Confessions of a ladies' man

ee Dunne holds the dubious honour of being the most banned writer in Ireland, perhaps even in Europe.

During the 1970s, eight of his novels and a movie entitled Paddy were deemed unsuitable by the Irish censorship board. The film was only officially released late last year in Ireland with, ironically, an age 12 certificate.
“The banning of Paddy was a sick joke that was caused by a momentary flash of Maureen Toal’s magnificent breasts. I thought the film was about as obscene as the minutes of a Presbyterian Church meeting,” says Dunne.
The majority of Dunne’s then-controversial books were soft porn and, by contemporary standards, would probably be classified as light sex farces. But during the repressive 1970s, when even prophylactics were prohibited or required medical prescriptions, Dunne was denounced from the pulpit by parish priests, who urged their congregations to burn his “blasphemous” paperback books, including the seminal Goodbye To The Hill.
An incensed Dunne even held a demonstration on Grafton Street, with a placard denouncing censorship. “I gave away about a hundred copies of the banned book with the intention of getting arrested and being taken to court where I could have made a test case against censorship. But I couldn’t get arrested!” Dunne recalls.
The now “settled” 72-year-old Dubliner confesses to having led a hedonistic lifestyle. Apart from being married three times, Dunne will candidly admit to bedding countless women. “I had hundreds of infidelities during my first marriage, which lasted 10 years,” Dunne proffers, with a tone of remorse that seems genuine.
He was prone to waking up in strange beds – and even in foreign countries – after heavy drinking sessions. Eventually, he gave up the booze, but, for a short period, he swapped his dependency on drink for drugs, before eventually checking himself into a clinic for treatment. “I had an amazing, cathartic experience at The Rutland Centre,” says Dunne, who has been clean and sober for over 35 years.

Jason O’Toole: You are the most banned author in Europe. How do you feel about this dubious title?
Lee Dunne: I never felt the stuff should have been banned. The notoriety never really bothered me. It bothered me that it cut down my sales of books in Ireland, as seven or eight of my books were banned, and it bothered me that I was tied to a country that was so repressive. It has only been in the last couple of years that one of my books was un-banned, Paddy Maguire Is Dead, and two of my movies were shown. It just seems so ridiculous, I don’t mean to be smart-arsed, but it’s a joke – that’s how I feel about that.
Where did you get your inspiration for what were the soft porn novels? Did you have to do much research?
It is fantasy really. The best sex you are going to write about is the girls you are never going to screw. That is why masturbation is so big, because you get the chick you want, you get her doing what you want, and you are being touched and touching at the same time – all those things that make sex so good. Those were quickie books, written for very respectable English publishers. I was offered a lot of money to write some funny, sexy books about London cab drivers. They were fun books, but not really dirty. When you read these titles (The Cabfather, The Virgin Cabbies, Midnight Cabbie) you know they are intended to be funny, with sex running second to the comedy inherent in the very titles. They were seen as soft porn back in the ‘70s, but now they would be perceived as light comedy!
Starting out as a writer in the 1960s, you also wrote some sex novels under a pen name?
I just didn’t think it was a good idea to put my name on what would be called a hot book, maybe even a dirty book. So I used the name Peter O’Neill. I read a piece in the New Statesman from a guy called Maurice Girodias – who ran a publishing company called Olympia Press, which was synonymous with pornography – and he was interested in receiving. I was so full of sex – I loved it, I loved thinking about it, and talking about it. I had always enjoyed reading sexy books, and I knew I could write a horny book, no problem. I wrote the first one in 10 days.
The opening line of one of your books, Big Al, states: During my teens I wanted to make love to my mother.
I didn’t remember that, but I will tell you this: that’s a great opening line for a book. I am delighted that I had the wit to do that.
My mother had magnificent breasts. I loved her, I adored her, and I loved her body. That’s how I was. I am not looking for medals for this. I am not ashamed of it. It’s just how this kid came into this world. Anyway, I probably had a hard-on on the way into the world!
I have heard stories about priests up in the pulpit, during the 1970s, urging their congregation to burn your books?
The books that were banned were essentially funny, apart from Paddy Maguire Is Dead. By definition, pornography can’t be funny. Pornography has to be about heavy breathing. So I was surprised that the books were banned. When Paddy Maguire Is Dead was banned I was appalled because it is a good book. I thought that was very sad. It also cost me a lot of money. I gave up everything to be a professional writer and I have subsidised that with gigs from time to time, which I am still doing when I get them – personal appearances, after dinners, all that. So I never made the bread I might have made.
