Robin Douglas-Home

Cecil Robin Douglas-Home - who was born on May 8th, 1932, in London, England - was an English-born Scottish aristocrat, jazz pianist, and author.  He was the eldest son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer; the nephew of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home; and the older brother of Charles Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times newspaper.  Douglas-Home was a jazz pianist and a leading society figure in the 1950s and '60s.  In the 1950s, he had a relationship with Princess Margaretha of Sweden, but was apparently refused permission to marry her by her mother, Princess Sibylla.  However, Margaretha's nanny later stated in her memoirs that the reason for the couple's breakup was simply that the princess did not want to marry him.  Douglas-Home instead married the 18-year-old fashion model Sandra Paul in 1959, and in 1962 they had a son, Sholto, who was conceived at Frank Sinatra's mansion in Palm Springs, Florida.  A talented writer, Douglas-Home was invited by Sinatra to write his first authorised biography, which was published in 1962, and he subsequently wrote four novels, the first of which, Hot for Certainties, won the Authors' Club's Best First Novel Award in 1964.  He also wrote articles for journals and magazines such as Queen and Woman's Own.  Shortly after the birth of his son, Douglas-Home fathered a son by Nicolette Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the Marchioness of Londonderry, the truth about which would remain secret until the late 1990s.  In 1965, Douglas-Home divorced his wife, the breakup being the subject of a documentary by Alan Whicker.  Around this time, he began a relationship with Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.  Margaret was at this time concerned about the deterioration of her own marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, and sought solace in a one-month affair with Douglas-Home.  Their liaison ended rather abruptly, when the princess decided to try to salvage her relationship with Snowdon.  Eighteen months after his split with princess Margaret, and having suffered with clinical depression for some years, Robin Douglas-Home took his own life on October 15th, 1968, at his country home in West Chiltington, West Sussex, England.  He was just 36 years old.