Fernande grudet biography of martin

Madame Claude real name Fernande Grudet , who has died at the age of 92, was known to the international jet set as perhaps the most famous purveyor of high-class call girls in the world. Her career in the vice trade began in Paris after the war. Following a brief period as a call girl, she realised there was an unmet demand among well-heeled punters for women they would not be ashamed to show off in public.

She hired tutors to teach them art and philosophy, sent them on trips abroad to learn languages and culture, and paid for any necessary plastic surgery.

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Her stroke of genius was a system whereby clients booked an appointment over the telephone, giving rise to the term "call girls". Recruitment appears to have been no problem; indeed, Madame Claude maintained she was oversubscribed. She judged them initially on "face, figure and intelligence", before subjecting them to a final hurdle - a night with one of her essayeurs, a trusted team of testers who would sample the women and report back on their sexual technique.

For those who passed her recruitment process, the rewards were substantial. According to William Stadiem, who wrote an unpublished biography of Madame Claude, her clients in the '60s and '70s included such figures as Muammar Gaddafi, Marlon Brando and "half the French cabinet".

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But in , the French tax authorities began to investigate her finances. To avoid arrest she fled to Los Angeles. In , she returned to France, believing the statute of limitations meant she was safe from prosecution. She was wrong and served a four-month prison sentence. She moved back to Paris, ostensibly to work in a boutique, and started off again.

By , she had a dozen girls on her books and was arrested while inspecting a naked job applicant. She was sent back to prison for five years. From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.