Lady Edith Foxwell
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Lady Edith Foxwell (who died in 1996) was a colorful eccentric known as "The Queen of London Cafe Society" in the 1970s and early 1980s, when she ran London's famous Embassy Club, where celebrities mixed with the aristocracy.
She was born Lady Edith Sybil Lambart on 11 June 1918, the daughter of Captain Hon. Lionel John Olive Lambart and Adelaide Douglas Randolph. In 1940 she married the film producer Ivan Cottam Foxwell, among whose movies was The Colditz Story.
In her role as a producer's wife she began meeting many celebrities and showed the forcefulness of her personality when she locked the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in a room for five days, forcing him to remain sober long enough to complete a film script that her husband was producing. She also used to lunch regularly with Noel Coward when he was in London.
She was one of the few members of London society who remained close friends with Margaret, Duchess of Argyll after the "headless man" scandal which, combined with the Profumo Affair, threatened to topple the Government of the day.
In the 1970s she began running the Embassy Club in Mayfair, which attracted many celebrities - including Marvin Gaye, who was a frequent guest at Sherston, Edith's Wiltshire estate. Sherston became notorious for its sex and drugs parties with a mixture of showbiz celebrities and members of the aristocracy.
As the Mail Online reported (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-439739/Queen-Hippies.html) Lady Edith's neighbors included Roddy Llewellyn (Princess Margaret's boyfriend in the 1970s) who lived in a commune whose members and guests frequently used Lady Edith's swimming pool for nude swimming.
Lady Edith divorced Ivan Foxwell in 1976, after bearing him two daughters, Zia and Atalanta.
In the last two years before she died in March, 1996, she was active in trying to promote the musical works of the novelist and composer Bernard J. Taylor.
References
- [http: //www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ article-439739/Queen-Hippies.html Daily Mail: Queen of the Hippies]
- The Peerage
- Malmesbury Memories
- International Movie Database: Ivan Foxwell
- Bernard J. Taylor website
- Book: Marvin Gaye, My Brother
- Marvin Gaye website