[imagesource: Getty Images]

On our left in the image atop, is the Duchess of Argyll, Margaret Campbell.

She looks like a family woman, sitting alongside her husband, the Duke of  Argyll and children, but that’s only one picture.

Another, more salacious Polaroid released in 1963 proves quite the contrary.

Both of them, though, show her wearing her iconic three-string pearls, jewellery that she had inherited from her grandmother.

The pearls provided a dead giveaway that it was indeed the Duchess who was giving oral sex to a faceless man in the controversial Polaroid.

The photograph had been revealed by her then-husband, the 11th Duke of Argyll, as evidence of her adultery and sexual nature, reports The Telegraph.

The situation scandalised conservative British society, and the so-called ‘Dirty Duchess’ never fully restored her reputation after being branded a nymphomaniac by the Duke.

He had claimed then that she’d had 88 lovers over the course of their marriage, with a judge in the divorce proceedings adding that the Duchess had a “sex perversion”.

The judge also called her “a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men”.

The titillating tale is coming to a small screen near you, as the BBC is making it into a drama series titled  A Very British Scandal, following on from A Very English Scandal, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Wishaw:

The series focuses on the acrimonious divorce that rocked the aristocracy and delighted the tabloids with its salacious details.

Claire Foy is taking on the role of Margaret Campbell, and Paul Bettany is playing her vengeful husband in a show that will air on the BBC early next year.

This is Foy as the Duchess, pearls included, of course:

Campbell’s life was always a bit topsy-turvy, long before this sex scandal made her husbandless and penniless.

She suffered neglect from her mother, as well as a teen pregnancy that could have ruined her long before she became an eligible debutante.

She was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful young women in the UK at the time, and her sexual adventures became the stuff of great gossip.

It is rumoured that she bedded some of the most powerful men in Britain, including the married Duke of Kent and the film star Cary Grant:

During this time, Campbell was courted by American investment bankers and art dealers – and memorably wrote that she learnt that it was key “to go to bed early and often” in a relationship.

But none of her liaisons stuck until she met Ian Douglas Campbell, the 11th Duke of Argyll, who was allegedly ‘bewitched’ by her and – according to some of the harsher critics of their union – the money she brought to the marriage.

It was this Duke that saw to her ruin:

Cracks in this life of leisure, however, quickly began to appear. Famed for her charisma, beauty and style, the Duchess began spending time in London and New York without her husband and entertaining men including comedian Bob Hope and French singer Maurice Chevalier.

Allegedly, she once invited a 17-year-old boy into Inveraray Castle for a bath and a drink, and then took off her clothes and climbed in with him.

Thereafter, the Duke, who allegedly referred to her as “S” for Satan, looked for proof of her adultery and proceeded to divorce her, leaving her to fend for herself.

Thus, the controversial Polaroid was unearthed, alongside another one with her standing naked (bar the pearl necklace) next to a man:

In the court proceedings, Duncan Sandys, then Secretary of State for the Colonies and Winston Churchill’s son-in-law, was named as the man receiving oral sex, while film star Douglas Fairbanks Jr was named as the other man.

Both denied it, and the Duchess, who died penniless in 1993, never made their identity public.

Anyway, she certainly has main character energy, and the BBC drama series is sure to be fascinating.

[source:telegraph]