Paul Raymond, Porn baron, R.I.P.

[julian_craster]

From The Times
March 3, 2008

Paul Raymond: obituary
Porn baron, impresario and property magnate who made his name with nude revues and died rich, lonely and embittered

British Film Credits:

Paul Raymond's Erotica (1981) (executive producer)

Hardcore (1977) (executive producer) (uncredited)


Let's Get Laid (1977) (executive producer) (uncredited)


Exposé (1976) (executive producer) (uncredited)


He appeared in:
Paul Raymond's Erotica (1981) .... Himself
It's All Over Town (1963) .... Himself


An impresario, publisher and property tycoon for more than 50 years, Paul Raymond made a fortune from bringing pornography out of the back streets and turning it into an acceptable — or at least accepted — part of British life. His publishing empire produced a vast range of adult magazines, including Men Only and Club Confidential. His nude stage shows, such as Pyjama Tops and Let’s Get Laid, enjoyed record-breaking runs in the West End. His nightclub in Soho, Raymond’s Revue Bar, the self-styled “world centre of erotic entertainment”, was for years a landmark of London nightlife and was promoted as the spivvy symbol of his success.

Although his business made him a multi millionaire and his name appeared annually in The Sunday Times Rich List — in 2007 he was at No. 109; his property empire was thought to be worth some £650 million — Raymond never gained the social acceptance that he craved. He was ruthless in both his private and public dealings and he had few friends. His personal life was marked by tragedy.

Paul Raymond was born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn in 1925, the son of a Liverpool haulage contractor. He left school at 15 and worked as an office boy for the Manchester Ship Canal Company.

In an attempt to avoid military service he feigned a heart condition but was passed A1 fit and served two years in the RAF as a bandsman. As a sideline he went into the black market selling nylons and petrol coupons — “I was,” he said later, “a total spiv.”

Determined to get into showbusiness he bought a mind-reading act from the clown Ravel for £25 and got his first break appearing in a variety show on Clacton pier in 1947. His partner was Gaye Dawn and the pair were billed as Mr and Mrs Tree — pronounced mystery. He split with Dawn when she became pregnant and although he supported his son Derry, it was years before he actually met him.

He went on to become a producer of nude, low-budget variety revues touring the country. A ruling by the Lord Chamberlain, then the supreme licensing authority, prohibited any movement of nudes on the stage, so the shows featured tableaux in which the girls posed naked to the waist often against tatty scenery.

Although the shows were to prove the death knell of family variety they were popular with postwar male audiences and made Raymond a small fortune. With the profits he opened the Raymond Revue Bar in 1957 as a private members club and presented lavish, colourful stage shows that included both male and female nudity — a type of entertainment then unknown in Britain. In its heyday the streets outside the club were packed with Jaguars and limousines and its patrons included top businessmen as well as gangsters such as the Kray brothers and the Richardsons.

In 1961 a judge labelled the club “filthy, disgusting and beastly” and fined Raymond £5,000 for keeping a disorderly house. But the venue was hugely successful and Raymond grew rich on membership fees. Often photographed wearing trendy long hair and expensive fur coats he had made £500,000 by 1965.

As he commented wryly, “There will always be sex — always, always, always.”

He was married to Jean Bradley, a dancer, in 1951, by whom he had two children, Debbie and Howard. Although they were together for 23 years the marriage was a stormy one. Raymond indulged in a series of affairs but after a long-term relationship with the porn actress Fiona Richmond, his wife sued him for divorce in 1974. It was rumoured that she had received the highest settlement in legal history.

With the profits from the Revue Bar Raymond bought the Whitehall Theatre, where he staged the sex comedy Pyjama Tops, starring Fiona Richmond and the comedian Chubby Oates. The play ran for five and a half years and prompted a string of sequels such as What, No Pyjamas? and Come into My Bed. Raymond also produced shows at the Windmill and Royalty theatres and was responsible for discovering the gay comedian Larry Grayson, who compered the all-male revue Birds of a Feather (1968).

In the early 1970s Raymond launched Men Only and Club International, two porn magazines with a quota of factual and lifestyle articles. Although spurned by the main distributors, their glossy appearances enabled him to sell them through small, local newsagents. The “top-shelf” magazine was born.

