High-class Paris brothel owner Madame Claude reveals all about A-list clients including JFK (who wanted a Jackie lookalike 'but hot')
High-class Paris brothel owner Madame Claude reveals all about A-list clients including JFK (who wanted a Jackie lookalike 'but hot')
- Madame Claude employed hundreds of call girls for stars in 1960s Paris
- Her clients were said to include Marlon Brando and Muammar Gaddafi
- Jackie Kennedy's first and second husbands both allegedly 'johns'
- The eccentric brothel madam claimed to have spent time imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War
France's
most famous brothel madam claimed John F Kennedy asked her for a
prostitute who looked like his wife Jackie - 'but hot'.
The
former President joins a host of famous names said to have visited
Madame Claude, the infamous owner of a high-class escort ring who
employed hundreds of women in 1960s Paris.
Claude,
now 91 and living in France, specialized in procuring call girls - whom
she referred to as her 'swans' - for the rich and famous, servicing
everyone from the actors Rex Harrison and Marlon Brando to the Libyan
dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Sensational
claims: France's most famous brothel madam was allegedly approached by
former U.S. President John F Kennedy (left) who wanted a lookalike of
his first wife Jackie, the fashion and style icon (right) - 'but hot'
Acclaimed
biographer William Stadiem, who penned the famous book on Marilyn
Monroe, persuaded Madame Claude to co-author a tell-all book in the
1980s. Although it was never published, he has now has opened up about
Claude and her roster of powerful clients.
Despite
Jacqueline Kennedy being venerated as one of history's most elegant
women, the explosive claims do not just involve her first husband.
Her
second husband, the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, was also
said to have visited Claude, along with his former lover Maria Callas;
'showing up with depraved requests that made Claude blush.'
'There
was John Kennedy requesting a Jackie look-alike "but hot",' Mr Stadiem
wrote in Vanity Fair, describing Claude as being 'tiny, blonde,
perfectly coiffed and Chanel-clad.'
'There
was Marc Chagall giving the girls priceless sketches of their nude
selves, Gianni Agnelli taking a post-orgy group to Mass, the Shah and
his gifts of jewels.
'There were such disparate bedfellows on the client list as Moshe Dayan and Muammar Qaddafi, Marlon Brando and Rex Harrison.'
Mr
Stadiem also reveals that the C.I.A. once hired Claude's women to keep
up morale during the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, which aimed to end
U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
'There are two things that people will always pay for, food and sex. I wasn't any good at cooking'
One of
Claude's former loyal clients during the 50s and 60s was London's
then-Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopulos, who pointed out that
'going to a hooker' wasn't frowned upon in the days 'before the pill.'
Claude
is said to have chosen mainly tall, stunning, 'failed actresses and
models' - many of them Christian Dior couture models - and favored
foreign girls, especially Scandinavians.
The
brothel madam is quoted as saying: 'There are two things that people
will always pay for, food and sex. I wasn't any good at cooking.'
The
article investigates the fascinating journey of Madame Claude, born
Fernande Grudet in 1923, and how she allegedly turned from a
convent-raised resistance agent in the Second World War - who spent a
stint at a German Nazi concentration camp, and apparently has the 'camp
number tattoo' to prove it - to the head of France's biggest prostitute
ring.
Many
of the elaborate claims Claude made about her past, however, have been
labeled as 'lies' and 'fantasy' by various sources who knew her.
'She reduced the entire world to rich men wanting sex and poor women wanting money'
Ironically
given the X-rated nature of Claude's career, the eccentric character -
mother to one daughter - claimed to have 'hated sex,' and was of the
opinion that people over 40 'shouldn't have it.' She was, however, a
huge fan of plastic surgery, having had everything but her breasts
'done.'
Having
made herself a small fortune with her prostitution ring, Claude was
forced to flee France for Los Angeles in 1977 when French authorities
began hounding her over alleged tax evasion.
Though
she continued working as a madam in the U.S., Claude was described as
being 'totally alone and adrift' there. She lived in a small apartment
in West Hollywood 'filled with wardrobes full of glamorous French
clothes no one would ever wear in LA.'
During
her time in Los Angeles, Claude once attempted to enlist legendary
actress and author Joan Collins as one of her 'swans.' In Ms Collins'
1997 memoir Second Act, she described Claude's proposition.
'Your
husbands don't have to know, and I believe you could make enough money
to buy yourself a few little extra baubles,' Claude allegedly said.
Some of the associates Mr Stadiem spoke with were decidedly scathing when describing Claude.
In
one account, Françoise Fabian - the actress who played Claude in the
1977 film of her exploits - said she 'was like a slave driver on a
plantation in the American South', who pushed the women who worked for
her into debt.
Another
account, from former-Hollywood based journalist Dany Jucaud was as
follows: 'She was vicious... She reduced the entire world to rich men
wanting sex and poor women wanting money.'
Eventually,
Claude returned to her home country of France, endured a short jail
term, and now lives a life shielded from the world.
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