Paul du Feu

Paul Bernard du Feu (September 1935 – 1 January 2013) was a Welsh builder, painter, author and model. He is best known for his marriages to the feminist Germaine Greer and the poet Maya Angelou.[1]

Paul du Feu
BornSeptember 1935
Wrexham, Wales
Died1 January 2013(2013-01-01) (aged 77)
Oakland, California, U.S.
Spouses
Shirley Thompson
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​
(m. 1956; div. 1968)​
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1968; div. 1973)​
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      ​
      (m. 1974; div. 1983)​
      Children2

      He published the memoir Let's Hear it for the Long-legged Women in 1973.[2]

      Life

      Born in 1935 in Wrexham, Wales,[3] the son of a civil servant, du Feu grew up in London. His French surname came from ancestors who settled in the Channel Islands.[4]

      He attended King's College London, studying English literature, during which time he married Shirley Thompson, with whom he had two children.[5] After graduating he worked as a builder.

      Marriage to Germaine Greer

      In 1968 after being discharged from the hospital where he had been treated for alcohol poisoning, du Feu met Germaine Greer, then an assistant lecturer at the University of Warwick, outside a pub in Portobello Road and after a brief courtship they married at Paddington Registry office.[5] Though their marriage officially lasted five years, their relationship lasted only three weeks. Greer later recalled that she had been unfaithful to du Feu seven times during their short relationship, and she had spent her wedding night in an armchair because her husband, drunk, would not let her in bed. Eventually, during a party near Ladbroke Grove, "'[h]e turned to me and sneered (drunk as usual): 'I could have any woman in this room.' 'Except me,' I said, and walked away forever.'"[6]

      After this, du Feu posed in British Cosmopolitan, thought to be their first almost-naked male centerfold. In 1973 he also published an erotic memoir, Let's Hear it for the Long-legged Women, for which it is claimed he was paid more than Greer had been given as the advance for her 1970 work The Female Eunuch.[7]

      Marriage to Maya Angelou

      du Feu met Maya Angelou in Soho in 1971, at a literary event for her best-selling autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.[1] They married in 1974, and exchanged vows two further times, but divorced in 1983. They remained friends, and Angelou helped du Feu financially during his later years.[8]

      Later life

      du Feu spent the rest of his life in California, both in Berkeley and later in Oakland, where he worked in home renovation.[6] He died in January 2013.

      References
      1. People Staff (25 August 1975). "On Her Third Attempt, Maya Angelou Finds the Ideal Husband, Germaine Greer's Ex". People. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
      2. du Feu, Paul (1973). Let's Hear it for the Long-legged Women. New York: Putnam. ISBN 9780399112430. OCLC 841441.
      3. "Du Feu, Paul B." FreeBMD. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
      4. Collection of material, partly unattributed, Clapham Old Xaverian Archive
      5. Taylor, Angela (4 April 1972). "England's First Male Pin‐up Leaves Coyness to Others". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
      6. "Country notebook: drunken ex-husband". The Telegraph. Retrieved 16 October 2020.(subscription required)
      7. Guardian Staff (14 February 1999). "Do not go genitally into that good night". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
      8. Brown, Emma (28 May 2014). "Maya Angelou, writer and poet, dies at age 86". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 October 2020.


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