The Longford Commission into Pornography was constituted in 1971 under the auspices of Lord Longford, who frequently criticised Raymond’s activities both in the media and in the Longford Report of 1972. Unfortunately, Longford’s chairmanship of the inquiry lent itself to remorseless mockery and photographs of him entering the Raymond Revue Bar with a thoughtful expression on his face were circulated widely and became fodder for cartoonists.

In 1977 Soho was the target of a curb on corruption in the Obscene Publications Squad. Several members of the “dirty squad” were convicted of receiving bribes from Soho strip-club owners and several hundred policemen resigned. Following the crackdown many of Soho’s semi-legal enterprises scaled down their activities or quit altogether.

Raymond, however, remained and took full advantage of falling property prices and bought up Soho by the street and by 1980 owned 60 of its 87 acres. Later his property portfolio extended to Hampstead, Kensington and Notting Hill.

In 1996 he sold the Revue Bar to his long-term business associate Gerard Simi. He continued to own the freehold, however, and in 2004, saw its potential as prime real estate and raised the annual rent from £150,000 to £275,000. When Simi was unable to pay, the bailiffs moved in.

After her divorce Jean Raymond ended up living in a two-bedroom flat in Nottinghamshire on a £40-a-week state pension. When she died of cancer in 2002 Raymond did not attend her funeral. His first son, Derry, was brought up on £1 a week maintenance that his father provided, later raised to £1.50.

Raymond’s affair with Fiona Richmond ended and, estranged from his second son Howard, his only close relationship had been with his daughter Debbie, who had put herself forward as his business associate and heir apparent. An alcoholic and cocaine addict she died of an accidental drug overdose in 1992, leaving two daughters.

Already withdrawing from public attention and suffering from ill-health, Raymond spent his final years as a recluse, rarely venturing outside his penthouse flat behind the Ritz Hotel. Shortly before his wife Jean died she said: “Paul’s fortune hasn’t brought him any happiness. In his last call he said he wanted to become a recluse because people liked him only because of his money. He sounded so sad and lonely.”

Raymond is survived by his two sons.

Paul Raymond, impresario and property magnate, was born on November 15, 1925. He died on March 2, 2008, aged 82



* Have your say
Proof that Riches never equal happiness and also proof that one cannot take them to the other side - whether it be heaven or hell !!!!!

Ian Payne, WALSALL,



Paul Raymond was a legend in his own life time and England’s answer to Howard Hughes. He was simply a great entrepreneur and dared to take huge leaps of faith in order to achieve. He was cautious of the press and rightly so as the British press do have a tendency to hound. He like so many of us had his share of joy and sadness within his family and like so many ordinary fathers loved his children. He was a loving friend and father; all those that were close to him cherished his wisdom and respected his requests for privacy in life. "WHAT IS WEALTH IF IT CAN NOT BUY FREEDOM", and freedom he did achieve through the loyalty and decorum of those around him. They enabled him to live the final years of his life with dignity and the anonymity he so cherished. He has past this way and changed the British entertainment scene from dull to magnificent. The world is a more colourful and interesting place for his rainbow of concepts has bought light and glamour to us all. Thankyou and God Bless..

M.Robson, London, England



I met him once in the late eighties. He even bought me a large scotch in the Revue Bar. Nice guy. And his daughter Debbie was stunning.

colin, london, england




Dreadful man.
Dreadful life.
Too bad death does not bring annihilation because he now faces a really dreadful future.

fleur, Fleurida,

[dylan]

Oddly enough Paul Raymond's birth name was Anthony Quinn.

...and Anthony Quinn's was Antonio Oaxaca.

D.

[Amethyst_Isle]

"In one respect Raymond has moved with the times: his website sells 'adult entertainment' in several different forms. But the front page of the site offers a mockup of a street in Soho – or rather, Soho as it was when Raymond opened the Revuebar. His business may now offer hardcore material over the Internet, but Raymond still sees himself as an old-school showman."

"But that was a Priceless Revue bar and Owner "


and in the words of Inspector Clouseau

"Not anymore"

[Moor Larkin]

Originally Posted by Amethyst_Isle His business may now offer hardcore material over the Internet, but Raymond still sees himself as an old-school showman.

