Jumpin' Jack Flash

by Keiron Pim
 
Amin says "Connoisseur, raconteur, reprobate. David Litvinoff was all these things, and much else. A working class, homosexual, East-End Jew, who in the swing of 60's London straddled seamlessly the worlds of art, fashion, film, music, aristocracy and crime. Kieron Pim's expertly detailed and captivating account of a fascinating, yet flawed man, is an excellent study of a forgotten icon who perhaps more than anything else exemplified how the criminal and the cosmopolitan coalesce."
 
David Litvinoff was one of the great mythic characters of ‘60s London.
 
Flitting between the worlds of music, art and crime, he exerted a hidden influence that helped create the Krays twins’ legend, connected the Rolling Stones with London’s dark side, shaped the plot of classic film Performance – and saw him immortalised in a portrait by Lucian Freud.
 
Litvinoff’s determination to live without trace means that his life has always eluded biographers, until now. Intent on unravelling the enigma of Litvinoff, Keiron Pim conducted 100 interviews over five years, speaking to Eric Clapton and Marianne Faithfull, James Fox and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser. The result is an extraordinary feat of research that traces a rogue’s progress amongst aristocrats, gangsters and rock stars.