April Ashley (29 April 1935 – 27 December 2021), styled as The Honourable April Corbett from 1963 to 1980, was an English model, author, and LGBT rights activist. In the 1950s, upon being discharged from the Merchant Navy, she performed under the
stage name
A stage name or professional name is a pseudonym used by performers, authors, and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. The equivalent concept among writers is called a ''nom de plume'' (pen name). Some performers ...
transgender woman
A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...
by ''
The Sunday People
The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881.
At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ' ...
annulled
Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almo ...
in the
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal (England and Wales), Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cour ...
case of ''
Corbett v Corbett
''Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)'' is a 1970 family law divorce case heard between November and December 1969 by the High Court of England and Wales in which Arthur Corbett sought annulment of his marriage to April Ashley. Corbett had k ...
''. Ashley was appointed a Member of the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
in the
2012 Birthday Honours
The Birthday Honours List 2012 was released on 16 June 2012 in the United Kingdom, on 11 June 2012 in Australia on 4 June 2012 in New Zealand,Smithdown Road (then Sefton General Hospital) in Liverpool, Ashley was one of six surviving children of a Roman Catholic father, Frederick Jamieson, and Protestant mother, Ada Brown, who had married two years before. During her childhood in Liverpool, Ashley suffered from both calcium deficiency, requiring weekly calcium injections at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital, and bed-wetting, resulting in her being given her own box room, at the age of two, when the family moved house.
1950s to 1970s
Ashley joined the Merchant Navy in 1951 at the age of 16. Following a suicide attempt, she was given dishonourable discharge, and a second attempt resulted in her being sent to Ormskirk District General Hospital psychiatric unit at age 17.
In her book ''The First Lady'', Ashley tells the story of the rape she endured before transitioning. A roommate raped her and she was severely injured.
Gender transition
After leaving the hospital, Ashley moved to London, at one point claiming to have shared a
boarding house
A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (31 May 1938 – 20 November 2024) was a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007.
A member of the ...
, later deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom. Having started cross-dressing, she moved to Paris in the late 1950s, began using the name Toni April, and joined the entertainer Coccinelle in the cast of the drag cabaret at Le Carrousel de Paris.
At the age of 25, having saved £3,000, Ashley had a seven-hour-long
sex reassignment surgery
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their gender identity. The phrase is most often associat ...
on 12 May 1960, performed in
Casablanca
Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...
,
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
, by Georges Burou. All her hair fell out, and she endured significant pain, but the operation was successful.
Modelling career and public outing
After returning to Britain, she began using the name April Ashley and became a successful fashion model, appearing in ''
British Vogue
''British Vogue'' (stylised in all caps) is the British edition of the American Fashion journalism, fashion magazine Vogue (magazine), Vogue. The magazine was launched in 1916 by Condé Nast, linking together fashion and high society.König A ...
'', for which she was photographed by
David Bailey
David Royston Bailey (born 2 January 1938) is an English photographer and director, most widely known for his fashion photography and portraiture, and role in shaping the image of the Swinging Sixties. Bailey has also directed several televisio ...
, and winning a small role in the 1962 film ''
The Road to Hong Kong
''The Road to Hong Kong'' is a 1962 British semi-musical comedy film directed by Norman Panama and starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, as well as Joan Collins, with an extended cameo featuring Dorothy Lamour in the setting of British Hong Kong, ...
'', which starred
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwi ...
and
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared ...
.
A friend sold her story to the media in 1961 and ''
The Sunday People
The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881.
At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ' ...
'' outed Ashley as a
trans woman
A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...
. She became a centre of attention and some scandal and her film credit was dropped.
In November 1960, Ashley met Hon. Arthur Corbett (later 3rd Baron Rowallan), the Eton-educated son and heir of Lord Rowallan. They married in 1963 but the marriage soon deteriorated, at which point Ashley claimed to have a romance with Íñigo de Arteaga y Martín, the heir to the Dukedom of the Infantado. Ashley's lawyers wrote to Corbett in 1966 demanding maintenance payments and in 1967 Corbett responded by filing suit to have the marriage annulled. The annulment was granted in 1970 on the grounds that Ashley was male, but Corbett had known about her history when they married. This is the case known as ''
Corbett v Corbett
''Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)'' is a 1970 family law divorce case heard between November and December 1969 by the High Court of England and Wales in which Arthur Corbett sought annulment of his marriage to April Ashley. Corbett had k ...
