DORIS DELEVINGNE, VISCOUNTESS CASTLEROSSE HAS RANDOLPH CHURCHILL and WINSTON TOO?

From the article by Lyndsy Spence

...  Randolph, too fell under her spell and they began an affair. ‘I hear you’re living with my wife,’ Castlerosse bellowed down the telephone not long after they were married. ‘Yes, I am,’ answered the younger Churchill, ‘which is more than you have the courtesy to do.’ 

It appears that there is some evidence that Winston was not just having Doris come over to sit while he painted her.

THE GUARDIAN : SECRET AFFAIR - WINSTON CHURCHILL and DORIS DELEVINGNE  Good photos add to this article!  A documentary in 2018 included the information that yes, Churchill had succumbed and had an affair with Doris.

EXCERPT : Churchill spent four holidays with Castlerosse ... in the south of France during the 1930's when he was out of office.  During this time Churchill painted at least two portraits of his lover - he only ever painted one of his wife, Clementine 0 and they continued to meet at her home back in London. ... "My mother had many stories to tell about (the affair) when they stayed in my aunt's house in Berkeley Square," Doris's niece =, Caroline Delvingne, recalls in the Delevingne family's first televised interview about the affair.  "When Winston was coming to visit her, the staff were all given the day off. ... But when war threatened and Churchill's career revived, he ended the relationship.

According to this article, Doris went to America, New York, where she was not able to continue her lifestyle.  She was not that old, in 1942 when the War came, she was desperate to get back to England and is said to have used one of Churchill's paintings to remind him of their affair.  He arranged a rare seat on a plane to get her there.

Love letters that Doris wrote to Winston surfaced in the 1950's and were shown to Clementine.

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PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL HARRIMAN - MISTRESS TO PRINCE ALI SALMAN AGA KHAN

This month we continue our focus on Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman which began last month.  Digby was her maiden name. Churchill was her first married name which she kept; the name of her son by Randolph Churchill was named Winston after his grandfather. Harriman was her surname for her last, third marriage. Called The Courtesan of the 20th Century, this month we begin on her 20 year career as a Kept Woman.  Pamela proves to us that you can make the most of yourself and even become an important player in politics.  You can go from a not so terrific start to a very terrific finish.

In June of 1947, Pamela was in Paris when she met a man who some called an International Playboy, Aga Khan. (Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan had as a mistress the model Bettina when he died. Bettina Graziani, born Simon Micheline Bodine, was our Mistress of the Month for June 2015.) Aga was popular in English society. His mother was Italian and he was born in Italy. He was educated in England.
He had many conquests that included the wives of his friends.  He traveled constantly and seemed to have endless energy.  He was generous when it came to travel and accommodations to his friends though not with money or presents.  

In July of 1947 Aga and Pamela were known to be lovers.  The rumors were strong that he loved to give pleasure to women while holding back himself, that he liked to drive them crazy with passion for him. Pamela had the energy to keep up with this man. He afforded her travel on his private plane. She visited his house on the Riviera.  (See Mistresses of the Riviera, month of August 2018.)

Maybe Pamela Churchill was only a part of his harem, but her relationship with Aga Khan allowed her to mix with International society, where she continued to learn to be a social sophisticate and catered to powerful and monied men, while keeping herself open to the idea of an eventual husband.

Their relationship didn't work out. But Pamela stuck around after things cooled between them. It became a classic Pamela Churchill move.  She didn't take his big hint that it was over.  He even left her at one of his houses and didn't come back.  But also classic of Pamela was that they remained good friends.  And because she waited where she could meet more men, she did.  Gianni Agnelli.


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Primary reference for these posts is Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory.

PAMELA DIGBY HARRIMAN - an AFFAIR WITH JOHN HAY "JOCK" WHITNEY then EDWARD R. MURROW

In London in the summer of 1942, Pamela, now supported by Averell Harriman who was gone to American, set her sights on John Hay "Jock" Whitney, who was a Captain in the American army.  He had many thousands to spend every month and a fortune as an heir to another American fortune.

