What they’re saying about Malcolm McLaren

The death of Malcolm McLaren, who as the former manager of the Sex Pistols and former partner of designer Vivienne Westwood was one of the most influential cultural figures in post-war Britain, has brought comments from all quarters.

He was 64 when he died yesterday in hospital in Switzerland. He was being treated for mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer first diagnosed last October. His girlfriend, Young Kim, said: "He had been doing well up until recently, he was lucid". She described him as "the ultimate postmodern artist".

With Westwood, McLaren set up the boutique Let It Rock on the King's Road in 1971 for "the sole purpose of smashing the English culture of deception". They specialised in rubber and leather fetish gear before renaming the store Sex and defining the punk look.

In 1975 McLaren found John Lydon hanging around the store and signed him up to be the frontman of a fledgling punk punk he was managing. A year later, the Sex Pistols released their debut single, Anarchy in the UK, while Lydon - renamed Johnny Rotten - and bassist Sid Vicious were grabbing headlines and outraging the popular press just as McLaren had intended.

In 1977 they released the punk classic God Save the Queen. Its lyrics - "God save the queen / She ain't no human being / And there's no future / In England's dreaming" - got it banned by the BBC. Nevertheless it made to number two in the singles charts during the week the Queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee.

McLaren's decision to have the Sex Pistols perform on a boat opposite the Houses of Parliament was one of his ultimate stunts. As PR man Mark Borkowski put it last night, McLaren "had showmanship in his blood".

The downside to all this was that in the end he couldn't control the monster he had created. As the Guardian's pop writer Alexis Petridis said this morning: "You could argue that [Sid] Vicious's death from a heroin overdose while on bail for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen was the greatest disaster of McLaren's career, but it was a close-run thing."

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:Dame Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer and McLaren's former lover and business partner: "When we were young and I fell in love with Malcolm, I thought he was beautiful and I still do. I thought he is a very charismatic, special and talented person. The thought of him dead is really something very sad."

Jon Savage, music journalist and author of England's Dreaming, a history if punk: "Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk. He could be very charming, he could be very cruel, but he mattered and he put something together that was extraordinary... He was a revolutionary."

John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, former member of the Sex Pistols: "Above all else [Malcolm] was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you."

Joseph Corre, son of McLaren and Westwood, and co-founder of the Agent Provocateur lingerie chain: "He's somebody I'm incredibly proud of. He's a real beacon of man for people to look up to."
 
Young Kim, Korean-American fashion historian, and McLaren's partner for the past 12 years: "I think Malcolm recognised he had changed the culture, he saw he had changed the world... Everything he did was groundbreaking, as an artist he carried on the link from Andy Warhol."

Alan Yentob, BBC creative director: "I think he famously said that his grandmother told him you needed to be a bad boy to survive - it was good to be bad. He wanted to shock and surprise you."

Mark Borkowski, PR consultant: "It's the end of an era. Malcolm was a fantastic raconteur, with a brilliant and agile creative mind. He was the greatest part-publicist, part entertainer. Without him this seismic shift in the music would never have happened."

Malcolm McLaren (last year): "I didn't create it (punk) alone or out of nothing... Duchamp chose a urinal. I chose Johnny Rotten." ·