Like many cinemas showed nudeyfilms in the bad old days of the Sixties, some of the last of the old-time Music Halls were hosting his nude shows, as the best days of Variety theatre fizzled to nothing at all.

I knew that before I read the article............

[julian_craster]

Paul Raymond: Self-styled 'King of Soho' who built a successful business empire from property and pornography.
Raymond eventually settled in London where he again exploited a loophole in the law that allowed private members' clubs to be virtually exempt from censorship

THE INDEPENDENT
Wednesday, 5 March 2008

The self-styled "King of Soho", Paul Raymond was a self-made millionaire and pioneering sex mogul whose x-rated career spanned seven decades from coy post-war striptease to the hardcore world of the internet. He brought pornography out from under the counters of tatty corner shops and onto the top shelves of WH Smith, giving bare breasts a sophisticated sheen and earning himself a £650m fortune along the way.

Once described as "the most successful man in modern London who isn't an aristocrat", Raymond was the original British porn baron, a free-thinking entrepreneur who made nudity mainstream, yet preferred to be remembered as a theatrical impresario. He believed that sex didn't have to be tawdry, hidden away in seedy strip joints. For him, "adult entertainment" was just that; a privilege of getting older and something to be enjoyed without embarrassment. "There'll always be sex," he said. "Always, always, always."

He was born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn in 1925, the son of a Liverpool lorry driver, and was raised by his mother and aunt in Glossop, Derbyshire, after his father abandoned the family. On leaving school at 15, he sold hair nets and stockings from a barrow but hankered for a life in show business. He changed his name to Paul Raymond in 1942 and tagged onto the variety circuit, ending up as one half of a bizarre mind-reading double act on Clacton Pier called "Mister and Miss Tree".

From performer he became producer and married Jean, a choreographer of dancing showgirls. Their first travelling variety show – The Vaudeville Express – featured topless girls who posed in saucy tableaux but remained completely still so as not to trouble the Lord Chamberlain, who had prohibited any jiggling by half-dressed performers. Raymond's show eventually evolved into the Festival of Nudes (a cheeky wink at the Festival of Britain) and then Moving Nudes, where naked lovelies were winched high in the air on precarious wooden platforms.

Tiring of touring, Raymond eventually settled in London where he again exploited a loophole in the law that allowed private members' clubs to be virtually exempt from censorship. The Raymond Revuebar, located on the corner of Walker's Court and Brewer Street in Soho, opened in April 1958 promising a programme of striptease and beautiful girls. The venue's garish neon display became as much a London landmark as the statue of Eros, emblazoned with the legend "The World Centre of Erotic Entertainment". Raymond's new venture was the first of its kind in Britain and regularly played to packed audiences of middle-class men seeking new nude thrills.

In 1961 a judge labelled the club "filthy, disgusting and beastly" and fined him £5,000 for keeping a disorderly house, but it barely dented Raymond's burgeoning fortune. By the mid-1960s he had made his first million and was driving a black Rolls Royce, plate number PR11, and living in a mansion in Wimbledon.

Buoyed up by the success of his live shows, Raymond launched, in 1964, King (the "real man's magazine"), distinguished by lush photographic studies of "tasteful" nudes and the obligatory articles on motor cars, cigars and military history. Designed as a British competitor to Penthouse or Playboy, the title was, surprisingly, not a runaway success and instead Raymond put his energies into buying the Whitehall Theatre. Here he staged extravagant nude revues including Pyjama Tops and its sequel Yes, We Have No Pyjamas, as well as Let's Get Laid! and Come Into My Bed, which paired "family" comedians like John Inman with troupes of topless dancers.

Raymond's biggest coup came in 1971 when he acquired the magazine Men Only. He was now dating the glamour model Fiona Richmond, and promptly installed his pneumatic new girlfriend as Men Only's nominal editor-in-chief. Richmond became a household name as her self-penned articles documented her travels through the UK "road-testing men". Other magazines, including Club International, Mayfair and Escort, would also be published by Raymond, following a format of porn presented as glossy Sunday supplement.

