How Joan Collins almost became a member of a VERY saucy dynasty! French brothel owner 'Madame Claude' tried to recruit the actress as one of her 'A-list prostitutes' 

As one extremely satisfied client said, 'It was, without doubt, the finest sex operation ever run in the history of mankind.'

From 1961 until 1977, Fernande Grudet — who called herself Madame Claude — provided the ultimate A-list of prostitutes for the ultimate A-list of clients. Colonel Gaddafi, Hollywood heart-throb Marlon Brando and half the French Cabinet queued up for the services of 200 'Claudettes', as the women were known.

It was Madame Claude who inspired the term 'call girl'. Under her ultra-discreet system, there was no sleazy hanging around street corners. Instead, you called her chic Paris brothel and made an appointment.

From 1961 until 1977, Fernande Grudet (pictured) — who called herself Madame Claude — provided the ultimate A-list of prostitutes for the ultimate A-list of clients 

Madame Claude fled to the United States in 1977, where she tried to recruit Joan Collins, telling her: 'Your husbands don't have to know'

Whatever the billionaires, princes and presidents wanted, Madame Claude, who died last weekend aged 92, provided.

JFK demanded a Jackie Kennedy lookalike, 'but hot'. Madame Claude claimed her 'swans' romped with Lord Mountbatten and the financier Elie de Rothschild — in Rothschild's private jet as it swooped over Paris.

After an orgy crammed with Claudettes, Gianni Agnelli, the Fiat billionaire, whisked them off to Mass. The Shah of Iran had a weekly standing order of Claudettes, delivered fresh to Tehran every Friday afternoon.

Claudettes were particularly popular with French politicians. A senior minister was once cavorting with a Claudette, when they were interrupted by her butch lesbian girlfriend. The outraged girlfriend lifted the half-naked politician off her lover and chased him into the street with a knife.

Even Madame Claude was shocked by some clients. Shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis once turned up with his opera singer mistress and demanded sexual acts that made even the hardened courtesan blush. 

While in Los Angeles, Madame Claude bumped into British actress Joan Collins (pictured) and Evie Bricusse, wife of Leslie Bricusse, composer of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice

Madame Claude told Joan (pictured) and Evie: 'I think you two could do well, very well indeed. Your husbands don't have to know'

Joan (pictured with her husband on Christmas Eve) refused the offer but took it in good humour, 'giggling and shrieking like hysterical schoolgirls'

Brothel keeper to the stars Fernande Grudet (pictured), better known as Madame Claude, died aged 92 last weekend

Madame Claude hand-picked her prostitutes from Paris's leading university, the Sorbonne, and the catwalks of Christian Dior. Leggy, cool, Scandinavian models were at a premium. 

She even employed 'rabatteurs' — French for beaters in pheasant shoots — to track down Claudettes from the ranks of high society. 

These girls were so sophisticated that they passed seamlessly from the beau monde to the world of prostitution. 

One rich Parisian — refused sex by his grand fiancée — booked a Claudette, only to discover it was that very same fiancée, moonlighting as a prostitute. 

He promptly broke off the engagement. Madame Claude even tried to recruit Joan Collins. In 1977, facing a huge tax demand and threats of prosecution for procuring prostitutes, she moved her business to Los Angeles.

In LA, she bumped into Joan and Evie Bricusse, wife of Leslie Bricusse, composer of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice. 

Madame Claude told the pair: 'I think you two could do well, very well indeed. Your husbands don't have to know, and I believe you could make enough money to buy yourselves a few little extra baubles.'

The two women refused but took the offer in good humour, 'giggling and shrieking like hysterical schoolgirls'.

President Kennedy (left), thought to be one of Madame Claude's clients, once asked for a woman who looked like his wife Jackie (right), but 'was hot'

Brando (pictured) was believed to be one of her many star clients, whose secrets she vowed to take to the grave

Deceased former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi (pictured) was also believed to be one of Madame Claude's clients

To ensure the Claudettes had perfect figures, Madame Claude insisted that candidates strip naked at interview.

'It was very funny because there were always two reactions,' Madame Claude told Vanity Fair. 'A young girl, very sure of herself, very beautiful, très bien, would say, "Yes", get up, and get undressed. There was nothing to hide; everything was perfect.

'There were those who would start timidly to take off their dress and I would say, "Maybe you should take off your bra", and I knew it wasn't going to be beautiful.

Because, otherwise, she would have taken it off easily. Sometimes you see a pretty girl, a pretty face, all elegant and slim, well dressed, and, when you see her naked, it is a catastrophe.'

Flawed Claudettes were given plastic surgery to chisel their bodies to pneumatic perfection.

Naturally, successful applicants had to be, as Madame Claude said, 'Très bien au lit' — 'Very good in bed'.

She road-tested the girls with 'essayeurs', or samplers — men who gave carefully graded reports on the Claudettes' performance between the sheets. Essayeurs happily paid for the privilege of auditioning the girls.

'I could judge physical qualities,' Madame Claude said. 'I could judge if she was pretty, intelligent and cultivated, but I didn't know how she was in bed. So I had some boys, good friends, who told me exactly.

'I would ring them up and say, 'There's a new one.' And afterwards they'd say, 'Not bad', 'Could be better', or 'Nulle'. Or, on the contrary: 'She's perfect.' And I would sometimes have to tell the girls what they didn't know.'

The entrance requirements to become a Claudette were so rigorous that several rejects turned nasty. 

