Lady Edith Foxwell

Lady Edith Foxwell (1918-1996) 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 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. After her uncle, Horace Lambert, inherited the earldom of Cavan, she was granted the rank of a daughter of an earl by Royal Warrant of Precedence in 1947.

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 John Profumo affair involving Christine Keeler, threatened to topple the Government of the day. In the 1970s she began running the Embassy Club in Mayfair, which was London's first modern New York-style nightclub and which attracted many celebrities - including Marvin Gaye, who was a frequent guest at Sherston, Lady Edith's Wiltshire estate. Sherston became notorious for its sex and drugs parties with a mixture of show business celebrities and members of the aristocracy. She and Marvin Gaye had an affair before Gaye was shot dead by his father. The story of their affair was told by writer Stan Hey in the April 2004 issue of GQ. The report quoted writer/composer Bernard J. Taylor as saying he was told by Foxwell that she and Gaye had discussed marriage before his death.

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.

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References

* [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-439739/Queen-Hippies.html Daily Mail: Queen of the Hippies]
* [http://www.thepeerage.com/p20996.htm The Peerage]
* [http://www.davidforward.co.uk/carnival/index.php Malmesbury Memories]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289334/bio International Movie Database: Ivan Foxwell]
* [http://www.bernardjtaylor.com/PDFandMOVs/Gibb%20interview.pdf Bernard J. Taylor website]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=BxFgf1T-5WIC&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=Lady+Edith+Foxwell&source=web&ots=zGvQyAqV0A&sig=XA42TOqoU_z7lGqKnyM__gf3lDI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result Book: Marvin Gaye, My Brother]
* [http://the60sofficialsite.com/Marvin_Gaye.html Marvin Gaye website]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=-R9LTlPKXJsC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Lady+Edith+Foxwell&source=web&ots=TcpGJZST6V&sig=-*qgzbSlHUlveagNQitF0Lq2gUrY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA143,M1 Sam Spiegel: The Incredible Life and Times]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_19970615/ai_n14462287 Sunday Mirror Confidential]
* [http://djsportal.com/en/articles/index.php?id=the_night From Disco to Disco]