Mr Nice?More like Mr Awful Father ; Drug smuggler Howard Marks, lionised by the liberal Left, is now the subject of a trendy film starring Rhys Ifans. But here his ex-wife tells how he destroyed their family - and how his drug career has blighted the life of his only son ...

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THE couple in the pictures on the computer are glamorously dishevelled. He is tall, dark and handsome. She is petite and has long blonde hair. They are a positive cliche; high on gloss and high on life. As she scrolls through the images on her screen, Judy Marks breaks into a mirthless smile. This is her life - or at least the Hollywood version, based on both her ex-husband Howard Marks's book and her own.

The pictures are stills from Mr Nice starring Rhys Ifans as Marks and Chloe Sevigny as Judy. Only the casting seems to thrill 54-year- old Judy.

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Mr Nice?More like Mr Awful Father ; Drug smuggler Howard Marks, lionised by the liberal Left, is now the subject of a trendy film starring Rhys Ifans. But here his ex-wife tells how he destroyed their family - and how his drug career has blighted the life of his only son ...

As for the rest, too much has changed for her to view these representations of her past life with anything other than bitter dismay. The rose-tinted picture she once painted of the notorious drugdealer who was her husband has been firmly ground underfoot. Marks, now 63, has spent the past decade or so nurturing his status as a folk legend, lionised by thousands of 'fans' for a drugsmuggling life of crime which once earned him a 25-year sentence in one of America's toughest penitentiaries (he served seven).

He has become a darling of the liberal Left who pored over The Guardian newspaper's seriali...

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