Book Review

Reviewed by Tracie O'Keefe

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

The First Lady

by April Ashley with Douglas Thompson
Published by John Blake Publishing, London, 2006
I.S.B.N.1844542319

April Ashley was one of the world's most beautiful women of the 20th century. She was also one the most notorious. Born George Jamieson, the son of a British Liverpudlian sailor, she grew up to work in probably the most famous trannie revue nightclub, Le Caroussel in Paris, in the 1950s and early 1960s. At twenty-five she flew to Dr. Burouís clinic in Casablanca to have her sex-change operation, as she called it, then to go on to become a champagne-drinking, jet-setting Vogue model and marry into the British aristocracy.

In this, her second autobiography, she tells all: names, places, dates and particularly her litany of sexual conquests. If only people had known she was keeping a diary all those years. John Lennon fondly referred to her as the "The Fucking Duchess", and Paul McCartney allegedly used a few other less endearing terms when she refused to sleep with him. The film stars Omar Sherif and Peter O'Toole shared her between their beds in Spain apparently on the same night.

Michael Hutchence, the Australian rock star, was also among her lovers, she says. Amanda Lear, the multimillionaire European pop star, entertainer and ex-mistress of the artist Salvador Dali, has always denied she was transsexual, but April's book shows a picture of them eating spaghetti together as touring members of the troupe from Le Caroussel.

April became most famous during her divorce from her aristocratic husband when the court decreed she was not actually female because she was transsexual, annulling their marriage and leaving her penniless.

The humiliation and fame practically destroyed her, eventually costing her health, and she lived for some years in abject poverty and seclusion.

This landmark decision by Judge Ormrod in England trapped a whole generation of transsexuals into the legal black hole of not being able to get their sex recognised and this situation lasted more than thirty-five years until the 2004 British Gender Recognition Bill.

This book, however, is not just a kiss and tell, it is a historical document of the life of someone who survived a relentless total onslaught by the gutter press. She tells how at the height of her fame, being internationally recognised, she was often assaulted in the street by perfect strangers who felt they had a right to strike what they perceived to be the Devil's spawn. The problem was, when you looked like April everyone knew your face and even in her 70s she is still instantly recognisable.

She was and is undoubtedly an inspiration for a whole generation of transsexual people who chose life over suicide because they learnt about April Ashley. She has refused to go down with the ship, no matter how hard she was kicked overboard or was pushed violently into the sea of life. April will be remembered as one of our gender heroines who was a torchbearer for those who came after her. Oh, and by the way - the book really is a riveting and excellent read.

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