The son of porn baron and property magnate Paul Raymond has attacked a new film about his father as a ‘tawdry farce’ – dismissing Steve Coogan’s portrayal as an ‘insulting caricature’.
Howard Raymond, 53, who inherited 20 per cent of the family property empire, has refused to co-operate with director Michael Winterbottom on his movie, The Look Of Love.
He also took legal action to prevent it using the title The King Of Soho, a name associated with his father.
He has, instead, agreed to back a rival warts-and-all film which will have that title and will be based on the diaries of his mother Jean which will, he claims, tell the true story of his parents’ rags-to-riches rise.
The Look Of Love, which opens this week, boasts a star cast including Coogan, Anna Friel, Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas.
But it is Coogan’s role as his father that has attracted particular anger from Howard, who claims the comedian has turned his family story into a ‘Carry On Soho’.
‘My father was nothing like Alan Partridge, the Coogan alter ego,’ he said. ‘It’s a caricature of a man who was so much more complex and who did a lot to make Soho the vibrant entertainment hub that it is today.’
Paul Raymond was a controversial figure who dominated Soho and the pornography industry throughout the Seventies and eventually built up a £650 million property empire in London’s West End.
His interests included theatres, bars, magazines and strip clubs, frequented by everyone from The Beatles to Sinatra.
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The most famous was Raymond’s Revuebar, which he turned into a private members’ club to evade the censorious attention of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, which in the early Sixties barred models from moving.
By 1967, the venue was purely hosting striptease. This would, in turn, make way for glitzy, big-budget erotic shows.
But Howard claims that his father helped change Britain, by lifting the sex industry from an illicit and seedy enterprise into a mainstream business.
This week, he will launch a new gin, bearing the King of Soho name in tribute to his father.
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Offended: Howard Raymond, right, son of Soho sex show boss Paul Raymond has described a new film about his life as a tawdry insult
He said: ‘People have called him a pornographer, but it wasn’t porn – not like we see today. That was the name that was attached to him and the one that stuck, but really it was titillating seaside-postcard stuff.’
The public image of Raymond in his heyday was of an absurdly flamboyant character who sported an elaborate comb-over hairstyle, comical specs and a perma-tan, and had on each arm a busty blonde, bursting out of an ill-fitting garment.
But Howard recalls a father who played football with him in the garden and who always kept Saturdays for his family.
Nightspot: Paul Raymond's Revuebar in Soho is pictured in 2003
‘He would sit and watch the wrestling on television during the afternoon, then have a snooze on the sofa.
‘Both my book and film based on it will be a far more personal account than anything already out there in the public arena,’ he said.
‘It’s about my family life rather than his public persona. I wanted to do it because I was fed up with reading things that weren’t true.
‘A lot of people wanted to tell a ‘‘t*** and bums’’ story, but I didn’t think that was a fitting tribute for my dad.
'One major Hollywood production company said they wanted Hugh Grant to do it or something, but I don’t think he was right, so I said no.
‘There were things in my mother’s diary that happened before I was born. She gave it to me before she died in 2002.
‘She was going to write a book and there are pieces in the script critical to the early days from her notes. I suppose it’s difficult to imagine how poor they were – they just didn’t have any money sometimes.’
Howard adds: ‘I found out she had an illegal abortion in 1953, before I was born, because they could not afford to have a child. She talks about how devastated she was.
'They were in a situation where they couldn’t afford to have children.
‘In the diary, she wrote that my father made her do it and she didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive him.
‘She was devastated, which comes across in her diaries.’
When Raymond died aged 82 in 2008, there was speculation of a rift between him and his son, who now controls a large part of the estate. But Howard insists this is untrue.
‘I’ve never read so much rubbish in my life,’ he said.
Portrayal: Actress Anna Friel, left, plays Paul Raymond's wife Jean, right, in the film
Devoted: Paul Raymond pictured with his daughter Debbie in 1989
VIDEO See the trailer for Steve Coogan film The Look of Love
The Look Of Love trailer
‘There’s this perception that he and I never spoke to each other, but that’s totally false. I saw him once a week, which is a lot more than many people see their parents.’
Equally false, he says, was speculation that his father had planned to turn the entire empire over to his sister Debbie, before she died of a drugs overdose in 1992.
‘Utter tosh!’ Howard exclaimed. ‘My father loved her very much, but he once told me, “She couldn’t run a chip shop.” So, he would never have left her in charge.’
Raymond did, however, leave the biggest slice of his wealth to Debbie’s daughters – India Rose, 22, and Fawn James, 27 – who were the other main beneficiaries in his will.
Howard, who runs Raymond Estates, the property company left by his father, says he is satisfied with his lot.
‘My job is to pass on the estate as intact as possible. He left me at least 20 per cent, at least that’s what I’d admit to. I don’t really think it’s anyone else’s business what the situation is.
‘My father’s legacy is Soho. Thirty years ago I never imagined anyone attaching themselves to the area but, thanks to him, people now want to be attached to Soho.’
High life: Paul Raymond pictured with four of the dancers from his club