Were you always a horny little devil?
Absolutely. When I was growing up there was no Playboy, there was no top shelf material, there was no television, there was no anything! It was a graveyard with lights! A lot of the kids I grew up with were the same, we were all horny, all we could think about was sex. We’d look at the pictures of nylons or a corset in adverts in the evening paper. Of course, back then, it was taboo to think or talk about sex. When I was ten, I was looking at girls; I was fascinated with boobs. By the time I was 12, I was obsessed with it and when I was 15 or 16, I was involved with a woman. I didn’t want a girl, I didn’t want young ones, I wanted a woman with breasts and hips; a woman who would put her arms around me.
Why weren’t you interested in girls your own age?
I had no interest in having sex with them and, besides, there was no chance anyway. I was interested in women.
How old were you when you lost your virginity?
I was 13.
That’s very young!
I wasn’t the youngest one in my neighbourhood. Thank God for the lovely, young Protestant girl, who wasn’t all hung up, who parted (her legs). She was older than me, but she thought I was beautiful. I was a very good-looking kid. I can say that without blushing because it has nothing to do with me today. Now I’m just a very good-looking older guy (laughs).
How many women have you slept with?
Probably 1,000. Des Bishop’s father, Mike Bishop, was my best friend. We were the champions of Chelsea. It was just fun, but we were working at it full-time for maybe three years. Scoring and keeping tabs like cowboys with notches on their gun. It isn’t that many when think about it. It is like one a week for 20 years. Four a week for five years. It is not that many if you are into sex. I mean there are people who are into sex and who eat, drink and screw sex. I was one of those. Mike Bishop was the same. He was the only guy who could pull better than me. The Bis’ [Bishop] could have got laid in a coffin!
Did you ever get an STD?
I hardly knew anybody back then that didn’t touch for gonorrhoea, it was kind of like getting your spurs as a cowboy. Gonorrhoea was nothing, which brings me back to what young people face today – Aids makes the mind boggle.
Was it all straight sex, or were there threesomes and other imaginative options?
Of course. No man doesn’t want to go to bed with two women. Friends of mine, guys, we had two women in a room together, whatever. I don’t think that is any type of big deal. It is perfectly natural. The older I got, the more and more women I found were up for that. And up for another woman. That type of thing. Great, two women, wonderful.
You have been married three times, and your third wife is considerable younger. Are you able to keep up?
I am obviously now very happily married. I am very grateful to have the wife I have. I have a friend who is 80 and he has finally accepted that he can’t get any more erections, which I think is sad. ‘Keep it going, Josie,’ is my motto.
Do you think younger men today have it easier when it comes to seducing women?
No. There is no such thing as a free ride, if you will pardon the pun. Young people are facing a daunting life in terms of the availability of everything. They are getting sex easier but, in a way, it takes some of the hit out of the experience because it becomes very commonplace and you get chicks all over men and they don’t have to chase. Now you can see a guy and a gal walking along and she’s got her hand on his arse. It didn’t happen in my day.
What do you think about the sex industry emerging in Ireland, such as lap dancing clubs?
My wife and I made a great effort to have a lap dancing club closed in Bray. I disapprove of lap dancing clubs, other than in a restrictive setting.
So how would you restrict it?
Have a building the size of Clerys and in there have lap dancing clubs and brothels, run by the State, who ensure that the girls are clean, they have a check every week. If a guy wants to be whipped, he can go in and pay his fucking fee and have respect for his wishes. He can walk out of there without shame or anything else, and without fear of being blackmailed by the kind of people who blackmail people who are different.
You should be able to go in there and buy pornography, watch pornographic movies – whatever you want. But let us be clear: we all know what this is. No guy can say, “I thought I was going in to buy a shirt,” and he ends up getting a blowjob. Do you know what I am saying? I am not against any of it, I just think you have to localize it, you can’t have it all over the place, and you got to protect kids from this.
What are your thoughts now on porn?
My thoughts on porn are the same as my thoughts on alcohol: I don’t drink but pubs are OK by me. I don’t buy porn. I saw porn in New York that would make your hair stand up. I was in Greece recently and there were porn movie houses in Athens – but in a million years I wouldn’t be bothered. I am not judging, I am just saying I don’t go to rock concerts either because they are too noisy for me. When I listen to music I want to hear the music and the vocals. It's personal taste. But if others want it, that’s OK.
