Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was brought up by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury. At the age of 15, she found work as a model at a dress shop in London`s Soho. At 17, she gave birth to a son after an affair with `Jim`, an African-American sergeant from Lakenheath Air Force base. She discovered she was pregnant only after he had returned to the United States, and she tried to abort the baby herself with a knitting needle, but failed. The child was born prematurely on April 17, 1959, and survived just six days.

That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London. She initially worked as a waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street and there met Maureen O’Connor, a girl who worked at Murray’s Cabaret Club in Soho. She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl.

While at Murray`s she met Dr. Stephen Ward. Soon the two were living together with the outward appearance of being a couple, but according to her, it was a platonic "brother and sister" type of relationship.

In July 1961, Ward introduced her to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Profumo entered into an affair with Keeler, not realising that she was also sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the embassy of the Soviet Union.

The affair was terminated by the government’s Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, who spoke to Profumo on the advice of Sir Roger Hollis, the head of MI5. On 9 August 1961, Profumo wrote to Keeler advising her he could no longer see her.

In the 1989 film about the Profumo Affair entitled Scandal, actress Joanne Whalley portrayed Keeler.

Among Keeler`s lovers were two West Indians - Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe. Gordon, with a previous criminal record, was infatuated with Keeler, who would later allege that he had assaulted her in the street and held her captive for two days. She filed charges but was persuaded to drop them by Gordon`s brother.

Keeler eventually rejected Gordon`s advances and bought a revolver to protect herself from him. Edgecombe was enlisted to act as her minder. On 27 October 1962, Edgecombe and Gordon were involved in a fracas at a Soho club, resulting in Edgecombe slicing Gordon’s face with a knife, a wound that required seventeen stitches. Following the fight, Edgecombe went into hiding from the police and Keeler changed her address to hide from Gordon. Edgecombe contacted Keeler to request her help in finding a solicitor before the police found him but Keeler refused to help and told him that she intended to testify against him in court.

In the early afternoon of 14 December 1962, Edgecombe arrived at Ward’s Wimpole Mews flat, where Keeler had been visiting her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, who was living with Ward. Keeler refused to let him in, so Edgecombe shot at the door with the revolver that had belonged to her. The alarm was raised and Wimpole Mews was soon swarming with police and journalists. Edgecombe escaped in a taxi and was arrested later at his Brentford flat.

Keeler was imprisoned for nine months for perjury in a related trial involving `Lucky` Gordon. Meanwhile Stephen Ward was charged with living on the earnings of prostitution, including earnings from Christin