This Liverpudlian sex-swap pioneer was the first British person to be outed as a transsexual in 1961. Ashley endured electric shock treatment and painful surgery but this didn’t stop her becoming a successful fashion model who appeared in such titles as Vogue. A marriage to the Hon. Arthur Corbett was brief but alleged affairs with Michael Hutchene, Sir Peter O’Toole, Grayson Perry and Omar Sharif are well documented. A true wildcard, Ashley now spends her time campaigning for social equality and lives in Fulham.
Tag: lady
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April Ashley MBE (born Toni Jamieson)
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Virginia McKenna OBE
This British actress is best known for playing Joy Adamson in the true-life film Born Free alongside her real-life husband, Bill Travers (1957 – 1994). She’s also starred in the Ring of Bright Water, The Camomile Lawn and Swallows and Amazons but it is for her work as a wildlife campaigner that McKenna is best known. She co-founded the Born Free Foundation in 1991 with her husband and along with Ace Bourke and John Rendall helped release Christian, a lion who lived at World’s End in Chelsea, into the wild in Africa. His story has since become one of YouTube’s biggest hits. -
Kerry Katona
Some call her “Warrington’s finest export.” Others don’t. She tried to persuade mums to go to Iceland and in the process went bankrupt. This tragic former Atomic Kitten really should just be kept off our screens.