Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to HM The Queen 1940, subsequently Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother...
wedding dress, that the traffic in Knightsbridge was blocked for three hours. For the rest of her life, she was associated with glamour and elegance, being a firm client of both Hartnell
Hartnell
Hartnell is a surname, and may refer to* Andy Hartnell, a comic book writer.* Bryan Hartnell, a victim of the Zodiac Killer.* Norman Hartnell, an English fashion designer.* Scott Hartnell, a Canadian professional ice hockey player....
and Victor Stiebel
Victor Stiebel
Victor Frank Stiebel was a South African-born British couturier.Born in Durban he arrived in Britain in 1924 to study architecture at Jesus College, Cambridge. Having designed for theatre wardrobe at university, he worked as a dress designer for the House of Reville for three years beginning in...
in London before and after the war. She had three children With Charles Sweeny: a daughter, who was stillborn at eight months in late 1933; another daughter, Frances Helen (born 1937, she married Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland
Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland
Charles John Robert Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland was the son of John Manners, 9th Duke of Rutland.He married, firstly, Anne Bairstow Cumming Bell, on 27 April 1946 and they were divorced in 1956. They had one child:...
), and a son, Brian Charles (born 1940). The Sweenys divorced in 1947.
In 1943, Margaret Sweeny had a near fatal fall down an elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
shaft while visiting her chiropodist on Bond Street
Bond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
. "I fell forty feet to the bottom of the lift shaft," she later recalled. "The only thing that saved me was the lift cable, which broke my fall. I must have clutched at it, for it was later found that all my finger nails were torn off. I apparently fell on to my knees and cracked the back of my head against the wall." After her recovery, Sweeny's friends noted that not only had she lost all sense of taste and smell due to nerve damage, she also had become sexually voracious. As she once reportedly said, "Go to bed early and often." Given her numerous earlier romantic escapades, including an affair with the married George, Duke of Kent in her youth, this may have been a change in degree rather than basic predisposition.
Intermarital romances
After the end of her first marriage, Margaret was briefly engaged to a Texas-born banker, Joseph Thomas, of Lehman BrothersLehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth largest investment bank in the USA , doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (former NYSE ticker...
, but he fell in love with another woman and the engagement was broken. She also had a serious romantic relationship with Theodore Rousseau, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
who was, she recalled "highly intelligent, witty and self-confident to the point of arrogance." That romance also ended without the couple formalising their liaison, since the mother of two "feared that Ted was not 'stepfather material.'" Still, she noted in her memoirs, "[W]e continued to see each other constantly." She also allegedly had an affair with Joseph Slatton, who was married to Jacqueline Kennedy's cousin. This affair occurred during a time when Slatton had access to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
and led to his resignation from his Washington post in 1962.
Second marriage
On 22 March 1951, Margaret became the third wife of Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. She wrote later in life -(She was not mentioned in the original version of the song. P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
anglicised it for the British version of Anything Goes
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
, changing two lines from "You’re an O’Neill drama / You’re Whistler’s mama!" to "You’re Mussolini / You’re Mrs Sweeny")
Divorce from the Duke of Argyll
The evidence in the 1963 divorce case in which the Duke of Argyll accused his wife of infidelity included a set of PolaroidInstant film
Instant film is a type of photographic film first introduced by Polaroid that is designed to be used in an instant camera...
photographs of the Duchess nude save for her signature three-strand pearl
Pearl
A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...
necklace. There were also photographs of the bepearled Duchess fellating
Fellatio
Fellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...
a naked man whose face was not shown. It was speculated that the "headless man" was Duncan Sandys
Duncan Sandys
Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys CH PC was a British politician and a minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s...
, the Minister of Defence, who offered to resign from the cabinet. (Duncan Sandys, later Lord Duncan-Sandys, was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
.) This claim has been repeated since.
Also introduced to the court was a list of as many as eighty-eight men the Duke believed had enjoyed his wife's favours; the list is said to include two government ministers and three royals. The judge commented that the Duchess had indulged in "disgusting sexual activities". Lord Denning
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning
Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning, OM, PC, DL, KC , commonly known as Lord Denning, was a British soldier, mathematician, lawyer and judge. He gained degrees in mathematics and law at Oxford University, although his studies were disrupted by his service in the First World War...
was called upon by the government to track down the "headless man". He compared the handwriting of the five leading "suspects" (Duncan-Sandys; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
; John Cohane, an American businessman; Peter Combe, a former press officer at the Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
; and Sigismund von Braun, brother of the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
scientist Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
) with the captions written on the photographs. It is claimed that this analysis proved that the man in question was Fairbanks, then long married to his second wife, but this was not made public.
