Christopher Reindorp assures us that the Charteris sisters, Laura and Ann, were great beauties though the photos in his biography, Never Shaken, Never Stirred, don’t seem to bear this out. But they were both catnip to men – Laura in particular was described as “sex on legs”, though she later told her daughter that “sex means no more to me than cleaning my teeth”. Ann was born in 1913, Laura in 1915; their father was the second son of the Earl of Wemyss, and their mother was a Tennant (ie rich). But she died in 1925 and the children were mainly brought up by their paternal grandparents at Stanway House, Gloucester. Ann was sent to Cheltenham Ladies’ College but loathed it and left after one term; Laura had no education at all.
Ann married Shane O’Neill, the heir to Shane’s Castle in Northern Ireland, when she was 19, and had two children. Laura married Viscount Long, and had a daughter, Sara, while still 18. But the marriage was not a success – everyone agreed she and the 22-year-old viscount were just “children colliding”. Randolph Churchill came wooing – “I love you! I love you!” – but Laura fell for the widowed Earl of Dudley and married him as soon as her divorce came through. She took “to the role of Countess like a duck to water,” Reindrop writes. But when war was declared, she decided to get serious, trained as a nurse and turned Himley Hall into a Red Cross hospital.
While Shane was away fighting, Ann was being pursued by Viscount Rothermere and Ian Fleming, but when Shane was killed it was Rothermere who proposed, and installed her in his vast Warwick House in St James’s, where she became a famous hostess. Fleming was demoted to “Lady Rothermere’s fan” and concentrated on building his house in Jamaica, Goldeneye. But his affair with Ann continued, much enhanced by their mutual love of sadomasochism – in one of his letters he promises “ten on each buttock”. Rothermere eventually told Ann to give up Fleming or he would divorce her. He was shocked to the core when she chose divorce with a £100,000 settlement. He didn’t remarry for another 14 years and forbade his newspaper, the Daily Mail, from ever mentioning James Bond.
When Ann opted to become Mrs Ian Fleming instead of Countess Rothermere she was giving up a great deal because Fleming had no private income, only his salary as foreign manager of Kelmsley Newspapers. But as soon as they married in Jamaica in 1952 he sat down to write Casino Royale, the first of the 12 James Bond novels. Ann always despised them and called them “pornography for the masses” but Ian presciently assured her, “We’ll retire on the proceeds.” The marriage was sealed when they had a son, Caspar, whom they both adored.
Laura meanwhile was having a difficult time with Eric Dudley, who was drinking a lot and becoming a foul-tempered boor. He accused Ian of cheating at canasta and when Laura rebuked him, snapped “Go with your filthy tart of a sister.” Which she did. Laura then had a five-year affair with the film director Anthony Pelissier before marrying a much younger man, Michael Canfield, special assistant to the American ambassador. He was the love of her life – but she realised on honeymoon he was an alcoholic.
