Colourful Archer loved limelight

Archer was famous for his lavish parties attended by the great and the good

LONDON, England -- Jeffrey Archer has been a colourful figure in British politics for more than three decades -- but controversy has never been far away.

A millionaire author, favourite of Margaret Thatcher and generous party host, Archer revelled in the limelight, bouncing back -- until now -- from events that would have buried lesser characters.

Such was Archer's flamboyance, that he wrote a courtroom drama in which he took the lead role and asked audiences to vote on the character's guilt or innocence -- opening the same day he first faced his real-life perjury charges.

There have long been a question mark over his judgement, with queries in 1994 over his purchase of shares in Anglia Television -- of which his wife was a director -- just before a takeover was announced.

He fiercely denied insider trading, claiming he had bought the shares for a friend, and no legal action was ever taken.

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Archer entered politics in 1967 with a seat on the Greater London Council, proceeding to Westminister two years later as the Conservative MP for Louth, Lincolnshire.

Widely predicted to be poised for a glittering political career he was felled when a company he held shares in collapsed bringing him near financial ruin.

Not one for wallowing in self pity, Archer resigned and set about writing a bestselling novel.

"Not A Penny More, Not a Penny Less" drew on the bitterness of financial speculation gone wrong and this was followed by such airport kiosk favourites as "Kane and Abel," "The Prodigal Daughter" and "First Among Equals."

Favoured by Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, he got back on the political ladder, appointed deputy party chairman in 1985.

Mary: 'Elegance? Fragrance?'

However, just a year later he was brought low again, resigning over a "lack of judgment" in his involvement in events surrounding prostitute Monica Coughlan being given £2,000 to leave the country.

Apparently vindicated when he won £500,000 in libel damages from the Daily Star tabloid, which claimed that he had sex with Coughlan, this was however the action the that would eventually lead to his four year jail sentence.

During the 1987 trial the testimony of his wife Mary -- whom he married in 1966 -- was seen as vital, prompting the judge's now famous observation to the jury: "Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance?"

In the years that followed, Archer turned his hand to public speaking and fundraising for the Conservative party and charity -- often boasting of the large sums he had helped raised.

He became well known for his glamorous parties, including an annual "champagne and Shepherd's pie" bash, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good, and was himself made a life peer -- Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare -- in 1992.

However despite the fame and money, political aspirations remained and in 1999 he set out on a high-profile campaign for the London mayoralty.

Before being chosen as Conservative candidate he had assured party leader William Hague -- who used to use Archer's private gym -- that no more skeletons remained in his closet.

Shortly afterwards however old bones of his past began to rattle and Archer can only survey the wreckage of his ambitions -- this time from a prison cell.