LIKE the Beatles, the Chatterley trial and Carnaby Street, the Profumo Scandal was a landmark that defined the 1960s.

It was one of the political scandals of the age; and even the subsequent report of a judicial inquiry into the case was a bestseller.

The death of Mandy Rice-Davies, one of its key figures, has again put the affair under the spotlight.

John Profumo was Harold Macmillan's War Secretary when he embarked on a liaison with 19-year-old Christine Keeler, who was also, it turned out, involved with a Soviet attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov. Mr Profumo lied to the Commons when he denied that there was any impropriety in his association with Keeler; when he came clean and resigned, in June 1963, this newspaper described it as one of the most embarrassing and potentially damaging episodes in the life of Supermac's government.

Rice-Davies was Keeler's friend. When it was put to her, during the trial of the tragic Stephen Ward, that Lord Astor had denied having an affair with her, she retorted crisply: "He would, wouldn't he?" - a phrase that guaranteed her immortality of sorts.

In the verdict of The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century British Politics, the Profumo scandal marked a sea-change in attitudes towards secrecy about the private lives of public figures. Rice-Davies played her part in this and she cleverly used her celebrity to lasting effect.