Harris widow to marry old flame Aitken

by ADAM HELLIKER, Mail on Sunday

After a nine-month romance, Jonathan Aitken is to marry Elizabeth Harris, the society beauty whose previous husbands have included Sir Rex Harrison and Richard Harris.

The former Tory Cabinet Minister proposed to Elizabeth over dinner, shortly before her three sons by Richard Harris arrived to spend Christmas with their mother at her elegant flat in Chelsea.

'He didn't propose on bended knee, but he's given me a lovely diamond-and-aquamarine ring,' Elizabeth tells me. 'We think we'll probably get married in the summer in London. He's made me very happy.'

Aitken's proposal came at a poignant time for Elizabeth, as it was the first Christmas she has spent without Richard Harris, the charismatic Irish actor with whom she remained close despite their divorce in 1968. She was devastated when the former hellraiser died three months ago.

She had particularly wanted her three sons, Damian, Jared and Jamie, to be with her so they could get to know Jonathan, 60, who is divorced from Lolicia, his wife of 19 years.

'He wanted to talk to the boys before telling anyone else and see how they would take it,' says Elizabeth, daughter of the Irish peer Lord Ogmore. 'It was very important to me that Jonathan had also met Richard - he went to see him in hospital and they really got on well. Jonathan has been a great strength to all of us since Richard died. He's very aware of what we've all been through.'

Aitken's romance with Elizabeth, who will continue to run her highly regarded public relations company, was his first since he was released from prison after being jailed for 18 months for committing perjury.

Initially he had surprised his female admirers by announcing that he had become celibate. But last February he reunited with Elizabeth - the two had been lovers many years previously - and they fell for each other all over again.

Ironically, Elizabeth once declared that the name Aitken would never pass her lips again, after an acrimonious divorce from her third husband, stockbroker Peter Aitken, a cousin of Jonathan's to whom she was married for five years.

Aitken's twin daughters, Victoria and Alexandra, his son William, and Petrina, his daughter by Soraya Khashoggi, were all told the news at a party held by Elizabeth on Christmas night.

'They seem very pleased,' she says. 'They all played silly party games, which was a great way to get to know my boys.'

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