In 1974 Raymond divorced his wife, Jean, and she received a settlement of £250,000 after he admitted his affair. With Richmond established as his star attraction, Raymond bankrolled her first major film, Exposé (1975), a menacing sex drama full of blood, gore, surgical gloves and gratuitous lesbian love scenes. The film later enjoyed the distinction of being the only British entry on the infamous "video nasty" list compiled by the Department of Public Prosecutions.

Raymond stumped up the cash for two further Richmond romps – Hardcore (JC: featuring Anthony Steel, some way down in his career from starring in Michael Powell's Honeymoon) and Let's Get Laid! The former headlined the relaunch of Soho's Moulin Cinema in Great Windmill Street in April 1977. A beaming Richmond posed for reporters outside the cinema with a selection of bananas and cucumbers. But no amount of fruity publicity could save the movie and Hardcore flopped when up against the sex comedy Come Play with Me, financed by Raymond's porn-baron rival, David Sullivan.

Known for his long straggly hair, sharp suits and bevy of glamorous companions, Raymond became a larger-than-life figure in the West End but his association with pornography never afforded him the mainstream respectability he desired. In 1980 he returned to movie production with Paul Raymond's Erotica, arguably the most expensive vanity project of his career.

Budgeted at £1.5m, the film starred the French starlet Brigitte Lahaie as a young investigative reporter seducing half of London. If cinema-goers weren't put off by a sex scene set in Smithfield meat market then they certainly were by Raymond's woeful attempts at acting. The Daily Express critic reported that it was impossible to hear the film's dialogue over the sound of cinema seats snapping up as disillusioned patrons fled the auditoria. Raymond didn't appear on screen again and, hurt by the commercial failure of the film, slunk back to relative anonymity running his publishing and property empire.

Raymond had started buying up huge swathes of Soho during the 1970s after a crackdown on unlicensed sex shops and peep-show premises by the Obscene Publications Squad. Again, after the property crash of the late 1980s, he started buying more freeholds. By the end of the following decade, he owned nearly 60 of the 87 acres in the district and had practically cornered the market in legitimate sex-shop outlets.

As Raymond neared retirement age he began grooming his daughter to take over the family business. Unfortunately, the flamboyant and undeniably talented Debbie Raymond, a former dancer at the Revuebar, had an addictive personality and died in 1992 after an accidental drug overdose, aged just 36. It was a tragedy from which Raymond never fully recovered and he became increasingly reclusive, rarely leaving his suite next door to the Ritz. His stranglehold on the business further loosened through the decade and, in 2000, his GP-brother Philip became director of the sex and mortar empire.

The Raymond Organisation also gave up the day-to-day running of the Revuebar and sold its name to the choreographer Gerard Simi. In February 2004, the business ceased operating after Simi claimed he could not afford the £270,000-a-year rent. Raymond's iconic building is now occupied by a gay cabaret bar.

Simon Sheridan





Beneath the slight stammer and gentlemanly manners, Paul Raymond was often ruthless with rivals, former associates and even his own sons, writes Pierre Perrone.

I worked for Paul Raymond Publications for over 20 years, editing a French magazine and then the flagship title Men Only as well. When I joined the company in 1986, there was much to admire about Raymond's instincts for tapping into Britain's then unsated appetite for erotica. As a publisher, his eye for the smallest of details was still there, and he was prepared to back his hunches that France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada would buy a French-language equivalent of his classier magazine.

When the French government took a dim view of what Club Pour Hommes was trying to do – taking coals back to Newcastle in an "ooh la la" fashion, basically – and threatened to confiscate the title in the mid-1980s, Raymond hired a commanding law firm and threatened to take the case to the European courts before deciding that a change of title to Club Edition Française for France might just do the trick and enable us to carry on publishing, which we did successfully for many years.

However, after his beloved daughter Debbie died in 1992 there was a definite darkening of mood. Gone were the publicity stunts over the unlikely purchase of a football club. Gone was the dabbling in theatre and film production which had made Fiona Richmond a household name. Raymond became an elusive figure, more interested in building his property empire than broadening his range of publications.

