James Lipton Worked As A Pimp In Paris In The 1950s

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James Lipton is a weird guy. He speaks and moves about entirely at his own pace, which is why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s lived a far crazier life than most. In fact, he apparently resided in France for an entire year in the 1950s working as a pimp that oversaw an entire bordello.

Here’s what Lipton admitted to Parade Magazine during a recent interview celebrating the 250th episode of Inside The Actors Studio…

”I did a roaring business, and I was able to live for a year. The French mecs didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents. And they took a cut. That’s how I lived. I was going through my rites of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life.”

If Lipton is to be believed, we shouldn’t think of the term “pimp” like we do today, however. Apparently, he was more like the manager of a bordello and would bring in clients in exchange for a cut of the women’s take. Roughly translated: I would say that means there wasn’t any kind of violence or intimidation that went on, despite the fact that almost a half century later he would go on to play a prison warden on Arrested Development.

Over the last decade and a half plus, Lipton has carved out a nice life for himself. No doubt he wasn’t forecasting any of it while he was honing his pimping game in Paris, but like any good actor, he built on all of the experiences of his past to increase his range.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.