Peter Stringfellow, Gentlemen’s Club Pioneer, Has Died At 77

LONDON, UK—Peter James Stringfellow, a British nightclub impresario who brought an atmosphere of glamour and sophistication to his numerous topless bars and counted British royalty and Hollywood’s elite among his friends, has died of lung cancer at the age of 77, according to a report by the BBC. Stringfellow, who began his groundbreaking nightlife career as a key figure in Britain’s explosive 1960s music scene, had kept his illness hidden from the public. He passed away early on the morning of June 7, leaving behind four children—two by previous relationships and two by his wife Bella, who is 41 years his junior. But Stringfellow, who was rumored to have had sex with 3,000 women—a claim he never confirmed nor denied—said that his marriage to Bella was the only relationship of his lifetime in which he did not cheat. After a brief prison term for selling counterfeit carpets, Stringfellow opened his first nightclub, The Black Cat, in his native Sheffield, a town in northern England known more for steel mills than swinging nightlife. In 1963, he booked a then-little-known band called The Beatles into his club for a fee of £85, which even in 2018 United States currency would be only about $2,300. Between the time he booked them and the date they were scheduled to play, Beatlemania took hold and the band hit the top of the charts. But Beatles manager Bran Epstein stuck to his original deal, and The Beatles played The Black Cat for the original, nominal fee. Even 50 years later, Stringfellow recalled the “pandemonium” that hit as soon as the group took the stage and remembered the Beatles show as “the most exciting night of my life.” Opening several other clubs in cities across England’s north, Stringfellow booked most of the top bands of the era—bands that went on to revolutionize rock music, including The Kinks, the Who, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. But when he relocated to London in 1980, he took his nightclub career in a whole new direction, opening the first of what became a chain of topless bars, appropriately branded “Stringfellow’s.” Though his first Stringfellow’s opened in what was then London’s seedy red light district of Soho, the entrepreneur was determined to create a welcoming, upscale atmosphere. “I do not like the term 'strip club' or 'titty bar.' It’s a gentlemen’s club. And my girls are not strippers, escorts, call girls or, even worse, hookers or prostitutes,” he said in an interview at the time. “I tell them all, ‘You are entertainers.’ And, before we start on the moral arguments, let’s be clear: This is a feminist-friendly organization. The girls are safe, well-paid, and no one should tell them what they can and can’t do.” His most famous venue, in London’s Covent Garden district, will remain open under the name Stringfellow’s, despite his death. He counted Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher among his friends and guests at his clubs, as well as rock stars such as Rod Stewart and Boy George, Hollywood “royalty” including Jack Nicholson, and even world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking, whom Stringfellow once called “my favorite guest.” But the always outrageous and flamboyant Stringfellow was not universally loved. In a 2003 survey taken by Britain’s Channel 4, he was named the "18th-worst" British citizen. After a previous bout with lung cancer in 2015—despite, he said, being a lifelong non-smoker—he told Britain’s Mirror newspaper that his fondest wish would be for his wife, now aged 36, to be remarried after his death. "She’s still going to be a beautiful young woman when I’ve gone and she is smart enough to make sure whoever she chooses will fit in with her and the children,” he said in the 2016 interview. Photo via Peter James Stringfellow Instagram