Antonia de Sancha

Who is Antonia de Sancha?

Antonia de Sancha is an English actress and businesswoman best known as the former mistress of British Conservative Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister David Mellor which became public knowledge in 1992.

She is the daughter of a Spanish film producer father, who died in the mid-1980s, and a Swedish mother who, suffering from severe depression, committed suicide 18 months later, shortly before her daughter began studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. At the time of the revelations of her affair, de Sancha was described by some news outlets as a "soft-porn actress" because she had played the part of a prostitute in a film in which she had simulated sex. The film "The Pieman" also featured John Hemming-Clark, leader of political party Independents to Save Queen Mary's Hospital, as de Sancha's husband. The affair with Mellor was a contributory factor in his subsequent resignation from the cabinet on 24 September 1992.

Believing her acting career was ruined and aware that newspapers were making money out of the story and she wasn't, de Sancha hired publicist Max Clifford to sell her story to various newspapers. She made about £30,000 from those sales.