Alice Ormsby-Gore

She was the youngest daughter of David Ormsby-Gore, M.P., and his first wife, Sylvia ('Sissy') Lloyd-Thomas (1920–1967).

Alice's siblings were Julian (1940–1974), Jane (b.1942), Victoria (b.1946), and Francis (1954–2016).

The Ormsby-Gore family were, by descent, an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family who once owned a large country estate in County Leitrim.

Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore (22 April 1952 – 5 April 1995) was a British aristocrat who was part of the fashion and arts counter-culture in London during the 1960s.

For about five years she was the romantic partner of guitarist Eric Clapton.

The couple were briefly subjected to media speculation about a possible marriage.

The Ormsby-Gore sisters had a passion for artistic and exotic clothes, and in the late 1960s they bought some of the Ballets Russes' vintage costumes at auctions.

By the mid-1960s, Ormsby-Gore's elder siblings had established themselves in what had become Swinging London.

From 1961 to 1965, Lord Harlech served as British Ambassador to the United States.

The Ormsby-Gores enjoyed a close social relationship with the President and First Lady during their time in Washington.

Alice played with some of the Kennedy children, including during visits to Robert F. Kennedy's home at Hickory Hill., and attended charity concerts at the White House, as on 19 November 1962.

The connection between the families continued long after the President's death.

The Washington Post published a picture of Alice and Francis on their bikes taken by staff photographer Douglas Chevalier: 'They are the Newest on the New Frontier ... When not taking lessons at the Embassy from their governess Elizabeth Shenton, they ride their bicycles, build miniature paper houses and gardens, or discuss farming at the family's country place Woodhill in Oswestry, Shropshire.' By February 1962 Alice was enrolled at the Stone Ridge Country Day school, a Catholic, independent school for girls at Bethesda, Maryland, about 30 minutes from the British Embassy.

David Ormsby-Gore succeeded as The 5th Baron Harlech in February 1964.

Jane Ormsby-Gore's partner Michael Rainey opened the boutique Hung on You in 1964 which moved to the Kings Road in 1966.

Julian and Jane signed with the English Boys model agency run by Sir Mark Palmer.

With her siblings Alice was involved in various charity projects.

For example, Alice was present at the dedication of the Kennedy memorial site at Runnymede, England on 14 May 1965.

Ormsby-Gore returned to the UK in 1965 with her parents, and had only just turned 15 when on 30 May 1967 her mother was killed in a car accident.

One such was called 'Circus Alpha Centauri' which mounted concerts in London at Christmas 1967 to raise money for deprived children.

One of the performers was the then unknown singer / guitarist Nick Drake, one of many musicians with whom the Ormsby-Gores had personal connections.

A year later Daily Mail columnist Charles Greville wrote that Victoria and Alice had started a company to 'generate peace and love between all races and creeds of this world ...

"Called Circus Alpha Centauri, the Ormsby girls, with several other friends and backers, have just taken over business premises in Ludgate Circus. 'We began the company a year ago,' says Alice who is 16, 'but after a period of inactivity we now have started again. The first thing we will do to raise money is to stage a festival of music in Lagos, Nigeria. We have already opened an office there and The Rolling Stones have said they'll perform. The whole idea is to bridge the great gap that exists between children who are rich and children that have nothing.'"

Her father was romantically linked with Jackie Kennedy in 1968.

The Ormsby-Gore family attracted the attention of the American media.

Early in 1968 she was reported as being in a London school and living with Lord Harlech's mother, the dowager Lady Harlech.

Time magazine reported on Friday, 12 April 1968, that Lord Harlech would be sending his "15-year-old daughter, Alice Ormsby Gore, to Manhattan's Dalton School for the coming spring term. Alice will stay at the East Side apartment of a family friend, John Hay Whitney, former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's."

This was probably her last period of formal education.

While in New York in 1968, Ormsby-Gore appeared in a film by Gerard Joseph Malanga.

A later New York Times article mentions this film: 'When Alice Ormsby-Gore shows up in town, it's usually an event.

When she was here in 1968 she got up at dawn so she and Looloo de la Falaise [1948–2011] could sweep down the steps leading to Bethesda Fountain in their long, flowing dresses while Andy Warhol's octagonal, prismatic lens recorded it all for his 20‐minute short, "pre‐Raphaelite Dream".

She was still in New York when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968.

She was joined there by her father, and on June 8 both were on board the famous RFK funeral train which drew hundreds of thousands of people to see it as it carried his body to Washington and burial at Arlington (Lord Harlech was a pallbearer).

This happened on the first anniversary of the death of her mother.

Ormsby-Gore returned to the UK sometime in the summer of 1968.

Jenny Boyd met Alice at the Chelsea Antique Market sometime shortly after Jenny's return from Rishikesh, India.

Greville wrote again about Ormsby-Gore's involvement with charitable work in 1970, contrasting her life with those of her elder sisters who are described as having moved into "hippy land", with some of their friends having been in court.

"She is working for a welfare organisation which, among other things, helps drug addicts back to a normal life. 'I'm not qualified to do anything really, so I thought I'd be a do-gooder,' she tells me. Her father is, she says, 'rather pleased that I'm doing something else besides learning to play the guitar.' At the moment she is working part-time for the organisation known as Release, but she tells me that she's 'hoping to do it full-time soon'. She first came into contact with this lot of 'do-gooders' when she was running a 'peace circus' ... 'I'm not very good at finances and we kept getting evicted from our offices,' she explained. 'Release helps young people who are being evicted and that's how I came to know about them.'"

She died of a heroin overdose in 1995.

Ormsby-Gore was born at her family's ancestral home, Brogyntyn Hall, in Shropshire, England.