Her parents were John Dunhill (Alfred's youngest son by his first wife) and Marjorie Brown.
After a Lucie Clayton modelling course[2][3] and a much publicised debutante season in 1964, she became one of the few former debutantes to make it as a model,[4] appearing in numerous fashion magazines, advertisements and TV commercials in London, Milan and Paris between 1965 and 1969 when she went to live in Venice for six years.
For the next fifteen years she was a full-time mother before doing a BA in English and Italian at Royal Holloway, University of London between 1986 and 1989.
In 2002, she earned an MA in Representations of Italy at Royal Holloway and converted to Roman Catholicism.
[citation needed] In 1975, she married the former Administrative Director of the Royal Ballet Anthony Russell-Roberts.