User:Driskle/Sandbox

Alice Magdalen Sarah Ormsby-Gore
Alice was born on the 22nd April 1952 and was the youngest daughter of William David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech and his first wife Sylvia Thomas. Alice was a descendent of William the Conqueror and of Mary Tudor, Princess of England Time magazine reported on Friday Apr 12th 1968 that Lord Harlech would be sending 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 Alice was to encounter guitar legend Eric Clapton. There is some speculation as to how Alice came to encounter Clapton. Ray Coleman's book CLAPTON 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 Claptons house, Hurtwood Edge, and had taken Alice along with him.. David Mlinaric was part of a group of aristocratic hippies who hung out around London in the 1960's and was friends with Jane, Julian and Victoria Ormsby-Gore, the older children of the 5th Lord Harlech who had been British ambassador to Washington during the Kennedy era. Alice was their little sister.

The couple announced their engagement on 07 Sept 1969

In 1970 Alice moved into Hurtwood Edge with Clapton. Clapton had started using Heroin quite heavily in an attempt to get over his continuing obsession with George Harrisons wife Pattie Boyd. Alice inevitably became hooked on heroin, 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, Mar. 16, 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.”

The couple did not marry but stayed together for five years. Clapton maintains he was not in love with Alice however Alice was deeply in love with him, in Ray Coleman's book CLAPTON she says “.Maybe because I was only seventeen I wrongly thought of it as mutual. My extreme youth made any rational analysis of the situation impossible.” 

In 1974 aged 22 Alice found her elder brother, Julian Ormsby Gore 33, dead in his apartment from gunshot wounds. Apparently Julian had committed suicide.

After coming off heroin, with the help of Alice’s family, Clapton ended their relationship for good.

Alice also used the name Deidre Stevenson. 

Alice’s father (William) David Ormsby-Gore died in a car accident in 1985, he was succeeded by Alice’s younger brother Francis David Ormsby-Gore, who became the 6th Baron Harlech

Alice died in poverty of a drug overdose, she was found dead in a bedsit in Bournemouth, Dorset, and had taken six times the fatal dose of heroin.

The Independent (London) reported on Apr 21, 1995, the day before her 43rd birthday Lord Harlech's sister, Alice Ormsby Gore, 42, who was once engaged to the rock guitarist Eric Clapton, died after taking a drug overdose at her flat, an inquest in Bournemouth, Dorset, heard. 

Images
British guitarist Eric Clapton, of the rock groups Blind Faith and the Cream, with Alice Ormsby Gore, the daughter of Lord Harlech, after the announcement of their engagement, in London. 

7th September 1969: British singer and guitarist Eric Clapton of rock groups Blind Faith and Cream, with his fiancee Alice Ormsby-Gore, daughter of Lord Harlech.