LUKE, Hon Mrs (nee Hon Clarissa Oenone CHAPLIN) (1934 - 2021)
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Clarissa Luke, who has died aged 87, was a free-spirited high bohemian, patron of emerging talent and step-daughter of the diarist James Lees-Milne; a life-long lover of modern music, particularly tunes she could dance to, she led a nomadic life and, according to her step-father, had no difficulty “making light of all adversity”.
Born in Lowndes Street, Belgravia on March 12 1934, Clarissa was the daughter of the third and last Viscount Chaplin and his garden-loving wife Alvilde. A composer, passionate player of Scarlatti, zoologist and ornithologist, Lord Chaplin never took his seat in the House of Lords and was remembered by his daughter for once leaving a live snake in a sock drawer and often playing the piano late into the night at Dunrobin Castle, their multi-turreted family home in North East Scotland....
In the 1950s Clarissa worked as an air hostess and met the strikingly handsome writer and film-maker Michael Luke, son of a former governor of Fiji and descendant of an ancient Maygar clan, who was living in a tiny top floor flat in Eaton Square.
Clarissa and Micky, as he was generally known, got married in 1958 at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland and soon rented a magical double-towered mansion on the Dashwood estate at Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire. In 1967 Micky would produce the award-winning Oedipus the King, starring Orson Welles.....
In the early 1980s her marriage broke down, though the couple remained friends, and in 1984 she set off to spend a year in Mexico, working as a photographer and promoting native art.....
Clarissa Luke, born March 12 1934, died October 8 2021
