Channel 4’s series of Pride programmes celebrating the LGBT community saw the story of April Ashley told, detailing how she became one of the UK’s most prominent transgender equality campaigners.
The Extraordinary Life of April Ashley took viewers back to her gritty upbringing in Liverpool’s slums, through to starring in films, modelling for British Vogue and her controversial divorce court battle.
Ashley, who died last year at the age of 86, became one of the first people in Britain known to have gone through gender reassignment surgery, in what proved to be a painful procedure abroad, after she was outed in the press.
(Image: John Dee/REX/Shutterstock)
The documentary, which aired at 10pm on Monday July 4, was designed to “take the audience inside the intimate reality of the transgender experience” and explored how Ashley “paved the way for future generations of transgender people”, according to Channel 4.
Who was April Ashley?
(Image: Getty Images)
April Ashley was a transgender model, dancer, restaurant owner and equalities campaigner who was involved in the landmark divorce trial Corbett v Corbett.
Born George Jamieson in Liverpool, Ashley suffered from calcium deficiency during her childhood and required weekly injections at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in the city’s West Derby area.
Her obituary in The Telegraph suggests she knew at 15 she wanted to become a woman but signed-up with the Merchant Navy a year later, only to be given an dishonourable discharge after an alleged suicide attempt.
At the age of 25, after embarking on a career in Paris as a part of a drag cabaret act, Ashley went to Morocco where she had gender reassignment surgery.
She returned to Britain and became a successful fashion model, appearing in British Vogue for which she was photographed by David Bailey.
Ashley also won a small role in the ’60s film The Road to Hong Kong, featuring Bing Crosby.
But a friend sold her story to the media in 1961 and The Sunday People outed Ashley as a trans woman, making her one of the first people known about in Britain to have had reassignment surgery.
After living her life in the public eye, Ashley was later appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her campaign work on transgender equality, having worked for Greenpeace and in an art gallery during her career.
She died in December 2021 at her home in Fulham, west London.
Corbett v Corbett
(Image: Getty Images)
April was married twice, having first tied the knot with aristocrat Arthur Cameron Corbett in 1963.
The union was annulled in 1970 in a case known as Corbett v Corbett.
The judge ruled her and Arthur, the Eton-educated son and heir of Lord Rowallan, were not married because she was “a biological male” and that could not be changed in the eyes of the law.
This was despite Corbett apparently knowing of Ashley’s transition when they married.
She married second husband Jeffrey West in the 1980s and later divorced, although are said to have remained friends.
After a heart attack in 1975, she moved to Hay-on-Wye in Wales and would later reside in France, Spain and finally California.
She returned to Britain where, thanks to the Gender Recognition Act in 2005, was legally recognised as female.
The Extraordinary Life of April Ashley is available to watch on Channel 4’s All 4 catch-up service
READ MORE:
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
