Oscar Owide

Oscar Manuel Owide (23 December 1931[1] – 3 December 2017) was a British businessman, who ran nightclubs, restaurants and sex industry businesses over a long career. He was the proprietor of Soho's Windmill Theatre, which he ran with his son Daniel Owide as the Windmill International, a "gentleman's club", offering adult cabaret, table and lap dancing.[2] The Evening Standard in 2004 said Owide was once "Britain's biggest pimp".[3]

Oscar Owide
Born
Oscar Manuel Owide

December 1931
Whitechapel, London
Died3 December 2017
NationalityBritish
Occupationnightclub proprietor
Spouse(s)Jeanette
ChildrenDaniel Owide
Juliette Owide
Parent(s)Isidore and Mary Owide
The Windmill Theatre, 2009

Early life

Oscar Owide was born in Whitechapel, London, in December 1931, the son of Isidore and Mary Owide.[4][5] He grew up in Finsbury Park, where his father was a "prosperous hairdresser".[5] His father was born Izrael Hillel Owide in Poland, and became a naturalised British citizen on 30 September 1937 as Isidore Owide, living at 35 Fore Street, Edmonton, London N18.[6]

Career

Owide began his career as a hairdresser in the family business.[5] In the 1950s, he purchased his first nightclub, Ilford's Il Grotto.[5] From the 1960s onwards, he shifted focus to the West End, running restaurants, lap-dancing clubs and hostess bars.[7] In the 1970s, his nightclub Chaplin's at 9 Swallow Street "became known as a pick-up place for prostitutes".[5]

In 1989, Owide received an 18-month prison term for VAT fraud.[7] He served only a few weeks and paid a fine of £4,000.[1] In 2000, he was banned for seven years form being a company director, after civil proceedings brought by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).[8]

In the 1990s, Paul Raymond with whom he had been "on good terms since the 1940s" leased him the building that had housed the Windmill Theatre and was then Paramount City, and not viable as a theatre or as a nightclub, which around 1994 Owide turned into a lap-dancing club.[9][10]

In 2002, he went into partnership with restaurateur Marco Pierre White and club owner Piers Adam, and combined Swallow Street's Stork Club and Crazy Horse, both of which Owide owned, into a new club called the Stork Rooms, but it closed six months later.[7] In 2004, Owide pleaded guilty to four charges of acting as a company director while disqualified.[3] He was fined £200,000 plus almost £30,000 prosecution costs.[8]

Owide owned Bentley's restaurant at 11–15 Swallow Street, "once one of London's favourites but in Owide's ownership, a rather shabby place".[5] It was purchased by the chef Richard Corrigan in 2005.[11][8]

Personal life

Owide married Jeanette, the daughter of an East End market trader.[5] They have a son Daniel Owide, and a daughter, Juliette Owide who was the girlfriend of retail billionaire Philip Green in the early 1980s.[12]

Owide lived in St John's Wood, London.[3] He died in December 2017, aged 85, after suffering from cancer. The following month, the Windmill was threatened with closure for breaking the terms of its licence, in particular the "no touching" requirement between clients and performers.[13][14]

gollark: Duckduckgo it.
gollark: While I don't think "does evolution 'want' this" is the same thing as "is this good", if homosexuality was *really* bad for everyone it presumably would have been "evolved out" a while ago.
gollark: Just because something is *what evolution "wants"* or whatever doesn't mean it's actually a good thing in *other sets of values*.
gollark: Perhaps you just haven't evolved with discord-fast-reading genes.
gollark: Also Dirty Doctor Dan, apparently.

References
  1. "Oscar Owide". The Times. 7 February 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2018. (subscription required)
  2. "Visit our cabaret spectacular!". Windmill International. 4 June 2015. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  3. Cheston, Paul; Rosser, Nigel (5 January 2004). "Soho King Pimp faces jail". Evening Standard. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  4. "Oscar Manuel OWIDE – Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". Beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. 4 August 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  5. Dovkants, Keith; Rosser, Nigel (6 January 2004). "Is it all over for Mr Soho?". Evening Standard. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  6. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34451/page/6893/data.pdf
  7. Beard, Matthew (7 January 2004). "Top chef's ex-business partner is fined over company law". The Independent. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  8. "UK | England | London | Banned businessman fined £200,000". BBC News. 6 January 2004. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  9. Willetts, Paul (2010). The Look of Love: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond, Soho's King of Clubs. London: Profile Books. p. 350. ISBN 1-84765-994-2.
  10. Gentleman, Amelia (20 July 2012). "Too much to bare: behind the scenes at a lap-dancing club". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  11. Emma EvershamEmma Eversham, 4 August 2008 (4 August 2008). "Richard Corrigan opens second Bentley's". Bighospitality.co.uk. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  12. Stewart Lansley; Andy Forrester (2005). Top Man: How Philip Green Built His High Street Empire. Aurum. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-84513-100-5. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  13. Sheppard, Owen; Prynn, Jonathan (10 January 2018). "Historic Soho lap-dancing club The Windmill Theatre faces closure after performers flout 'no touching' rules". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  14. Brown, David (11 January 2018). "Historic Soho strip club The Windmill Theatre loses its licence". The Times. Retrieved 11 January 2018. (subscription required)
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