11. Fleming was a serial womanizer throughout his life
Ian Fleming was a passionate womanizer, preferring the wives of other men as his companions, a trait which he would endow upon his character James Bond. He maintained a relationship throughout the Second World War with Ann Charteris (who also carried on a long affair with Esmond Harmsworth) while married to Shane O’Neill, styled as Lord O’Neill. O’Neill was killed during the war, and Ann expected a proposal of marriage from Fleming. When it wasn’t forthcoming, she married Harmsworth, by then elevated to the peerage through inheritance of his father’s title as Lord Rothermere. She and Fleming continued their extramarital affair during her second marriage.
During Fleming’s three-month stays at Goldeneye, Ann joined him, leaving her husband with the impression she was visiting with Noel Coward. In 1951, the obviously befuddled Rothermere divorced her, and the pregnant Ann married Fleming. Their son, Caspar, was born the following year. He was their only child together. Both Ann and Ian continued to enjoy extramarital affairs throughout their marriage, neither giving much consideration to monogamy. In addition to Fleming’s estate in Jamaica, the couple purchased a large house in London which they named Sevenhampton (she took Rothermere for £100,000 when they divorced) where they resided during their time in Britain.