Different views of this relationship have been stated. That it wasn't serious or that she would have married him.  But if the relationship went nowhere, she was on to the next, Edward R. Murrow, a famous broadcaster working for CBS Radio, 35 years to her 23, and married.  This was a serious affair for both of them.



This is one of many YouTube videos of Murrow broadcasting during World War II.

Pamela's divorce from Randolph Churchill was filed on December 18, 1945 on grounds of three years of desertion! But when Murrow's wife got pregnant and his boss, William Paley, sat him down and told him not to ruin his life and marry Pamela, Murrow had to reconsider. Murrow's child was born on November 6, 1945 and that was the end of the affair.

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Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory is the primary reference for this post.

PAMELA and LITTLE WINSTON - HER ONLY CHILD

Pamela Churchill and son Winston Churchill II

Life Magazine, January 27, 1941.

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL and WILLIAM AVERELL HARRIMAN - FIRST and LAST GREAT LOVE?!

William Averell Harriman, an American, grew up in privilege and had money. He was a man who married and married and married - but seemed never to have happiness.  His affair with the married Pamela Digby Churchill probably began at the Dorchester Hotel in London during a bombing raid by the Germans during World War II. Nothing like the fear of loosing your life to make you live life to the fullest.

He had a history of wrong marriages and affairs and mistresses. 

The man had a 2nd marriage with Kitty Lawrence who was ill with TB and not compatible.  He had mistresses and there were rumors of affairs.  Then in 1928 another woman, Marie Norton Whitney was his conquest.  She became his third wife in February of 1930.  She was 26 and he was 38.

Pamela was still married to Randolph unhappily.

Ave was much older than Pamela and not much to look at.  Like her husband Randolph he appeared older than his years.  But Harriman was worth multi millions and he was a courtly and debonair man if not in the best physical shape. Women liked him.

By 1941 he and his wife Marie were no longer intimate and so she didn't blame him for his affairs. 

In fact they were both having affairs.  Pamela even befriended his daughter Kathleen, who was about her age, while having an affair with him.

Pamela's reunion with Randolph, who asked for another chance, did not go well.  They both realized their marriage had been a mistake. She went over to tell her father in law, Winston, that she was getting a divorce.  He understood.

Pamela had volunteered with the Women's Voluntary Services (WVS) as many houswifed did and served as a guide to visiting American dignitaries.  (put in previous post)

page 103  "PAMELA WAS A DOER, NOT A THINKER OR A RECORDER."

Though the affair had to end between she and Harriman, there was Lord Beaverbrook as an intermediary who arranged financial support for Pamela.  Randolph was not much of a financial support for her and his son. He spent his money wildly leaving them in debt.  Harriman secretly picked up the costs of her apartment by depositing money in Beaverbrook's accounts which then made it to pay the rent. The man actually forgot he was doing so perhaps because he had too many millions to keep accounting of and did so for three decades (check fact.  Sometimes it went past due but the Lord would give him a nudge.  She was also given a nice  yearly allowance.  Harriman did well by her...  with a little nudging.

At 22, she had the name, the son - heir, and a good relationship with her father in law Winston Churchill.  She was done with the husband and was supported financially, even as Harriman left town and went back to his life in America.

Years would pass, the allowance and rent continuing, but later in life Pamela and Ave would marry. 

*****

As I read these passages of Sally Bedell Smith's book, I had to wonder.  I had learned that Lord Beaverbrook had many house parties that Pamela had attended.  Why was he so willing to be an intermediary?  Harriman was an American.  Did he need to be told how to treat this young British woman who he had an affair with?  Could there have been a hint of blackmail or pay back involved?

PLAIN OLD PAMELA DIGBY and THE DEBUTANTE YEARS - MARRIAGE TO RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

"Reflected Glory" by Sally Bedell Smith is the primary reference for posts.

