Tuesday 5 July 2022 02:03 AM CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: April Ashley's life too risque for ... trends now
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The Extraordinary Life Of April Ashley
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Aids: The Unheard Tapes
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There has never been a more profligate name-dropper than April Ashley. The transgender model splashed celebrity names around like a Pools winner flinging £50 notes.
In one breath she could announce she'd met Einstein, Churchill, Dali, Picasso and the Queen. While that was sinking in, she might add that Elvis Presley was hopelessly besotted with her.
Elvis wasn't available for comment on The Extraordinary Life Of April Ashley (C4), but celebs queuing up to share anecdotes about her love of the high life included Zandra Rhodes, Simon Callow and Boy George.
Channel 4 produced a documentary about April Ashley, an English model who was outed as a transgender woman in the 1960s
A friend of April's sold her story to a newspaper who revealed she was born as George Jamieson in working-class Liverpool
Grayson Perry revealed that he dated her briefly in the 1980s. This documentary was crammed with more well-known faces than The Ivy on a Friday night. One conspicuous by his absence was former Labour deputy leader John Prescott, who met April in the 1950s when they worked together at a hotel in St Asaph, North Wales.
They remained lifelong friends. 'So handsome,' April liked to say, 'like a young Marlon Brando.'
April was a supermodel in Swinging London, beloved of Vogue and David Bailey, and one of the myriad lovers of Omar Sharif (those names just keep dropping).
When a Sunday newspaper revealed she was born George Jamieson in working-class Liverpool, and that she'd undergone gender reassignment surgery in
