"Under General Mills, you'd go in to eat and never see a bar, " says Lee.

FORBES: Clawing back

Despite this two-year marriage, and the reported relationships he'd had earlier with Tatum O'Neal, Stephanie Mills and Brooke Shields, Jackson remained sexually ambiguous and, in many people's eyes, sexless altogether.

CNN: Michael Jackson in the headlines

Mr Marnham lists some of her lovers Peter Hope, Norman Pearson, John Montagu-Pollock, John Platts-Mills, Heinz Ziegler, Raymond Lee, Robert d'Alsace but there were plenty more, ending with Robert Bolt, an English playwright and dramatist, when she was in her late 60s and a widow.

ECONOMIST: English heroines