Do you think alcohol helped you to come out of your shell to hit on women?
No question. I’ll tell you straight, when I was 17, I was 5ft 10 and had blue eyes, black hair, and all my own teeth, and I was regarded as a very good-looking guy. I had taken lessons in how to dance – and yet I couldn’t walk five yards across the floor to ask a girl to dance. I still think that any alcoholic is an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I couldn’t walk across the floor to ask a girl to dance because I thought that everybody in that ballroom was going to be looking at me.
You see, the ego and the inferiority complex. I went around the corner to the pub and drank a pint of cider with a large whiskey, and I came back and I could walk the length of the ballroom. I was free of any concerns about anybody else, and that was the beginning of my friendship with alcohol. The trouble with alcohol is it becomes more demanding as the years go by and I ended up in really serious trouble.
How long are you off the booze?
Since October 1969. If somebody said to me, “Will you have a drink?” you might as well be asking me if I would like a drink of some petrol. The ridiculous thing is when you are a drinking alcoholic, you think you can’t live without it. But I heard the magic words, stay away from drink for one day at a time and I am smart enough to do that.
You said you were unfaithful during your first marriage?
Absolutely. Hundreds of infidelities in a 10 year marriage. After about a year of marriage I was looking at other women. I had this cab driver friend who said, “After you have the first one, come and talk to me.” That was the beginning of the marriage infidelity and then it just became a habit.
When I went out of the house, I stopped being a married man in my head. With drink involved, of course. During the cab driving years, I would stop the car, go into the pub and have a few drinks, end up with a chick, and wake up a day later and not even know where I was, who I was with! And I would have to go out looking for the fucking cab.
Did you ever wake up in a foreign country?
It’s funny. I woke up on one occasion and I was with this very attractive blonde and she was still asleep, and I got up in this hotel room and I looked out the window, thinking “Am I in Hampstead? Am I in Kensington?” I was in Amsterdam! That’s a fact.
Lucky you had your passport with you!
For a year-and-a-half, I never went out without my passport. I came out of an alcoholic blackout walking along the Champs Elysees with a very beautiful French woman on my arm. I said to her, ‘What was it about me that first attracted you to me?’ And she said it was my red knickers. I said, ‘What?’ How could she see them?! I was wearing red silk underpants and she told me that I took my pants off on the plane and danced in the aisle. She thought I was crazy, wonderful, cool, and that was how I pulled her in a blackout. We spent the night together, it was great, and I never saw her again, like hundreds of others.
Were you ever with a prostitute?
Only in the very first days in Soho. When I went to London I was 17 or 18 and Soho was like an Aladdin’s cave. You had hundreds of beautiful prostitutes standing around, stunning creatures by Irish standards where so many women dressed down so they looked like miraculous medals with tits. So I went with a pro: it cost a pound. I had a couple more but I never needed it – I just went for the experience. The amateurs always found me!
Were you not afraid of getting a girl pregnant?
I never thought about it. In the ‘60s, the girls didn’t ask you your name either. Promiscuous women tend to look after themselves. You are less likely to get one of those ladies pregnant than some innocent girl who just loses the head and succumbs to you and you pop her, and then you make her pregnant.
What are your thoughts on homosexuality?
When I was a young guy, poofs were coming on to me all the time. On the cab, guys would openly say to me, ‘I would love to go to bed with you’. I was in the merchant navy with really raving fags, which we called them in those days. I don’t mean any disrespect. That was the terminology used at the time. I think gay people are gay people. I think heteros are heteros. I don’t make any judgement on it. It was never my bag but I am young, I have time! I am only 72. I know that if I was on a desert island with a goat and a beautiful 25-year-old who was gay, I certainly wouldn’t be fraternising with the goat!
You knew Brendan Behan. Did it surprise you that he was bisexual?
Brendan admitted to being bi. It was no big deal to Brendan. I remember walking with him behind a young man and a girl, who were both very beautiful, and he said, ‘Would you like to screw her?” And I said yes, and he said he would screw either one of them, and I said, ‘Are you serious?’ And he said, ‘Yes. A screw’s a screw’. It was that casual. He’d been in prison, so, yeah, but I don’t think that is any kind of big deal.
You were friends with Charlie Haughey. He must have loved listening to your sex stories?