Pamela Digby was born into the peerage of Great Britain, but she spent 20 years of her life as a courtesan - mistress -  a kept woman.  She was feminine, flirtatious, and maternal to men and made them - and her select women friends - feel special.  Wives worried about their husbands around her.  She changed her man and her life many times but she loved to be surrounded by powerful people. She was highly criticized and judged from her earliest days as a society girl but if she knew it she pretended not to or didn't let it get her down.  She was a "bad girl" and yet to her funeral came those with prestige and power.

Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill of World War II fame, asked her to marry him the first date they had, an arranged date, and had asked many women before who turned him down.  She said yes and was married to him before he went off to war. She quickly became pregnant and bore him a son - an heir, named Winston. He would be her only child.

Pamela's family had an old title and prestige if not money.  Her education was not substantial.  They couldn't afford the best schools for her.  But they sent her to France to board with a family that took in girls like her and showed them around to absorb the culture.  Who knew that in her later years she would become the United States Ambassador to France after having lived as a mistress in that country.

At the age of 17 her education had ended. She was "finished."  But she went to the Coronation of King George VI, who took over the throne when his brother The King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to be married to Wallis Simpson.  Who knew that someday she and Wallis, who was a good 20 years older than she, would become good friends.

Pamela Digby made her debut in front of the Queen in 1938, wearing clothes that were not much compared to most of her more wealthy peers, clothing that embarrassed her.  But she still attended a marathon of parties, races, and entertainments designed to show off aristocratic girls ready to marry and breed with wealthy young men. More than 1000 girls debuted that year and most of them left the city and went back home to the country to wait on marriage proposals. The others stayed in the city.  Maybe a hundred girls were considered popular. Not Pam. That same year Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy and her sister Rosemary, daughters of Joseph Kennedy, the United States Ambassador to Britain, and father of the future American President John F. Kennedy, called her dumpy.  As it turned out, she and Kick would have an enduring friendship.

Pamela's father won a substantial amount of money at the horse races that allowed him to afford her a Jaguar car, if not the ability to give her a fancy dress ball like other girls. He rented a place in Mayfair, London, to put her in the right neighborhood. But she was taken under wing by her mother, who never failed to have confidence in her, and some of her mother's friends. One, Olive Baille, invited her to house parties where she had famous Hollywood stars on the guest list. Clearly she had something going for her.

Pamela did get an inheritance that would have allowed her to be independent, so long as she budgeted, but she wanted more. Fulke Warwick (ie. of Warwick Castle fame) may have been her first lover. But she claimed only a dinner while he dined out on stories of being sexual with her. Debutantes were thought to be virgins. Most of them were chaperoned.

And so she went through a second season, 1939, as did many girls still in need of a husband.  She went to a pre-war ball at Blenheim Palace - the home of Winston Churchill's family - that was given by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough for Lady Sara Spencer - Churchill. (Are the names sounding familiar?)  But she was set up on a blind date with Randolph Churchill.

On October 4, 1939 they married.  The smiling bride wore a coat with a fur collar, not the typical white wedding dress, while the smiling groom wore his military uniform. She now had the Churchill name, so respected, and would carry it all her life. Randolph, by many accounts, was obnoxious and probably alcoholic. By January 1940 she was pregnant. He was in the Fourth Hussars. She had to live alone and went from one friend's accommodations to another.  (I know, you're wondering what about the Palace?)  They were totally incompatible and unhappy but then people thought Randolph as difficult. She was 20.  He was 29.  Like many wives, Pamela got involved in the war effort and became something of a tour guide, guiding American officers in London. Her ability to organize and plan large and small events would be useful in all her relationships.

By the time Randolph returned after almost a year away, Pamela acted excited and happy to see him and introduced them to their son, Winston, for the first time. But she had already met and had an affair with another man who would figure in her life, William Averell Harriman. 

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THE DEBUTANTE WHO COAXED HER BEAUTY

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL

18 June 1938 Coming of Age cover 

Tatler Magazine

source Wikipedia