15 Facts About Johnny Edgecombe

John Arthur Alexander Edgecombe was a British jazz promoter, whose involvement with Christine Keeler inadvertently alerted authorities to the Profumo affair.

Johnny Edgecombe was born on 22 October 1932 in St John's, Antigua and Barbuda, the youngest of eight children.

Johnny Edgecombe often accompanied his father on his schooner running petrol from Trinidad to Antigua.

The young Johnny Edgecombe worked his passage aboard a British ship carrying sugar to Liverpool.

Johnny Edgecombe ran a drinking and drugs den in premises rented from Peter Rachman, and reportedly acted as a pimp to his girlfriend.

Johnny Edgecombe closed it down, and moved into the jazz scene, driving musicians to gigs, and dealing small quantities of cannabis.

Johnny Edgecombe confronted Gordon with a knife in the Flamingo Club on 27 October 1962, and Gordon required 17 stitches in the face.

Johnny Edgecombe asked Keeler to help him find a solicitor before surrendering to the police, but she refused and said that she would give evidence against him.

On 14 December 1962, Johnny Edgecombe took a taxi to the Marylebone home of osteopath Stephen Ward, where Keeler was in hiding along with friend Mandy Rice-Davies.

Johnny Edgecombe fled from the scene before the police arrived, but was arrested later that evening.

Johnny Edgecombe was acquitted of assaulting Gordon, but was convicted and sentenced to seven years for possession of a firearm with the intent to endanger life.

On his release in 1968, Johnny Edgecombe became a jazz promoter, running a club called Edges, and worked as a film and television extra.

Johnny Edgecombe appeared briefly in the 1989 TV documentary The Scandal Story where he described and reenacted the shooting incident outside the actual Marylebone house.

Johnny Edgecombe wrote and published his version of events of the Profumo Affair in a book titled Black Scandal in 2002.

Johnny Edgecombe died of lung cancer and kidney cancer in London, aged 77, on 26 September 2010.