That was what attracted Charlie to me. He read Paddy Maguire Is Dead, which is semi-autobiographical, and he wanted to meet this guy who had all these chicks, because Charlie was very interested in sex – and had quite a reputation as a hammer man, a lady’s man.
So he was interested in my stories. He wanted to share the colour that he couldn’t actually have in his role because he was living in a goldfish bowl of public life. Like Gay Byrne couldn’t have done what I did, because Gay was on television every Saturday night.
How did you spend the time with Charlie?
When I was married to my second wife, Charlie would come down to our house in Wicklow with Terry (Keane). I have never spoken about that to this day. What I am saying here I say with respect – like all men Charlie was good and bad. Overall, he did himself down, and I am sorry about that, but it is nothing to do with me. He loved the women. He nearly fell off the chair listening to my stories. He had a great sense of humour and I would tend to be amusing.
Are you surprised that there haven’t been more sex scandals in Ireland?
Oh, yeah. There were certainly some very famous people and, of course, you would have to remember that most of them were married, so they would have to keep it quiet too. Terry was the only one wild enough to come out and talk to the media about their relationship. Terry Keane is not the most likeable woman in the world – but I kind of empathise with her. I Like her, but I thought she was unwise to speak publicly about Charlie and I think perhaps she realised that herself.
Did you ever have an affair yourself with someone famous, and which you hoped wouldn’t be leaked to the tabloid press?
I was very careful about my affairs. I never spoke names. In America I had an affair with a woman who was a very famous film star. (Off the record, Dunne mentions the name of the actress who was married to one of the biggest Hollywood stars in the 1970s.) She loved me very much. I have never spoken about those things. I just thought, no names, no scandal.
Were you ever pursued by a jealous husband?
I actually got a jealous husband once when I wasn’t even doing anything! I know one guy who tried to get people to beat me up, but he asked a very heavy guy who happened to be one of my biggest fans, and he warned him off. That was the end of that. I was fortunate but, again, I was innocent. I got out of a couple of windows in my time. You can never trust the fact that the guy is working late. Sometimes I had to quickly get dressed in case I had to fight the guy pounding on the door, and I would be wondering, “What am I doing here? It is too heavy. I don’t need this.”
What turns you on?
Essentially, it was always physical – a sensational body. But then, when I got a bit older, a smile or eyes that twinkle, and somebody with a sense of humour. I would have to confess to the fact that I would have been in my 40s before I stopped seeing the body first. A sensational body still makes my head turn. I have always been in love with breasts.
Did you ever enjoy intercourse in public places?
I was at a stage with the cab driving where I was doing it in the back of the cab and I began to put the cab in more exposed places – under a street lamp on a main street. Like I really wanted to be caught, I was like a burglar leaving his fingerprints. I was getting crazier. I did get caught in the back of the cab naked with a woman. I was a bit mad.
How about orgies?
Orgies are at best unhygienic! My biggest turn on was – and still is – watching two women together. Not naked women, but two women in the cinema, in the back row, just making out like a couple, getting turned on by touching each other. Fantastic. That would be my big fantasy. But I have seen it in private.
You went through a drug period. I am presuming you experimented with everything?
Well, not heroin. I was popping amphetamines to give me a hit, to keep me awake. I used drugs as a substitute for booze. I never thought I would make 35, Jason, and I have doubled it. I went on The Late Late Show once and I was very jarred and I had dropped a handful of speed. They didn’t care what you did provided you kept people awake.
That night I was argumentative and I tore strips off this American clergyman, a sort of benign racist, who finally admitted under my relentless questioning that he had no black members in his congregation. Half the country loved me, the other half hated me over that incident. In fact, the next day somebody approached me on the street and called me a fucking bastard.
We have talked a lot about sex, what about your thoughts on love?
Being in love can be a lot of fun, exciting and exhilarating, but sex has very little to do with love. Lust is a must, but love is something else again. Being in love to me literally means being insane to some degree, simply because it’s all to do with hormones, no matter how we dress it up. It’s about wanting to lay somebody, and since people are essentially mindless in this state it creates all kinds of problems. If people ‘in love’ get very lucky they may live to survive the ailment and get to know each other well enough to come to love. And each and every person that ever lived should get to be that lucky, at least once. b

Lee Dunne’s autobiography, My Middle Name Is Lucky, is now available, priced €10.99