Mystery lover ID'd in Duchess of Argyll sex photo

Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A dapper American airlines executive has been identified as the "headless man" who appeared in sexually-explicit photos with famed British socialite Margaret Campbell back in 1963.

Writing for The Daily Mail, Lady Colin Campbell says her husband's step-mother, the duchess of Argyll herself, told her that Pan Am sales director Bill Lyons was her lover for six years.

“He was sophisticated, debonair, dapper, well-bred, charming and handsome,” Lady Campbell said of Lyons. “Like her first husband Charlie, he was sexy and great fun. He was reliable and astute.”

Margaret Campbell's highly publicized divorce trial scandalized British society when her estranged husband, Ian Campbell, found Polaroid photos of the duchess performing sex acts on a man whose face wasn't in the frame.

The sensational details of the trial, including the duke's claim that his wife had cheated on him 88 times, captivated the British public.

Lady Campbell said she revealed the information to offer a "small measure of justice" to the woman whose private life was so publicly derided.

"The only way to do her justice is to identify the Headless Man," Campbell wrote. "Then, and only then, will everyone be able to appreciate that what she was doing in those photographs was not so very terrible. She was simply a woman in love -- who was unfortunate enough to have a memento of something happy stolen from her."

The duchess of Argyll died in 1980.

[Daily Mail]