By the time the publishing side of his many companies eventually decided to invest in DVD cover-mounts and a stand-alone website, Raymond's magazines were caught between an increasingly liberal attitude to the import of hardcore material from continental Europe, the proliferation of x-rated internet content and lads' mags like Loaded, Zoo and Nuts. By the mid 2000s, the market was shrinking, with Men Only and Club International selling a 10th of what they had in their heyday, and there was an unsuccessful attempt to offload the publishing company.

After many years editing the French titles, I was also asked to edit concurrently Men Only, a magazine which had gone through five editors in the previous 10 years. When this experiment did not achieve the desired sales spike, I was taken off the English title and continued editing the French title, which I had launched 20 years before with Debbie. Shortly afterwards, I was made redundant. I had to take the company to court in order to secure a fair settlement. The tactics used by some of Paul Raymond's directors throughout the redundancy process and the subsequent shenanigans of his legal team "beggared belief", said the judge, who ruled in my favour.

Paul Raymond may still have had the appetite for a legal fight but his showman attributes had long deserted him. The man who had once bought a mind-reading act, and said his younger self "was a total spiv", had reverted to type.

Geoffrey Anthony Quinn (Paul Raymond), entrepreneur, publisher and property magnate: born Liverpool 15 November 1925; married 1951 Jean Bradley (one son, and one daughter deceased; marriage dissolved 1974), (one son with Noreen O'Horan); died London 2 March 2008.

[john audley]

Originally Posted by Moor Larkin Like many cinemas showed nudeyfilms in the bad old days of the Sixties, some of the last of the old-time Music Halls were hosting his nude shows, as the best days of Variety theatre fizzled to nothing at all. I knew that before I read the article............

I would suspect that his Nude-Review shows were in the later 1950s? I seem to recall that some relatives of mine said (in my hearing!) that they actually worked in a traditional pantomime produced by him in the early 1950s. So he did diverse a bit.

[julian_craster]

Have any of our budding screenplay writers considered a treatment of 'the life of Paul Raymond' ? Not in exploitation mode, but with a hint of the risque that made THE FULL MONTY such a hit Ingredients: Education with Jesuits/Catholic nuns ; WW2 spiv; 1950s nudie shows in variety theastres/swinging sixties; meeting Mrs Thatcher as an entrepreneurial role model ; family tragedies; lonely, unhappy old age, in spite of being worth over £100 million.... A clever script might include a parody of 1970s Raymond stage/film production I am sure any agent would be happy to try and place a quality script..... Which British actor/star would you cast as PR?

[Moor Larkin]

Originally Posted by john audley I would suspect that his Nude-Review shows were in the later 1950s? I seem to recall that some relatives of mine said (in my hearing!) that they actually worked in a traditional pantomime produced by him in the early 1950s. So he did diverse a bit.

More than likely. His was a name on a list I had to write letters to once, in pursuit of contemporary theatre history. He was one of the many that never replied. Reading the awful tale of his 'favourite' daughter in the rags this week, I've realised she had been dead barely a year or so before I sent that letter........

No wonder there was never a reply.

[Mr Flash]

Some of the Raymond/Fiona Richmond stage shows

[batman]

There was a scene in Mona Lisa set in Raymond Revue Bar. Michael Caine was sitting in that big gold hand.

[john audley]

Originally Posted by Mr Flash Some of the Raymond/Fiona Richmond stage shows

During the early 1980s I was in Great Yarmouth for short time and Fiona Ricjmond was starring in a small promenade theatre in a nude show (it might have been Pajama Tops - not sure). I did see it and she was well past the sell by date I am afraid. Not very many in the audience either.

I might add, that as a child I visited this same theatre which, at that time, was a Cartoon cinema. You know, the old one-hour programme.

[Harleybloke]

Elton John nearly sold him Watford Football Club in '87 or '88.

[batman]

Originally Posted by john audley During the early 1980s I was in Great Yarmouth for short time and Fiona Ricjmond was starring in a small promenade theatre in a nude show (it might have been Pajama Tops - not sure). I did see it and she was well past the sell by date I am afraid. Not very many in the audience either. I might add, that as a child I visited this same theatre which, at that time, was a Cartoon cinema. You know, the old one-hour programme.

When that show played in Norwich the local council banned her from appearing topless!

[Mr Flash]

Recent pic of Fiona Richmond from one of today’s papers

[Harbottle]

Never heard of him