Christine Keeler Chair

The iconic Christine Keeler pose

The famous picture was taken at Lewis Morleys studio at The Establishment on Greek Street studio, London, sometime in the middle of May in 1963, at the height of the press frenzy.

Nicholas Luard part owner of the Establishment club and Dominic Elwes who was a friend of Stephen Ward’s with John Nasht wanted to make a film “The Keeler Affair” They had convinced Christine to be the star and needed some publicity shots to raise the money for the film at Cannes.

Nicholas directed Christine’s team to Lewis Morley to take the pictures as he had a studio in the building so he was hired for the job.

At the shoot Christine was told it had been agreed she would be nude, but she protested, so the room was cleared, she would sit behind a chair and hitch up her knickers, it would appear nude. A few days later the picture appeared in the The Sunday Pictorial (later to becomes the Sunday Mirror) and Christine presumed the producers had leaked it.

Lewis told a different story, the room was cleared and Christine posed nude, soon after he developed the photos, he had this one on his desk, He had a visitor who saw the picture and thought is was great, and Lewis gave him a copy, maybe even thinking the film wouldn’t be made. This visitor then runs off round the corner and sells the photo to to the newspaper.