Britain's Hugh Hefner/Larry Flint dies

[Bitrudeuk]

Porn baron and property magnate Paul Raymond has died, the Paul Raymond Organisation said.

Raymond, 82, the son of a Liverpool lorry driver, founded a huge pornographic empire which included magazines such as Mayfair and Men Only.

He was once dubbed the King of Soho and in 1958 opened the only premises in the UK to stage live striptease shows.

Raymond acquired property in London's West End in the 1970s and was thought to be worth £650m when he died.

Born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn in November 1925, Raymond left school at 15 to pursue a career in showbusiness and started with a mind-reading act on Clacton Pier.

He soon discovered his real talent lay as a producer and went on to exploit not only the public's fascination with sex and nudity, but also the gradual liberalisation of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

His big break came after he side-stepped censorship laws that prevented naked women from moving on stage by having topless women stand completely still.

Raymond later bought the Whitehall Theatre, where he staged sex farces with titles like Yes, We Have No Pyjamas.

In 1958, Raymond also managed to exploit another loophole that exempted private clubs from censorship laws and opened the Raymond Revuebar strip club in Soho, London.

The club was an instant success and the membership fees made Mr Raymond very wealthy.

But he made a bigger fortune after a police crackdown in Soho in 1977. Many strip clubs and sex shops closed and Raymond bought up their premises cheaply.

Raymond also invented the market for top shelf, glossy porn magazines with the launch of Men Only magazine in 1971, followed by Club International in 1972 and became known as the British equivalent of Hugh Hefner, the American founder of Playboy.

But in later years competition to his porn empire from so-called "lads mags" stifled his fortunes.

Raymond called himself a spiv and behaved like one, sporting fur coats, a Rolls Royce, a tiny moustache and a fake tan.

But money did not buy him happiness. His marriage broke up acrimoniously after an affair with the model, Fiona Richmond.

He was estranged from his son, and his daughter Debbie, who ran his empire for a time, died aged 36 from a drugs overdose in 1992.

He ended his life a virtual recluse in a penthouse flat behind the Ritz Hotel.

Ok, maybe not Vintage news but a sad day for us pervs for someone who brought us so much for so long to no longer be with us! Thanks for the mammories Mr Raymond, you did us proud!

[Deano!]

I have no idea what he was like on a personal level, but I owe a lot of happy memories to his great magazines. Back in the glory days of the 70's and early 80's the quality - as much the writing as the pictorials - was incomparable.

Strange to hear of his death today, as I was thinking about him just a day or so ago for some reason.

[herbsmith]

Does anyone have a picture of him?

Is there a book about him? There have been numerous books about Hefner,
and Flynt had a major movie made about him...it seems that Richmond would have had something done about his life.

[zushiomaru]

yes, props to the man who made wanking in UK a sport instead of a crime,
know a lot of British guys who came overseas to get their cult & ero videos coz nearly all were forbidden or cut to ribbons..

Club int. had loads of amazing models/actresses, even Brigitte Lahaie...

RIP + Paul Raymond(/anthony quinn: lol..)
Fiona Richmond wasn't bad too,i guess.

[slimeremps]

When I attended art college in the 70's, one of my lecturers did freelance illustration for his magazines.

[Mufflover]

The Revuebar ... was thta the theatre in Great Windmill Street, on the left as you walk up it away from Piccadilly Circus and the old "we never closed" Windmill Theatre? That place had utterly stunning naked women.