Aimi MacDonald has claimed the Stonehouse scandal impacted her career (Picture: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
Decades after being wrapped up in the John Stonehouse scandal, 1970s TV star Aimi MacDonald has said that her own career was derailed by what unfolded.
Back in 1974 the Labor Cabinet minister faked his own death and then fled to Australia after being wrapped up in plenty of complex dealings.
Aside from embarking on an extra marital affair with his secretary, Sheila Buckley, he also acted as a spy for the Czech Secret Service in the 1960s and also deliberately stole the identity of a recently deceased constituent to start his new life.
But while he met up with and later married his mistress after fleeing, she dragged Aimi into the messy affair when naming her as another one of the politician’s lovers – a claim the actress has always denied.
Now, as the scandal is set to screen on TV in a new mini-series which stars Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes, Aimi has spoken out about the sordid affair and how it changed her life.
Born in Glasgow, Aimi was a popular fixture on British TV in the 1970s, most notably alongside John Cleese and Graham Chapman on At Last the 1948 Show.
Keeley Hawes and Matthew Macfadyen play Barbara and John Stonehouse in the series (Picture: ITV)
But she became embroiled in the scandal when Sheila wrongly accused her of being another of Stonehouse’s mistresses.
Aimi, 80, has now said that it had a detrimental impact on her career, but she would be tuning into the series to see how it retells the scandal.
‘I will certainly be watching the series to see how authentic it is,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘I don’t think the Stonehouse thing did me any favours. I was upset about it. Somehow, I managed to get mixed up in all that sort of horror.
‘Suddenly, I went from Mrs Family Entertainer to The Scarlet Woman.’
British politician John Stonehouse faked his own death in 1974 (Picture: Trevor Humphries/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Sheila Buckley was the former secretary and mistress of the politician (Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
At the time that she was accused of being one of the ‘other women’, Aimi was living in Ascot with racehorse owner Geoffrey Edwards, a friend of Stonehouse’s.
She has claimed the politician made moves, but she had no interest.
‘I didn’t even fancy John. He was a terrible flirt, and I remember him trying to play footsie with me under a dinner table, and I was thinking: “If Geoffrey could see what you’re doing, you’d be dead”,’ she said.
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‘He was terrified of Geoffrey, who had a 12-bore shotgun.’
Following the scandal, Aimi went on to appear in the sex comedy Keep It Up Downstairs in 1976, as well as the James Bond spoof No. 1 of the Secret Service the following year.
She later appeared in several stage roles, and continued to appear occasionally on the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute.
However it doesn’t appear that her story will play a part in the series, with her name not being featured in any of the cast lists.
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But the three-part series will tell the story of how Stonehouse faked his own death and ran away with his mistress, before being arrested in Australia a month later, where he was living under a false name.
Matthew has said that what happened was ‘the stuff of legends’ and he had always ‘been intrigued by what motivated him to fake his own death, and leave behind the family he loved and doted upon and a promising political career’.
Stonehouse airs on Monday January 2 at 9pm on ITV1.
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‘I don’t think it did me any favours’.
