Report: 'Argentine Firecracker' Fanne Foxe dead at 84

Fanne Foxe, an exotic dancer known as the "Argentine Firecracker" who was at the centre of one of the US capital's most notorious sex scandals, has died, The Washington Post has reported. She was 84.

Foxe leapt into the headlines of newspapers across the country in 1974 after diving into the Tidal Basin in Washington after a boozy night at a nightclub with a married congressman.

Foxe was the stage name adopted by Annabel Edith Villagra, who was born in 9 de Julio, Argentina. The Post said she died on February 10 in Clearwater, Florida.

Foxe's brief moment in the national spotlight came in October 1974, when police stopped a car that had been driving erratically and without headlights in downtown Washington late at night.

The then 38-year-old Foxe emerged from the car in an evening gown and dove into the chilly waters of the Tidal Basin.

Another occupant of the car was an inebriated Democratic congressman, Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, the powerful 65-year-old chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The pair had spent the evening at the Silver Slipper nightclub, where Foxe had performed.

Wills won re-election in November 1974 but left politics in 1977 and died in 1992.

Foxe went on to write a memoir, The Stripper and the Congresman, married a contractor and eventually settled in Florida, according to the Post.

– AFP