THE HEADLESS MAN UNMASKED: After 50 years, PanAm boss is revealed as the partner in sex picture with the Duchess of Argyll that scandalised Sixties society

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• Shocking public scandal from 1963 was rivaled only by Profumo Affair
• Margaret had been the most famous and feted debutante of her age
• Husband the 11th Duke of Argyll claimed she had committed 88 adulteries
• Sex photo emerged after he broke into her house and stole diaries

With its heady mix of high  politics and low shenanigans, the Profumo Affair has become the yardstick by which our public scandals are measured.

Even today, there are two West End productions based on that memorable cast – Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies, the ill-fated Stephen Ward, and smooth Jack himself, the disgraced Minister  for War.

But the scandal that engulfed them was not the only episode to outrage the genteel sensibilities  of 1963, and it might never have played out with such explosive force but for the sensation that came immediately before.

For high-society connections and a heady brew of public shock and prurience, the case of the Duchess of Argyll and the so-called ‘headless man’ was Profumo’s equal.

Never before had a duchess been exposed on camera performing what was then coyly referred to as a ‘sex act’ and rarely, if ever, had such a photograph been produced in a divorce case.

Could it really be true, as claimed, that this noted beauty had entertained as many as 88 lovers?

Then there is the question that has remained for half a century, often conjectured at, but never correctly answered. Who was her lover, pictured without a stitch of clothing, yet with his head famously missing from the frame?

I have a particular interest in this first great scandal of ‘63, because the 11th Duke of Argyll and his beautiful wife Margaret were my parents- in-law (although Margaret, his third wife, should properly be described as my ‘stepmother- in-law’).

The mystery of The Headless Man distorted Margaret’s life while she was alive, and it threatens to distort her memory in death.

An opera about her, Thomas Ades’ Powder Her Face, has been included in the repertoire of the English National Opera and various American opera companies.

Because it is musically good, there is every indication it is here to stay. Margaret was by no means perfect, nor did she pretend to be.

But the person I knew bore little or no resemblance with the lady of loose morals who is now immortalised on stage in an obscene pose