The mother of the Academy Award winning film director Anthony Minghella CBE (1954 – 2008) was a matriarch who lived by the philosophy: “You put in what you can, no matter how little that...
This outspoken bon vivant was Rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1998 to 2004. One half of the “Two Fat Ladies”, Dickson Wright was known as “Krakatoa” because of her fiery temper and...
This Lincolnshire lout will only ever be known for filming himself having sex with his ex-girlfriend Amber Hicking’s Staffordshire bull terrier. He was handed a four month jail sentence suspended for two years, placed...
Considered the “largest living mammal on the planet” at the time and owned by Sparks Circus, Mary was a 5-tonne elephant who could play 25 tunes on the horns without missing a note. When...
This stunning actress has been known to have both lunch and dinner at La Brasserie in South Kensington on the same day and is best known for playing Barbara Good in The Good Life....
This personable art dealer is president of Galerie Dumonteil and a jetsetter who travels between galleries in Paris, New York and Shanghai. In London annually for Masterpiece, Laverdin is a host par excellence and...
This award winning Guyanese-British hair stylist has had his own salon in Motcomb Street since 1998 and began his career in an East End salon at the age of eleven. Douglas’s clients are said...
This Lancastrian steeplejack and television personality was gentle, outspoken and self-taught. A father of five and thrice married, Dibnah described himself as “just a bum who climbs chimneys” and once stated: “If you make...
Late at night, the Kings Road and Sloane Square are the haunts of this eccentric singer of sorts. She favours the outside seating at Colbert but doesn’t venture indoors and rather likes Chelsea Fire...
This “straight talking” cardiologist told Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that “it was much more fun to be mafioso and naughty” than being “prudent” but it’s for her pioneering work...
A self-proclaimed “Domestic Goddess”, Lawson was rebranded a “habitual criminal” during the trial of her two former assistants in November 2013. In an email quoted during the case, her ex-husband, Charles Saatchi, nicknamed her...
This innovative American firecracker has partnered with Zandra Rhodes and founded her first company whilst at university. Another of Reno’s ventures, Lulu’s Estate Jewellery, launched in October 2013, was backed by two former bankers...
Banned from South Africa and known for his “notoroious drug use, alcoholism and promiscuity”, this comedian is nothing but controversial. Brand has more followers than Stephen Fry on Twitter and signed a £1.8 million...
The “original supermodel” looks just as good in reality as she does in photographs and was born in DeKalb, Illinois. Her marriage to the actor Richard Gere was shortlived but a union with bar...
This composer, conductor and pianist’s life revolved around alliteration: Britten’s siblings were Barbara, Beth and Bob and his professional and personal partner was Peter Pears; his Simple Symphony included the Boisterous Bourrée, the Playful...
He’s played everyone from Robin Carrow in BBC Radio 4’s Ambridge Extra to Dr Karl Crabb in BBC One’s Ripper Street. “One of Britain’s leading classical actors”, Birmingham born Lesser has also starred in...
Hampstead based and a barrister by profession, Oxford educated Lady Bloch is the daughter of suspected murderer Lord Lucan. Asked how she’d describe her father to her son, Bloch told The Scotsman: “I’ll tell...
Best known for his Horrible Histories series, Deary has sold over 25 million books in over 40 languages but was described by David Starkey as a “parasite”. This Sunderland born butcher’s son is the...
Her husband may have been minor as Prime Minister but she is definitely a star. She put up with John Major’s dalliances with Edwina Currie and “kept a low profile” whilst her husband ran...
A property heir turned film director. Czernin is a scion of the de Walden £2.4 billion property dynasty but is better known as the producer of In Brgues and Piccadilly Jim. A friend of...
This legendary San Franciscan owned the city’s oldest bar, Tosca Cafe, from 1980 until 2013. She loved the regulars as much as the stars and though some describe Etheredge as “curmudgeonly”, this “grand dame”...
This New York based graduate of the University of Texas has worked with GQ and Cameron Silver, Inc. Bradshaw likes whiskey, beer and Zac Efron and had a pet cow named Angus as a...
This Scottish producer’s life was immortalised in the 2013 crowdfunded film, The Last Impresario. Jewish and educated at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, White moved from being a Wall Street runner in the 1950s to...
This cookery writer morphed into Britain’s favourite baker as the judge of BBC Two’s The Great British Bake Off and in the process amassed a fortune of some £15 million. Buckinghamshire based and married...
This Chicago born novelist, short story writer and essayist explored deep themes through his own personal experiences of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia and transcendental experiences. Married five times, Dick published 44 novels and 121...
This Harrow educated eccentric, Santa Claus lookalike and playboy had two Austin FX4 Hackney carriages converted to his own specifications and considered the best number for a dinner party to be two (himself and...
This voice actor provided the voice for Apple’s Siri and First National Bank’s Tillie the All Time Teller. She lives in suburban Atlanta, Georgia and finds hearing herself “creepy”.
A talented lady with a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When the founder of The Steeple Times first encountered her, Wickstead was a little known fashion designer who...
“The most important Irish poet since Yeats”, Heaney’s books accounted for two thirds of the sales of all living poets in the UK during his final years. The recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize...
The co-founder of the Scissor Sisters was born in Mesa, Arizona and decided he wanted to marry Christopher Reeve when he was four. Shears, who doesn’t especially like wearing shirts, himself suggests he’s “not...
This heiress daughter of a Montana “robber baron” mining and railroad tycoon was a hence unseen recluse from 1930 until her death in 2011 following a painful divorce from the son of one of...
An aristocratic actress, Chancellor is the daughter of the Hon. Mary Alice Jolliffe, a great-great-granddaughter of Herbert Asquith and a second cousin, once removed of Helena Bonham Carter. Born in Richmond, London, this star...
