Raymond, the porn king driven by a lust for money

It would have been a heart-warming remark, showing that despite making a fortune out of soft-core pornography he still had a healthy respect for family values, were it not for the fact that his relations with his family were scarred by bitterness and resentment.

From an early age Raymond was determined to make it on his own. Born Geoffrey Quinn, the son of a Liverpool haulage contractor, he left school at 15 and got a job as an office boy. He also tried his luck down the mines: he lasted a week.

In the Second World War he served in the RAF - as a bandsman - and used to supplement his income by selling nylons and petrol coupons. As he admitted years later: "I was a total spiv." Making money was his motivation - he used to boast: "I have never read a book in my life".

After the war he worked briefly as a drummer under the stage name of Paul Raymond. He bought a mindreading act from a clown called Ravel, and teamed up with a girl called Noreen O'Hagan, who swiftly changed her name to Gay Dawn. By the time she discovered she was pregnant, he had already moved to London to make his fortune.

Earning his keep by washing dishes and pulling pints, he formed a touring revue company which failed to make money until he persuaded two of the girls to take their tops off for an extra 10 shillings (50p). Raymond had found the way he was going to make money.

Married by then to Jean Bradley, a nude dancer, he leased the old Doric Ballroom in Soho in 1958 and called it the Raymond Revue Bar. He sidestepped the law by designating it a club, not a theatre, and it became Britain's first venue with a nude dancing licence.

It had a rocky start - in 1961 a judge labelled it "filthy, disgusting and beastly" and fined him £5,000 for keeping a disorderly house - but was sufficiently profitable to provide the money to start such sex magazines as Men Only, Escort, Club and Razzle. In 1970 Raymond completely dominated the market. As he said: "There will always be sex - always, always, always." There would also always be property. Soho was seedy, land was cheap, and astute Raymond bought up freeholds. By the time he finished he was said to own 60 acres of Soho land.

As the money poured in, he enjoyed the fruits of his business. He grew his hair long and wore a fur coat as he went about town in his Rolls-Royce. But his marriage ended after he had an affair with Fiona Richmond, the soft porn actress and writer for some of his titles.

Jean recalled: "Paul had a string of affairs, but when I complained he bought me diamonds. It was the only time he was generous."

He had an uneasy relationship with his son Howard, but adored his daughter Debbie, whom he groomed to take over the business. A wild young woman with two failed marriages behind her, she used to drink a bottle of vodka a day supplemented by cocaine and, latterly, heroin. In November 1992 she died after collapsing. Raymond was heartbroken. Jean said: "His world was shattered. I think she was the only thing that mattered to him more than his wealth."

He became ever more reclusive, rarely venturing from his penthouse flat off Piccadilly, behind the Ritz. He sold the lease of the Revue Bar to a business colleague, then put up the rent from £150,000 to £275,000. Already suffering from competition from clubs such as Spearmint Rhino, the owner could not pay. Bailiffs were sent in. Raymond's right-hand man Carl Snitcher said: "We are, after all, running a property company."

Before she died in 2002, Jean said: "His fortune hasn't bought him any happiness. In his last call he said he wanted to become a recluse because people liked him only because of his money. He sounded so sad and lonely I ended up feeling sorry for him."