Madame Claude: Brothel-keeper whose clients included film stars, millionaires, and 'half the French cabinet'

The Frenchwoman was the grandest and most colourful proxénète, procuress and brothel-keeper of the late 20th century

Madame Claude poses for cameras before a television appearance in 1986 (AFP/Getty Images)

There are two things that people will always pay money for – food and sex," said Madame Claude, "and I wasn't any good at cooking." The 92-year-old Frenchwoman was the grandest and most colourful proxénète, procuress and brothel-keeper of the late 20th century. She counted as clients everyone from JFK to Onassis – "and half the French Cabinet", claimed William Stadiem in a profile of her published last year in Vanity Fair.

Her girls, the Claudettes, were always beautifully groomed and dressed, well-spoken and able to converse intelligently (she insisted they learn English) in any social gathering. In her prime she had between 30 and 50 favourites, her "swans", who commanded fees of at least $10,000 a day. A New York banker client is supposed to have said: "If you walked into a room in London or Rome and saw a girl who was better-looking, better-dressed and more distinguished than the others, you presumed she was a girl from Claude." Unlike her girls, who had to be tall (minimum 5ft 9in), she was petite; eternally blonde and carefully coiffed, she usually wore Chanel. She had much experience of cosmetic surgery, and paid for any work she felt her recruits needed – except breast enlargement, of which she was not a fan.

In spring 1973, visiting Paris with American cousins, we were driven by a wonderful middle-aged woman who told me that she had been an extra in half the films then showing on the Champs-Elysée, and as we drove through the Bois de Boulogne or along Rue St Denis, she pointed out the prostitutes and told me their specialities. My cousins adored their guide, who, they said, had invited them for a drink at her flat the evening before. "It was very odd," my cousin told me. "There was not much furniture and an awful lot of telephones."

Returning home to Oxfordshire with me, my cousins were present for drinks with a friend who had lived in Paris. We told him about our new acquaintance. "Didn't you know?" he asked. "She is the lover and housemate of Mme Claude." It was the weekend of the Jellicoe/Lambton scandal, in which Mme Claude's name figured in all the newspapers. The telephones were explained by the fact that Mme Claude pioneered "call girl" prostitution, making assignations by telephone, in a place of the client's choosing, rather than in a brothel; and our driver used her regular film extra roles as fertile recruiting grounds.

Born Fernande Grudet in Angers, Claude claimed in her 1974 memoir, Madam, that she was an aristocrat, educated by nuns, and that she had been a heroine of the Resistance, imprisoned in Ravensbrück, where she saved the life of Charles de Gaulle's niece. A 2010 French documentary rubbished the entire narrative. It claimed that her father ran a snack concession at Angers railway station and that she was never at the convent. She did have a concentration camp number on her wrist, but these tattoos were only used at Auschwitz. Among those who actually saw her tattoo (and is amiably unashamed to have been a Claude client) was the Spectator columnist, Taki Theodoracopulos. He was certain that Claude was not imprisoned for Resistance work: "She was Jewish," he said. "I'm certain of that."

Claude seems to have married once or twice, in 1972 to get a Swiss passport, and later, a gay barman, to obtain an American green card. She had a daughter, whom she left to be brought up by her own mother (she said the father had died in the camp). Claude said her first job in Paris was selling bibles, but Stadiem thought it more likely that she was selling herself – though she made it clear that she did not enjoy sex.

In 1977, pursued by the authorities for tax evasion, Claude exiled herself to Los Angeles, where she stayed for years, had her own table at the Hollywood A-list eatery, Ma Cuisine, and hung out with movie people. To their great hilarity, she tried to enlist Joan Collins and another actress to turn the odd trick; instead she lost a packet on an abortive pâtisserie business. Thinking that the statute of limitations applied, she returned to France in 1985, only to be prosecuted and jailed for four months – in a converted 17th century château, which she didn't mind one bit. Back in Paris and in business, by 1992 she was said to be making telephone appointments for at least a dozen women at the rate of £1,000 an hour.

When Stadiem interviewed her she dropped names of clients that included Lord Mountbatten; JFK asking for a Jackie lookalike, "but hot"; and Onassis and Callas making requests so depraved they caused even Claude to blush. Gianni Agnelli is supposed to have laid on an orgy then taken the group to Mass; the Shah gave her jewels; Chagall presented the girls with sketches of themselves at work. Muammar Gaddafi's name figured, as well as Moshe Dayan, Marlon Brando and Rex Harrison.

However, in spring 1992 she encountered her nemesis, Martine Monteil, head of the Paris vice squad. When she busted Mme Claude, she had as evidence a recording made by a candidate for employment, who resented being rejected for being 5kg overweight. After spending six months in prison awaiting trial, Mme Claude was convicted, but did not serve any more time – many said, because the government feared a scandal.

Though her 1990s operation was only a shadow of the 1970s, she was a celebrity. Les filles de Madame Claude, by Elizabeth Antébi and Anne Florentin, was published in France in 1974, and Just Jaeckin made a 1977 film called Madame Claude, starring Françoise Fabian. In 1994 there was Madam by Claude Grudet, and last year the muckraking TV documentary found her an old lady, living in Nice with her cats near her daughter. Stadiem says they couldn't be bothered to speak to each other even if they met in the street.

Was she nice or nasty? Taki said, "To say someone was a Claude girl is an honour, not a slur." But Fabian insisted to Stadiem that Claude was "une femme terrible. She despised men and women alike. Men were wallets. Women were holes."

Fernande Grudet (Madame Claude), brothel-keeper and procuress: born Angers, France 6 July 1923; died Nice 19 December 2015.