Flamboyant nightclub mogul Stringfellow dies

● Club owner died in hospital after battling cancer for a second time

Nightclub mogul Peter Stringfellow has died at the age of 77 after privately battling cancer.

The businessman, whose London clubs attracted celebrities from around the world, died in the early hours of yesterday after a period of time in hospital.

His publicist, Matt Glass, said of his illness: “It was kept very private, he didn’t want to tell. He wanted to keep it a secret.”

The flamboyant nightclub boss was previously diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008 when he went for what he thought would be a prostate test with his private GP, but turned out to be a fuller health check.

He kept the information secret until it was leaked in 2015, later saying: “I just wanted to avoid all the sympathy.”

His publicist said yesterday

0 Peter Stringfellow, who was married three times, created his eponymous London nightclub in 1980 that Stringfellow had been “battling” a different cancer for the past year.

His eponymous London club on Covent Garden’s Upper St Martins Lane will continue to operate “as normal”, he said.

The nightclub pioneer, whose youngest children are four and two, was married three times.

Talking about having children in his 70s, he told Good Morning Britain it made him the “happiest man in the world”, adding “I’m unique, I’m different”.

His death led to tributes from figures including Lord Sugar, Boy George and radio presenter Tony Blackburn.

Stringfellow started in the night-time trade in the early 1960s, and recalled booking acts including The Beatles, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix to play at his clubs.

In 1980, he opened Stringfellows in London’s Covent Garden and went on to create venues in Paris, New York, Miami, and Beverly Hills. With its topless women and exuberant after-hours entertainment, the Stringfellow brand became a byword for debauchery and sexual kicks that had echoes of the empire created by late Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner.

The mogul said his clubs had hosted A-listers including Prince, Marvin Gaye, Rod Stewart and Sir Tom Jones.

And the late Professor Stephen Hawking once joined him for dinner at one of the venues.

Born in Sheffield in 1940, Stringfellow was the eldest of four boys who were brought up by the women in his family after the men went to war.

Stringfellow served a brief prison sentence in 1962 for selling stolen carpets, a sharp lesson which he said put him on the straight and narrow.

A grandfather four times over, Stringfellow is survived by his wife, Bella and four children, Karen, Scott, Rosabella and Angelo.