Alice "Kiki" Preston (née Gwynne, formerly Allen; 1898 – December 23, 1946) was an American socialite, a member of the Happy Valley set, and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock with Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V. The child is rumored to be Michael Temple Canfield[1][2][3][4] Her drug addiction earned her the nickname "the girl with the silver syringe", Preston was a fixture of high social circles in Paris and New York City, and a relative of the prominent Vanderbilt and Whitney families.
Preston was born in 1898 in Hempstead, New York,[5] the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. (1869 – 10 May 1904)[6][7][8][9] and his wife Helen Steele (d. January 4, 1958).
[13] Their other son, Edward C. Gwynne,[14] joined the United States Army Air Corps in his early youth and was killed when his aircraft was shot down.
[17] Two years later, on May 10, 1904, Preston's father died of acute kidney problems at the age of 35, on the same day the case of the suit was to be brought up in the court.
However, in February 1908, the Paris money lender revived his legal attack against the Gwynnes, demanding their property on the unpaid loan of $40,000.
However, he also spoke rather harshly of Preston's father, referring to him as a man who "may have had large expectancies, but seems to have been a drain upon his mother's financial resources".
[18] Following her father's death, Preston was mostly raised in Paris, together with her brothers, although the family occasionally returned to their New York residence for brief periods of time.
[22] The money lender continued with a series of court appeals between 1910 and 1912, although the Gwynne family managed to emerge victorious from the lengthy legal battle.
[27] Living in Paris with her husband, Preston met and befriended some of the future key members of the Happy Valley set, such as Alice de Janzé and Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll.
[35] Following travel to the British East Africa colony of Kenya, the home of the Happy Valley clique, Preston and her husband were persuaded to permanently move there, after a friend of the couple gave them the land she had on the shores of Lake Naivasha.
[40] Friends of the couple in the community included Alice de Janzé, Lord Erroll and his wife Idina (Preston was often entertained in their mansion),[41][42] writer Evelyn Waugh[43] and aviator Beryl Markham.
[44] Preston was a scandalous presence among the Happy Valley set, noted both for her beauty, as well as her wild lifestyle, which included partying all night long, rising from bed during dinnertime and drug abuse.
[36][47] Preston had many lovers during that time, including actor Rudolph Valentino[41][42] and Prince George, Duke of Kent, whom she first met in the mid-1920s.
[62] Later that year, on September 30, her friend and fellow American expatriate in Paris, Alice de Janzé, committed suicide with a firearm.
[69] It has been alleged that American publishing executive Michael Temple Canfield (1926–1969) was the illegitimate son of Prince George and Preston.
[74] Michael Canfield attended The Groton School, before serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and was wounded at Iwo Jima.
He married twice, first to Caroline Lee Bouvier, younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1953 (divorced in 1958) and then to (Frances) Laura Ward, Countess of Dudley in 1960.
The play is set in the Happy Valley community in Kenya, in the year 1928 and portrays, among other things, the romance between Preston and Prince George.