TV star Aimi MacDonald says scandal of Labour minister John Stonehouse badly damaged her career

1970s TV star Aimi MacDonald says her career was derailed by false claims that she had an affair with disgraced Labour Cabinet minister John Stonehouse.

Ms MacDonald, 80, revealed the damaging impact of the claims ahead of an eagerly anticipated new TV drama. 

The Glasgow-born actress, who appeared on TV comedy quiz Blankety Blank, was named in 1976 as a lover of Stonehouse, who faked his own death and went on the run in Australia.

Stonehouse, which will air early next year, tells how the former cabinet minister in the Wilson government carried out the audacious fraud in 1974 and ran off with his secretary Sheila Buckley.

Actress Aimi MacDonald was a popular fixture on British TV in the 1970s but she became embroiled in the scandal around Labour MP John Stonehouse after she was wrongly accused of being his mistress

John Stonehouse (right) the British Labour MP who faked his own death, pictured returning to Heathrow Airport in 1975 where he was charged with fraud, conspiracy and forgery

Ms MacDonald became embroiled in the scandal when Stonehouse’s bitter mistress Buckley claimed she was one of the ‘other women’ with whom he cheated on his wife, Barbara.  

Matthew Macfadyen will take on the title role of Stonehouse in the three-part series which stars the actor’s real-life wife, Keeley Hawes, as Barbara.

‘I will certainly be watching the series to see how authentic it is,’ Ms MacDonald said.

‘I don’t think the Stonehouse thing did me any favours.  I was upset about it. Somehow, I managed to get mixed up in all that sort of horror. 

‘Suddenly, I went from Mrs Family Entertainer to The Scarlet Woman.’ 

Ms MacDonald made her name in At Last The 1948 Show, a satirical series with John Cleese, which was a forerunner to Monty Python’s Flying Circus — whose catchphrase ‘and now for something completely different’ she was first to utter on screen.

At the height of her fame, Ms MacDonald shared a mansion in Ascot with racehorse owner Geoffrey Edwards. 

On-screen: The John Stonehouse affair is being recreated by ITV with Matthew Macfadyen, 48 (centre), playing the disgraced Labour politician in a three-part drama (Matthew’s real-life wife Keeley Hawes plays the MP’s wife Barbara (right) while Emer Heatley plays his secretary Sheila (left))

‘Stonehouse was a friend of Geoffrey,’ she explains. ‘I didn’t even fancy John. He was a terrible flirt, and I remember him trying to play footsie with me under a dinner table, and I was thinking: “If Geoffrey could see what you’re doing, you’d be dead.”

‘He was terrified of Geoffrey, who had a 12-bore shotgun.’ 

Stonehouse, which will air early next year, tells how the former cabinet minister in the Wilson government faked his death in 1974 and ran off with his secretary Sheila Buckley. 

The MP, who was alleged to have been a spy for the Czechs, left his clothes on a beach in Miami and swam into the sea. 

He was presumed drowned but a month later, as his wife Barbara and three young children mourned, he was arrested in Australia where he was living under a false name with his mistress. He was jailed for seven years. 

He married Miss Buckley, played by Emer Heatley, and died in 1988.

Telling the tale: Stonehouse tells how the former cabinet minister in the Wilson government faked his death in 1974 and ran off with his secretary Sheila Buckley (John Stonehouse pictured in 1981)

Actor Matthew and his wife Keeley have been married for 18 years and Keeley said they had to cast aside the familiarities of their real-life happy marriage to play the parts.

The actress insists their union is the complete opposite to that of politician John and Barbara.

She told the Mirror: ‘We have worked together before, but not for several years. And so when this came up, it seemed like the perfect project on so many levels really, mostly because the Stonehouses are so different to Matthew and I and to our relationship.

‘So it’s nice to see us, I think, and interesting for people who may know that we are married to see us as the “other” couple.’

She told Matthew: ‘It was really wonderful. It was very jolly, wasn’t it?’

He responded: ‘Yeah, it was very difficult working with Keeley.

‘She’s… it was hard. It was hard. No, that’s a silly answer. It was joyful working with Keeley. It was nice, wasn’t it?’

Matthew and Keeley met on the set of drama Spooks in 2001 and later starred in 2007 comedy Death at a Funeral together.

They share children Maggie, 17, and Ralph, 16, together.