I would make a great courtesan

Seventies supermodel Marie Helvin lived and loved at the centre of a hyper-glamorous set but in all her affairs all she wanted was sex

There was a time when it was pretty much impossible to pick up a fashion magazine without seeing a picture of Marie Helvin. Alongside her best friend Jerry Hall she was an icon of the late 1970s, a proto-supermodel married to David Bailey, the bad-boy cockney photographer who had elbowed aside the Lichfields and Snowdons to become the toast of Harper’s and Vogue.

Helvin’s look defined the times: her face had a combination of innocence and knowingness and her exotic heritage – Japanese mother, Danish-American father, childhood on the beaches of Hawaii – stood out, even in a hyper-glamorous crowd. Mick Jagger, Hall’s then boyfriend, made up a foursome with the Baileys and there were parties seemingly every night – with Eric Clapton, Jack Nicholson, Trudie Styler and Sting, Peter Gabriel and Warren Beatty just a few of the celebrity cast on an ever changing guest list. (...)