Valerie Mewes
Valerie Mewes (2 August 1931[1] – 9 January 1955) was an English model and celebrity, better known by the name Vicki Martin.
Biography[edit]
Stephen Ward, who was to become one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, claims to have met Mewes in a doorway in Oxford Street during a thunderstorm at night.[2] Ward produced many female protégés, and it is said that Mewes was the prototype for these.[3]
Mewes was best friends with Ruth Ellis,[4] the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom. The pair had both worked at Murray's Club in Soho, where Stephen Ward later met Christine Keeler.[5]
In 1952, Mewes appeared, playing the part of a model in the film It Started in Paradise.[6] The actress, Kay Kendall, who was a friend of Ward's, also appeared in the film.[7]
In 1953, Mewes gained notoriety as a result of her relationship with Jagaddipendra Narayan, the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, and in 1955, by the manner of her untimely death.[8] It was said that she died driving back to London from an all-night party at Maidenhead to keep an early photo call,[9] however, the true facts remained unclear.[10]
The car in which Mewes died was being driven by the writer Terence Robertson,[11] author of a number of books, including 'The Golden Horseshoe'. Robertson took his own life in January 1970.[12]
External links[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ GRO, September 1931, 3A 46
- ^ Charlton, W. (1963). Stephen Ward Speaks, Conversations with Warwick Charlton
- ^ Summers, A., & Dorril, S. (1988). Honeytrap, The Scandal
- ^ Knightley, P., & Kennedy, C. (1987). An Affair of State: The Profumo Case and the Framing of Stephen Ward
- ^ Charlton, W. (1963). Stephen Ward Speaks, Conversations with Warwick Charlton
- ^ Jakubait, M (2005). My Sister's Secret Life
- ^ Jakubait, M (2005). My Sister's Secret Life
- ^ The Daily Mirror, Monday, 10 January 1955
- ^ Sutherland, D. (1988). Portrait of a Decade, London Life 1945–1955
- ^ Chicago Daily Tribune, Monday, 17 January 1955
- ^ The Daily Mirror, Thursday, 9 March 1955
- ^ Newman, P. (1979). King of the Castle, The Making of a Dynasty: Seagram's and the Bronfman Empire