Alice Ormsby-Gore

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Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore
Born 22 April 1952
Died c. 17 April 1995
Bournemouth, Dorset, United Kingdom
Cause of death Heroin overdose
Nationality British
Other names Deirdre Stevenson (nickname)[1]
Partner Eric Clapton (fiance)
Parents William David Ormsby-Gore
Sylvia Thomas

The Honourable Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore (22 April 1952 - c. 17 April 1995) was a British socialite.

She was the youngest daughter of William David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech and his first wife Sylvia Thomas. A descendent of William the Conqueror and of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, she became engaged to guitarist Eric Clapton but never married. She died of a heroin overdose in 1995.

Contents

[edit] Teenage years

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."[2]

[edit] Eric Clapton

Later in 1968, Alice was to encounter guitar legend Eric Clapton. There is some speculation as to how they met. One account gives credit for the introduction to Ian Dallas in 1969 when Alice was 17[3]. However, Clapton in his autobiography gives the credit to interior designer David Mlinaric in 1968. Mlinaric was completing some work on Clapton's house, Hurtwood Edge, and had taken Alice along with him.[4]. David Mlinaric was part of a group of aristocratic hippies who hung out around London in the 1960's and was friends with Alice's siblings, Jane, Julian and Victoria Ormsby-Gore, the older children of Lord Harlech, who had been British ambassador to Washington during the Kennedy era.

The couple announced their engagement on 7 September 1969. In 1970 Alice moved into Hurtwood Edge with Clapton. Clapton had started using heroin quite heavily in an attempt to get over his continuing obsession with George Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd and Alice inevitably also became hooked on the drug. In his autobiography Clapton says “Alice came back to live with me, and she started using too”[4].

Time magazine reported their intention to marry on Monday, 16 March 1970[5]

“Rock Guitarist Eric Clapton, 25, son of a bricklayer, may soon marry Alice Ormsby Gore, 17, daughter of former British Ambassador to the U.S. Lord Harlech—with her father's blessing. "She has gone to see him in New York," said Harlech, "and if they want to get married it is entirely their own affair.”

The couple did not marry but stayed together for five years. Clapton maintains he was not in love with Alice but she was deeply in love with him. In Ray Coleman's book CLAPTON she says, “Maybe because I was only seventeen I wrongly thought of it as mutual. My extreme youth made any rational analysis of the situation impossible.”[6]

Clapton broke the engagement and ended their relationship for good after curing his heroin addiction with the help of Alice’s family.

[edit] Death of her brother

In 1974, aged 22, Alice found her elder brother, Julian Ormsby Gore (33), dead in his apartment from gunshot wounds, an apparent suicide.[7]

[edit] Final years

Alice’s father (William) David Ormsby-Gore died in a car accident in 1985, he was succeeded by Alice’s younger brother Francis Ormsby-Gore, 6th Baron Harlech

Alice died in poverty, found dead in a bedsit in Bournemouth, Dorset, having taken six times the fatal dose of heroin.[8]

The Independent (London) reported on 21 April 1995, the day before her 43rd birthday[9]

Lord Harlech's sister, Alice Ormsby Gore, 42, who was once engaged to the rock guitarist Eric Clapton, died after taking a drug overdose at her flat, an inquest in Bournemouth, Dorset, heard.

[edit] References

  1. ^ ThePeerage.com
  2. ^ Time magazine, 12 April 1968
  3. ^ Hittin' The Web with The Allman Brothers Band :: Where Music Plus Friends Equals Family
  4. ^ a b Times Online, "Loving Layla" by Eric Clapton, 30 September 2007
  5. ^ Time magazine, 16 March 1970
  6. ^ Slowhand Blues Guitar
  7. ^ Time magazine
  8. ^ FindArticles.com "Peer's sister overdosed on heroin", The Independent, 6 May 1995
  9. ^ FindArticles.com "Drug Overdose", The Independent, 21 April 1995

[edit] External links

[edit] Images

  • Getty Images, 7th September 1969: British singer and guitarist Eric Clapton of rock groups Blind Faith and Cream, with his fiancee Alice Ormsby-Gore, daughter of Lord Harlech.
Persondata
NAME Ormsby-Gore, Alice Magdalen Sarah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Daughter of 5th Baron Harlech, fiancee of Eric Clapton
DATE OF BIRTH 22 April 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH c. 17 April 1995
PLACE OF DEATH Bournemouth, Dorset, United Kingdom