Profumo affair
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Profumo Affair was a political scandal from 1963 in the United Kingdom that is named after the then-Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. The Profumo Affair developed after Profumo had a brief relationship with a showgirl named Christine Keeler and then lied in the House of Commons when he was questioned about it. The scandal forced Profumo to resign and severely damaged the reputation of Prime Minister Harold MacMillan's government. MacMillan himself would resign a few months later due to ill-health.
Dramatisations
There have been several dramatised versions of the Profumo affair. The 1989 film Scandal featured Ian McKellen as Profumo and John Hurt as Ward. It was favourably reviewed, but the revival of interest in the affair upset the Profumo family. The focus of Hugh Whitemore's play A Letter of Resignation, first staged at the Comedy Theatre in October 1997, was Macmillan's reactions to Profumo's resignation letter, which he received while on holiday in Scotland. Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Stephen Ward opened at London's Aldwych Theatre on 3 December 2013. Among generally favourable reviews, the Daily TelegraphTemplate:'s critic recommended the production as "sharp, funny – and, at times, genuinely touching". Robertson records that the script is "remarkably faithful to the facts".
See also
|title =The Profumo affair
- John Profumo
- Christine Keeler
- Stephen Ward
- Yevgeny Ivanov
- Johnny Edgecombe
- Lucky Gordon
- Mandy Rice-Davies
- Mariella Novotny
- Peter Rachman
- Harold Macmillan
- William, Lord Astor
- Tom, Lord Denning
- James Burge
- The Keeler Affair (1963)
- Scandal (1989)
- A Letter of Resignation (1997)
- A Model Girl (2007)
- Stephen Ward (2013)
- The Trial of Christine Keeler (2019)