Granting the divorce, Lord Wheatley, the presiding judge, said the evidence established that the Duchess of Argyll "was a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men." The duchess never revealed the identity of the "headless man," and Fairbanks denied the allegation to his grave.
Long afterward, it was claimed that there were actually two "headless men" in the photographs, Fairbanks and Sandys — the latter identified on the basis of the Duchess's statement that the "only Polaroid camera in the country at that time had been lent to the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
." As for the Duke of Argyll, he remarried in 1963, for the fourth time, to an American, Mathilda Coster Mortimer Heller, and died of a stroke in 1973, aged 69.
Final years
Margaret wrote a memoir, Forget Not, which was published by W. H. Allen Ltd in 1975 and negatively reviewed for its name dropping and air of entitlement. She also lent her name as author to a guide to entertaining. Her fortune diminished, however, and she eventually opened her London house — 48 Upper Grosvenor Street, which had been decorated for her parents in 1935 by Syrie Maugham — for paid tours. Even so, her extravagant lifestyle and ill-considered investments left her largely penniless by the time she died.In her youth, Margaret's father had told Rosie d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, a close friend of hers, that he feared for what his high-living only child would do once she had her entire inheritance. Consequently, Whigham blocked his daughter's access to the principal of her inheritance through various protective legal prohibitions. However, after his death, Margaret's lawyers successfully voided most of the safeguards. In 1978, her debts forced Margaret to move from her house to a hotel suite with her maid. Shortly before her death, she found herself unable to pay the hotel bills, and her children placed her in a nursing home in Pimlico
Pimlico
Pimlico is a small area of central London in the City of Westminster. Like Belgravia, to which it was built as a southern extension, Pimlico is known for its grand garden squares and impressive Regency architecture....
, London. Here she was photographed by Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
magazine, for whom she had previously been a columnist, sitting on the edge of her bed in a grim single room.
Grand National
The Grand National is a world-famous National Hunt horse race which is held annually at Aintree Racecourse, near Liverpool, England. It is a handicap chase run over a distance of four miles and 856 yards , with horses jumping thirty fences over two circuits of Aintree's National Course...
, she appeared on a Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
After Dark discussion about horseracing "so she said, to put the point of view of the horse", later walking out of the programme "because she was so very sleepy".
Margaret, sometime Duchess of Argyll, died in penury in 1993 after a bad fall in the nursing home where she spent her last years. She was buried alongside her first husband, Charles Sweeny, in Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in western Europe.-History:...
in Woking, Surrey.
Personality
She once told the New York Times, "I don't think anybody has real style or class any more. Everyone's gotten old and fat." More to the point, she described herself as "always vain." Another quote gives an insight into her personality: "Always a poodle, only a poodle! That, and three strands of pearls!" she said. "Together they are absolutely the essential things in life."Inspiration for modern opera
Powder Her FacePowder Her Face
Powder Her Face is a chamber opera in two acts, Op. 14 by the British composer Thomas Adès , with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 2 hours 20 minutes long...
, a chamber opera about the Duchess's last days, was composed by Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
, with a libretto by Philip Hensher
Philip Hensher
Philip Michael Hensher FRSL is an English novelist, critic and journalist.Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School. He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending...
, for the Almeida Opera in 1995. It received its premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival
Cheltenham Music Festival
The Cheltenham Music Festival is one of the oldest music festivals in Britain, held annually in Cheltenham in June/July since 1945. The festival is renowned for premieres of contemporary music, hosting over 250 music premieres as of July 2004....
. The opera has gained some notoriety, as it musically depicts a voracious fellatio
Fellatio
Fellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...
scene which is all but graphically portrayed by the actors. Its most arresting scene, however, remains that in which insanity is hinted at during her trial, expressively composed not for musical instruments, but rather the sound of several fishing-reels slowly turning.
External links
- (Ethel) Margaret Campbell (née Whigham), Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993), 3rd wife of Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll Sitter associated with 19 portraits
- Remember Mrs. Sweeny?