Willetts - The look of love : Paul Raymond, the man who made Soho

Paul Willetts is the author of two previous works of non-fiction, Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia and North Soho 999. Alongside these, he has edited four much-praised collections of writing by the bohemian dandy, Julian Maclaren-Ross. He also devised and worked as co-photographer on Teenage Flicks, a jokey celebration of Subbuteo, featuring contributions by Will Self, David Baddiel and others. His journalism has appeared in the Independent, Guardian, The Times, Spectator and elsewhere.

Praise forThe Look of Love, published originally under the titleMembers Only

Paul Willetts biography of Raymond paints a vivid portrait of the man who was, to all intents and purposes, Mr Soho. This fascinating study is as much a history of Londons square mile of vice as an account of one mans life Thoroughly researched and extremely well-written, this is an impressive book. Not since John Dickies Cosa Nostra have I read anything that exerts such hypnotic fascination for its sometimes repellent subject Catherine Arnold, Observer

A magnificent biography John Walsh, Independent

Writing about club life where the traffic of people from high and low life alike is huge and where so many deals are conducted by handshakes presents great challenges for any historian. Willetts, whose previous books include a biography of the novelist and Soho vivant Julian Maclaren-Ross, has done a magnificent job Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph

A fantastically rich portrait of Soho and the post-war period Travis Elborough, Radio Five Live

An excellent book which is bigger than its ostensible subject Willetts has written an intelligent, carefully researched biography which is humorous but never cheap Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement

A triumph of research and patient industry, full of arresting incident and sub-celebrity walk-ons Independent on Sunday

Wonderfully documented by Paul Willetts, Members Only tells of the career of Mr Striptease, the owner of the notorious Raymond Revuebar The whole fascinating story is spiced with brilliant chapter headings Independent

Willetts is very good on the way attitudes and the law changed in regard to porn over the years, and on the shifting face of Soho. He is a brisk and witty writer, with an eye for quirky detail Like a superior striptease, Willetts book is extremely diverting Evening Standard

Straightforward yet queerly affecting account [of Paul Raymonds life] packed with puntastic chapter headings**** Time Out

Paul Willetts skillfully teases back the curtains draped around Britains pioneering pornographer to reveal a very cold fish indeed Willetts evokes Sohos tacky allure and charts the guilt-ridden British attitudes to sex that allowed a cynical player to prosper Metro

For those of us who experienced Soho in the 60s and 70s, Paul Willetts book Members Only will immediately take us back to the excitement of these golden years Erotic Review

The career of Paul Raymond, brilliantly documented in this new biography by Soho chronicler Paul Willetts, is testament to that old adage that nothing sells like sex Willetts tone of amused detachment towards his subject is pitched just right, making for some truly hilarious passages Choice Book of the Month

Mr Willetts is an entertaining and witty writer and he sets down Paul Raymonds life with verve and panache The Chap

A thoroughly entertaining story, told by a writer with an extremely vivid and amusing turn of phrase Steve Coogan

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
PAUL RAYMOND

Sohos King of Clubs

Paul Willetts

A complete catalogue record for this book can
be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Paul Willetts to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright 2010 Paul Willetts

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.

First published in this edition as The Look of Love in 2013 by Serpents Tail
First published under the title Members Only in 2010 by Serpents Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
website: www.serpentstail.com

ISBN 978 1 84668 7167
eISBN 978 1 84765 302 4

Designed and typeset by folio at Neuadd Bwll, Llanwrtyd Wells
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For V.

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Authors Note

You need only flick through The Look of Love originally published as Members Only to realise that it features more speech than some novels. This isnt because Ive resorted to the type of fraudulent imaginative reconstructions favoured by a disconcerting number of contemporary writers of what masquerades as non-fiction. The speech is, instead, drawn from a range of historical sources, all identified in the notes at the back of this book. My sources include newspaper reports, recordings, memoirs, interviews, witness statements, police transcripts and hitherto secret phone taps, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Overleaf: Paul Raymond, backstage at the Raymond Revuebar, 1 January 1960

AS I WALKED through the night I got to thinking about what I had seen I got to thinking why things happen in London at night. For twenty-five years I had seen these topsy-turvy people come into clubs at the hour when respectable people are going to bed. For twenty-five years I had seen men and women do crazy and unlawful things in the hours between midnight and four or five oclock in the morning I thought, too, that maybe these queer and sometimes frightening hours were the cause of all the crazy things I had seen. Perhaps when midnight passes and youre sitting in a club listening to the music, drinking too much, and watching sexy floor-shows while some painted harlot with her eye on your pocket-book is pressing her thighs against yours; perhaps at these times theres a madness steals over you, a derangement of the brain that vanishes with the dawn.

Jack Glicco, Madness after Midnight

FOR MOST MEN it was the raw material of pulse-quickening fantasy. had, by the closing months of 1960, become little more than a tiresome ritual for the man sitting near the stage that morning at the Raymond Revuebar, the upmarket strip-club hed opened just over two years earlier. Destined to establish himself as one of the worlds wealthiest people, his face familiar to British newspaper readers, the man in question was a thirty-five-year-old Northerner who had changed his name to Paul Raymond, a durable memento of his own abortive stage career. His sharp suit, cut in the continental style worn by Marcello Mastroianni in the previous years hit movie