''.
Later life and death
After a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
in London, Ashley retired for some years to the Welsh border town of
Hay-on-Wye
Hay-on-Wye, or simply Hay (; or simply ), is a market town and community (Wales), community in Powys, Wales. With over twenty bookshops, it is often described as a book town, "town of books"; it is both the National Book Town of Wales and the s ...
. In her book ''April Ashley's Odyssey'' she stated that
Amanda Lear
Amanda Lear (; born 18 June or 18 November 1939 or 1941 or 1946 or 1950) is a French singer, songwriter, painter, television presenter, actress and former model.
She began her professional career as a fashion model in the mid-1960s and went on ...
was assigned male at birth and that they had worked together at Le Carousel where Lear had used the drag name Peki d'Oslo. Ashley had once been great friends with Lear but according to Ashley's book ''The First Lady'' they had had a major falling out and had not spoken for years.
In the 1980s, Ashley married Jeffrey West on the cruise ship RMS ''Queen Mary'' in
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
, US. They subsequently divorced but maintained friendly relations. In the 1990s, Ashley was employed by the environmental lobby group,
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of Environmental movement, environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its biod ...
and later by an art gallery.
She talked about her life at
St George's Hall, Liverpool
St George's Hall is a building on St George's Place, opposite Liverpool Lime Street railway station, Lime Street railway station in Liverpool city centre, the centre of Liverpool, England. Opened in 1854, it is a Neoclassical architecture, Neocla ...
as part of the city's Homotopia Festival on 15 November 2008, and on 18 February 2009 at the
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is an arts centre in London, England. It is adjacent to the separately owned National Theatre and BFI Southbank.
It comprises the three main performance spaces – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell R ...
.
Ashley latterly lived in
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...
, southwest London. She died at home on 27 December 2021, at the age of 86.
Biographies
''April Ashley's Odyssey'', a biography by Duncan Fallowell, was published in 1982. In 2006, Ashley released her autobiography, ''The First Lady'', and made TV appearances on Channel Five News, '' This Morning'' and
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
. In one interview she said, "This is the real story and contains a lot of things I just couldn't say in 1982", including alleged affairs with
Michael Hutchence
Michael Kelland John Hutchence (22 January 1960 – 22 November 1997) was an Australian singer and songwriter. He was the co-founder, lead singer and lyricist of the rock band INXS from 1977 until his death in 1997. The band sold over 50 ...
,
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was an English actor known for his leading roles on stage and screen. His numerous accolades include the Academy Honorary Award, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and four Golde ...
,
Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif (, ; born Michel Yusef Dimitri Chalhoub ; 10 April 1932 – 10 July 2015) was an Egyptian actor, generally regarded as one of his country's greatest male film stars. He began his career in his native country in the 1950s. He is bes ...
,
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
sculptor
Grayson Perry
Sir Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foib ...
and others. The book was pulled from the market, however, after it was discovered that it heavily
plagiarized
Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of anothe ...
the 1982 book written by Fallowell.
The 1983 biography of Peter O'Toole by Michael Freedland rejects the claim of an affair with Ashley. It states that he was acquainted with her in Spain while filming, but his then-wife
Siân Phillips
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips ( ), is a Welsh actress from Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Wales. Her early career consisted primarily of stage roles, including the title roles in Ibsen's '' ...
was with him at the time and knew the relationship to be platonic.
In 2012, Pacific Films and Limey Yank Productions announced a project to create a film about Ashley's life.
Awards and honours
* Ashley was appointed
Member of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(MBE) in the
2012 Birthday Honours
The Birthday Honours List 2012 was released on 16 June 2012 in the United Kingdom, on 11 June 2012 in Australia on 4 June 2012 in New Zealand,University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
April
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Its length is 30 days.
April is commonly associated with the season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the ...