April Ashley has led an extraordinary life, said John Preston in The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.). In the 1960s, she was a celebrated beauty and Vogue underwear model who claims to have had affairs with two famous movie stars. None of which you would expect of someone born George Jamieson in the English city of Liverpool. Jamieson knew at age 3 that he’d been born in the wrong body, but it was only two decades later—after attempting suicide and undergoing electric shock treatment—that he started cross-dressing. He took a job presenting drag acts at a Paris club, and had queues of admirers, including Elvis Presley. “Then his manager, Colonel Parker, told him about me and poor Elvis was never allowed to be alone with me after that,” says Ashley, 78. In 1960, the 25-year-old Jamieson went to Casablanca to have a sex-change operation, which were still new and unproven. “Basically, I was a guinea pig,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t go on living like that. Anything was preferable, really.” Before the operation, as Jamieson slipped into unconsciousness, the surgeon leaned over and said, “Au revoir, monsieur.” Nine hours later, Jamieson woke up as April Ashley. “The surgeon was looking at me again. Only this time he said, ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle.’ Those were the most lovely words I had ever heard.”
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