Madame Claude's former residence at 18 Rue de Marignan (right, the building and left, the road) in Paris was inhabited by statuesque prostitutes who she called her 'swans'

One German girl was so angry that she returned to Madame Claude's brothel with a gun, intent on killing her.

One bullet went over her head. Another got stuck in the padded shoulder of her designer dress. The third went through her hand, leaving Madame Claude with two dead fingers. 'Most useful for removing bottle tops,' she used to say.

Once they'd passed the physical exam, the Claudettes were schooled for two years in French literature and history. Madame Claude dressed them in Yves Saint Laurent, draped them in Winston jewels and kitted them out with Louis Vuitton suitcases and Cartier watches.

Madame Claude took a 30 per cent cut of the Claudettes' wages to pay for these transformations. In 1977, she was charging £26 (equivalent to £168 today) for an afternoon, £52 (£335 today) for an evening and £87 (£560 today) for a day. 

The exceptional Claudettes said they wouldn't get into bed for less than $10,000 a day.

Many Claudettes were so transformed by their elite training that they went on to become luxury goods moguls and art dealers. 

'It makes me laugh when I see the photographs of the ladies and countesses in the social pages of Tatler, Harpers and Vogue, and count up which ones started off by working for me,' Madame Claude said.

Her operation was hyper-efficient and hyper-discreet. 

According to Claude (pictured), U.S. president JFK was a regular client and once asked for a prostitute who looked like his wife Jackie 'but hot'

Claude (pictured in the 1960s) also claimed famous painter Marc Chagall would regularly show up to paint nude portraits of the woman

First, you called her at the brothel in 18 Rue de Marignan — one of Paris's smartest addresses, just off the Champs-Élysées.

She later bought a hotel in the Rue de Boulainvilliers, a discreet, upmarket corner of Paris, which she converted into a 12-room brothel where a leading New York pianist would serenade the clients.

When those clients called, Madame Claude answered the phone herself, with her traditional greeting: 'Allo, oui?'

Claude met clients at the door, immaculately dressed in muted grey and beige colours. An immensely controlled woman, she neither drank nor smoked. Business was all.

After preparing Cognac or whisky for the client, chatting breezily about the weather, she summoned her 'jeunes filles' — young women, aged 18 to 25. 

The girls were introduced, not as prostitutes, but as sophisticated professionals: Eva, the painter from Austria; Claudia, the German dancer. Once the client made his choice, he headed for the bedroom.

By 1977, Madame Claude had become so famous that a film, Madame Claude, was made about her life. Françoise Fabian, the actress who played her, said she was 'une femme terrible', who thought 'men were wallets and women were holes'.

But Madame Claude loved the film. As a thank-you to the director, she sent him a free Claudette.

The perfect prostitution operation was helped by unofficial protection from the French government, half of whom were clients. 

In the 70s, when she was targeted by the French taxman for evading around £5 million in unpaid taxes, she fled to the United States where she opened a patisserie

If Joan Collins (pictured in 1958) had taken Madame Claude up on the offer, she would have had to strip - as all her potential girls did - to ensure she had a 'perfect figure'

The American government, too, appreciated her wares. During the 1973 Paris Peace Accords to establish a ceasefire in Vietnam, the CIA hired Claudettes to keep up delegates' morale.

However, her protection began to dissolve in 1974, when the new French President, Giscard d'Estaing, cracked down on upmarket prostitution. Her attempts to establish a brothel in Los Angeles failed, as did a patisserie venture.

'She was good at one thing and one thing only,' said one friend, David Niven Jr, the film producer son of actor David Niven.

While in America, she was jailed for visa problems. Even in prison, she tried to recruit her beautiful, Mexican cellmate as a Hollywood prostitute.

To get a green card (documentation enabling her to live in the U.S.), Madame Claude married a gay barman in America. Another marriage, to a Swiss man in 1972, had already failed. She was estranged from her only daughter, whose father, Madame Claude claimed, had died in a concentration camp.

The Madame's personal life and origins were shrouded in mystery. She claimed she was a convent girl from an aristocratic background and had been in the French Resistance during the war. 

It seems more likely she was the daughter of a man who sold snacks at a train station. It was also rumoured she was Jewish and had been in Ravensbrück concentration camp.

After the war, she was apparently an estate agent and Bible saleswoman before becoming a Parisian street prostitute turned madame. 

At her own admission she was no beauty, with crooked teeth and a big nose, later transformed with surgery. She was never that keen on sexual athletics herself, and once declared: 'People over 40 should not have sex.'

When her American business ventures failed, Madame Claude headed to Vanuatu in the South Seas, before returning to France in 1985. There, she was jailed on outstanding tax evasion charges.

For four months, she was detained in France's most comfortable prison — a 17th-century château, with her own maid and hairdresser, and meals supplied by the smartest nearby restaurant.

On her release, she couldn't resist a return to prostitution. Her downfall came when she rejected a potential Claudette for being 11lb too fat. The downhearted applicant turned informer for the Parisian vice squad.

As a result, in 1992, Madame Claude was arrested on prostitution procurement charges. At the moment of her arrest, she was appraising a new Claudette. A tape was played in court of Madame Claude saying to a potential recruit: 'My dear, those thighs are a little heavy.'

She was duly convicted — and the greatest brothel madame in French history finally shut up shop. After six months in jail, she retired to Nice, where she died last week in a nursing home.

She provided her own epitaph in Madam, her 1994 memoir: 'There are two things that people will always pay money for. Food and sex, and I wasn't any good at cooking.'