Steve Coogan Tapped for Biopic of Porn Mogul Paul Raymond

UNITED KINGDOM—The late British pornographer Paul Raymond is soon to become the subject of a biopic, and actor Steve Coogan is in talks to play the "King of Soho." Raymond died in 2009 at the age of 82. “Raymond was a legendary Soho figure who opened Britain’s first strip club—Raymond Revuebar—in 1958 and published the magazines Razzle, Mayfair and Men Only. He put his money into property, and came to own large tracts of London’s West End before dying a multimillionaire recluse in 2008,” reported Chortle. “Now his life story is being adapted into a movie to be directed by Michael Winterbottom—who previously worked with Coogan on 24-Hour Party People and A Cock and Bull Story.” Raymond, who was reportedly worth 600 million pounds at the time of his death, was born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn in Liverpool in 1925. His entre into the members-only gentlemen’s club business came after he realized that private clubs were exempt from the rules regarding nudity on stage. With the launch of Men Only in 1971, he was credited with creating the market for upscale glossies in Great Britain, and was inevitably compared to contemporaries like Larry Flynt and High Hefner. The screenplay for the upcoming picture, which has the working title of Paul Raymond’s Wonderful World of Erotica, is being written by Matt Greenhalgh (who penned the biopics Control about Ian Curtis and Nowhere Boy about John Lennon), based on last year’s biography by Paul Willett, Members Only: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond. It is expected that the film will not go into production until sometime in 2012. Photo: Paul Raymond, l, Steve Coogan, r.