Alice Ormsby-Gore
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The Honourable Alice Ormsby-Gore |
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|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 22 April 1952 |
| Died | c. 17 April 1995 Bournemouth, Dorset, United Kingdom |
| Cause of death | Heroin overdose |
| Nationality | British |
| Domestic partner | Eric Clapton (fiance) |
| Parents |
David Ormsby Gore, 5th Baron Harlech Sylvia Thomas |
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. She became engaged to guitarist Eric Clapton but they never married. She died of a heroin overdose in 1995.
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."
Later in 1968, Ormsby Gore was to encounter guitarist 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. 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 Ormsby Gore along with him. David Mlinaric was part of a group of aristocratic hippies who hung out around London in the 1960s 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, Ormsby Gore 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; Alice also became hooked on the drug. In his autobiography Clapton says, "Alice came back to live with me, and she started using too".
Time magazine reported their intention to marry on Monday, 16 March 1970:
“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.”
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