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The tumultuous love affair of Prince George, son of George V, and Kiki Preston - the Roaring Twenties party girl and notorious drug addict nicknamed 'The Girl with the Silver Syringe'

He was 'Gorgeous Georgie' - the pin-up prince of hearts who wooed the ladies throughout the Roaring Twenties. And she was Kiki - known as The Girl with the Silver Syringe - a woman who was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. She was also the love of his life. Tall, brunette, shapely and uninhibited, Alice Gwynne came from the fabled Vanderbilt family, the equivalent of American royalty. She lived in Paris and became part of the wild crowd that gathered at Ada 'Bricktop' Smith's jazz club in the Pigalle district. Prince George - son of King George V and younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI - arrived in the city after he and the Royal Navy parted company. George claimed he was forced to leave his lieutenant's post because he suffered from seasickness. The admirals saw things differently. They were sick, too - of George's bad behaviour and general disregard for the rules. Soon the wayward royal would be forced to take up a much more mundane role - inspecting factories in industrial England - but for a few short weeks he had the chance to relax and enjoy himself far from the disapproving eyes and ears of his father. There was a strong American contingent in 1920s Paris made up of artists, models and writers - and from this bohemian crowd he singled out Alice Preston. She had recently acquired a nickname due to her resemblance to model Kiki de Montparnasse, companion of the poet Jean Cocteau and a notorious drug addict. Prince George in the uniform of a sub-lieutenant. He spent fourteen years in the Navy Tall, brunette, shapely and uninhibited, Alice Gwynne came from the fabled Vanderbilt family, the equivalent of American royalty Prince George, The Duke of Kent in San Francisco, California in 1928 Her husband Jerome Preston was independently wealthy and, like his spouse, a party-goer - described by one person who met him as 'untamed'. Like her de Montparnasse namesake, Kiki Preston became hooked on drugs - and introduced Prince George to them. Not long after they became lovers the Prince was ordered home. He couldn't stand the thought of leaving her. 'Come to London,' George pleaded. And to London Kiki went. Soon word got out that the royal was using cocaine and morphine, supplied to him by his girlfriend. She was visited by representatives of the King and told in no uncertain terms to leave Britain - and not to come back. George was taken to the country house of his older brother, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor), which bordered the Windsor estate. Under his watchful eye, George was weaned off the drugs. He was given a final warning by his father - and told to find a suitable wife. In a startlingly short space of time he chose Princess Marina of Greece, who for several years had unsuccessfully set her cap at the Prince of Wales. Shortly after their engagement was announced, Prince George and his fiancee, Princess Marina of Greece, posed for the Mail in the garden of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia George was told to find a suitable wife. He is pictured, far right, with his fiancee, Princess Marina of Greece, and his brother the Prince of Wales, second left, in 1932 Prince George married Princess Marina of Greece on November 29, 1934, at Westminster Abbey They married in 1934. But for George, Kiki Preston remained the love of his life. Following the Paris smart set in their drift to the warmer climes of Africa, Kiki and her husband Jerome built a house on the shores of Lake Naivasha in the heart of Kenya's Happy Valley. Among their new friends were Josslyn Hay, the 22nd Earl of Erroll, five-times divorced Lady Idina Sackville, drug dealer Frank Greswolde Williams and the socialite and later murder suspect Alice de Janzé. By now Kiki's drug-taking had become shameless, openly injecting herself at parties and happily living up to her nickname 'The Girl with the Silver Syringe'. Meanwhile, back in London, Prince George had settled into his marriage, which turned out to be a surprising success. It was whispered that during their time together, Kiki had given birth to George's child. In 1926 a boy named Antoine Karslake - later known as Michael Canfield - was secretly born in Berne, Switzerland, and was adopted by a New York publisher. The two never lost touch. When war broke out in 1939, Kiki returned to her New York home while George donned an RAF uniform. And when the prince visited President Roosevelt in 1941 at his New York residence, he found the opportunity to contact his forbidden love. Between them, they cooked up a scheme to help George's brother-in-law, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia - the former Regent of the Balkan state who'd been interned by the Allies on suspicion of Nazi collaboration and put under house arrest in Kenya. The house where Paul was incarcerated on Lake Naivasha was in such a poor state of repair it was feared he might kill himself. So George and Kiki arranged for him to be moved to nearby Preston's, the lakeside house she still owned, where the prince and his wife, Princess Olga, spent the rest of the war in comfort. A year after that New York meeting, George was dead - killed in a mysterious plane crash in Scotland, the circumstances of which have never been fully explained. It was a shattering blow to Kiki, who, having been widowed in 1937, was now holed up in a New York hotel with her mother. Alice 'Kiki' Preston, third from right, in Palm Springs Desert Inn marking the release of The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938 Josslyn Hay, later Earl of Erroll, and his wife, the former Lady Idina Sackville. Five-times married Idina gained notoriety as part of the Happy Valley set George was killed in a mysterious plane crash in Scotland, the circumstances of which have never been fully explained. It was a shattering blow to Kiki In January 1941 her friend the Earl of Erroll had been murdered in the famous - and still unsolved - White Mischief case. Soon after, her friend Alice de Janzé fatally shot herself in Kenya. Her grief was compounded by the death of her son Ethan Allen, 25, who was killed during the Normandy landings on D-Day. On December 23, 1946, Kiki threw herself from the fifth floor of New York's Stanhope Hotel, dying at the age of 48.

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