Famous brothel keeper dies

THE WOMAN behind a high-class prostitution ring that ran in Paris in the 60s and 70s, Madame Claude, has died aged 92.

Her main clients included top politicians, civil servants and French intelligentsia.

While she never named them, her biographer William Stadiem said the Shah of Iran, JFK, and Marlon Brando were among her foreign clients, plus “half the French cabinet”.

Madame Claude, real name Fernande Grudet, died in Nice, where she had lived for the last 15 years.

At its peak, her network consisted of around 500 women and a handful of men who would cost upwards of €1,500-€2,300 or more, with Madame Claude taking a 30% commission.

“There are two things that people will always pay money for,” she said in her autobiography Madam: “Food and sex, and I wasn’t any good at cooking”.

Her girls had a reputation for their looks, but also charm and sophistication.

As a keeper of so many State secrets, let slip over pillows during the 1960s, Madame Claude enjoyed her invulnerability, until the arrival of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as president and a crackdown on prostitution.

She escaped to the US, where she spent a decade, and was convicted of running a prostitution ring in her absence.

On her return to France she was sent to prison for four months, before being released, and restarting her business.

In 1992, she was prosecuted again and given a five-year prison sentence which she served and did not resume her work again.

In January next year the National Assembly will debate new laws to crack down on prostitution.
Photo:Flickr/Dragan