I was just walking down the King's Road when.....

"...out of nowhere came another one of those taps on the shoulder that were to be a feature of her life. It was as if men thought she was just too beautiful to allow her to just 'walk on by' without taking a chance to say something."

This is how I open the section in my new book on actress and model Maddie Smith as she first meets Donald Cammell and, if there was one person that typified the Chelsea scene in London in the late 1960's, it was Donald.

Pictured here dressed in his trademark heavy, scruffy and beige suede coat, Donald is seen directing his first major film. Entitled "Performance" and completed in 1969-1970, the BFI refers to Donald Cammell as a "true visionary."

Educated at Westminster School, Cammell came from a family with strong artistic and free-spirited family and described his childhood as one filled with "magicians, spiritualists and demons." A hugely talented artist, Donald met Maddie completely by chance on the Kings Road and they began an immediate friendship when Maddie was only 20 years old and Donald was a well established and hedonistic personality in the Chelsea area aged 36. Within weeks, Maddie was mixing with Mick Jagger, who was friends with Donald and starring in 'Performance,' Anita Pallenberg and attending the wedding reception of Roland Polanski and Sharron Tate...taken from Madeline Smith, Bond Girl, by Philip Kay-Bujak 2026