When journalist Gail Sheehy interviewed Margaret Thatcher for Vanity Fair in 1989, there was plenty to discuss: Thatcher's childhood, her relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev, even her "sexual charisma." Also up for investigation was the peculiar method the prime minister used to keep up a youthful appearance.
"I was trying to understand how she could be 60 years old -- it was her tenth year in office -- and she looked 20 years younger," Sheehy told HuffPost Live's Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani during a Thursday conversation about her new memoir, Daring.
During preliminary interviews with a number of sources connected to Thatcher, Sheehy discovered the Iron Lady used a "special Indian guru woman" who treated her with "electrical baths." Sheehy's commitment to the profile drove her to track down this "very secretive" guru and secure an appointment for herself under a disguise.
"She tells me to strip down, and I have to walk up the ladder to this huge electrical bath, and there she is at the other end, manipulating the amps," Sheehy said. "And I'm thinking, I've done a lot of things for getting a story, but maybe electrocution is going a little far. She saw me wavering, and she said, 'My dear, I've had kings and princes ... in that tub. Step in.' And I did."
Watch Sheehy describe what happened next in the video above, and click here to see her full HuffPost Live conversation.
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