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Nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow has died at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
The businessman, who had wanted to keep his illness private, died in the early hours of Thursday morning, a spokesman said.
He leaves behind his wife, Bella and four children.
His publicist, Matt Glass, said: "It's very sad news. He passed away in the early hours of this morning.
"It was kept very private, he didn't want to tell. He wanted to keep it a secret."
Peter Stringfellow with wife Bella Wright in 2005Rex FeaturesHis eponymous London club on Covent Garden's Upper St Martins Lane will continue to operate "as normal", Mr Glass said.
Stringfellow started in the nighttime trade in the early 1960s and recalled booking acts including The Beatles, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix to play at his clubs.
Peter Stringfellow has died at the age of 77 after a battle with cancerRex FeaturesIn 1980 he opened Stringfellows in Covent Garden in London's West End and went on to create venues in Paris, New York, Miami, and Beverly Hills.
Peter Stringfellow at the Bacardi London Club and Bar Awards at the London Hilton Hotel in 2001PAWith its topless girls and exuberant after-hours entertainment, the Stringfellow brand became a byword for debauchery and sexual kicks that echoed of the empire created by late Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner.
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The mogul said his clubs had hosted A-listers including Prince, Marvin Gaye, Rod Stewart and Tom Jones.
And it was not just celebrities who experienced Stringfellow's hospitality - 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.
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He served a brief prison sentence in 1962 for selling stolen carpets, a sharp lesson which he said put him on the straight and narrow.
In a 2012 article for The Guardian he attributed his entrepreneurial spirit to his "feisty" mother.
He said sex was never a topic of conversation in the house, while his father declined an invitation to visit one of his establishments in his later years.
Stringfellow was married three times and a grandfather four times over.
He said he was strongly opposed to the country “sleep-walking” towards quitting the European Union.