ltwguns.com

I am not sure if anyone here was aware of this or not.

NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 20, 2006 -- Paris Theodore, an inventor of innovative gun holsters and state-of-the-art firearms and shooting techniques used by government agents and police departments in the U.S. and abroad, as well as by the fictional James Bond, passed away November 16, 2006 at St. Luke's hospital in Manhattan. The cause of death was complications resulting from a longstanding and debilitating bout with multiple sclerosis, according to his son, Ali.

Theodore was born in New York City on January 9, 1943, his father, John, was a sculptor and art professor at The Horace Mann School. His mother, Nenette Charisse was a renowned ballet instructor and member of a vaudeville dancing company. Charisse's second husband was Robert Tucker, a Tony-nominated choreographer, and the couple raised Theodore from early childhood. Following his graduation from The Browning School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and while still a teenager, in the early 1960's, Theodore supplemented his work as an abstract painter by serving as an independent contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency. For several years, he performed a number of dangerous covert missions for the Agency, many of which required him to carry and use handguns. His experience sparked an interest in creating special holsters for the concealment of weapons. "I was working for Uncle Sam as a freedom fighter until Communism imploded on itself," Theodore said.

In 1966, at the age of 23, Theodore founded Seventrees Ltd., a company that designed and produced gun holsters for professionals who had the need to conceal weapons yet access them quickly. Demand among undercover investigators and intelligence agents grew quickly for his innovative designs and Seventrees was soon awarded several contracts from a variety of U.S. agencies. The growing popularity of the holsters inspired many imitations by other manufacturers. Even the company's slogan "Unseen in the Best Places" was copied by at least one competitor.

By day, Theodore and his team were manufacturing customized gun holsters, while by night, Seventrees' West 39th Street offices were transformed into a clandestine weapons manufacturing operation, designing special classified concealment weapons for government agencies through a sister company, Armament Systems Procedures Corporation (ASP).

One of ASP's first products was a Theodore-designed handgun bearing the name of the company. The "ASP," based on the Smith & Wesson Model 39 semi-automatic pistol, featured many innovations: "clear grips" which enabled the user to see the number of unfired rounds remaining; the "guttersnipe" -- a ground-breaking gun sight designed for close range combat; and a "forefinger grip" -- today a standard feature on the trigger guard of many modern handguns. Furthermore, during a time when large handguns were the weapons of choice among gun owners, the ASP would be considered one of the first to combine power with small size -- criteria that would later become standard for law enforcement worldwide.

In 1970, the ASP was featured in "The Handgun," by Glaswegian gun expert Geoffrey Boothroyd. Boothroyd, the inspiration for "Q," the technologically inventive character who outfitted James Bond with his lifesaving gadgets, would, in turn, later inspire Ian Fleming's successor, John Gardner, to replace Bond's renowned Walther PPK as 007's weapon of choice. Beginning with 1984's "Role of Honor," the ASP would go on to be featured in 11 James Bond novels. James Bond expert James McMahon would later write: "If Bond were a gun, he'd be the ASP. Dark, deadly, perfectly suited to his mission."

In 1980, Theodore formed Techpak, a company created to market a combat handgun shooting technique he had developed called "Quell." Quell drew upon Theodore's real-life experience in handgun combat and became required teaching for many police departments and special agencies throughout the world. Through Quell, he sought to educate weapons professionals about the stark reality of close combat with handguns. "From the movies we have learned to expect that when someone is shot in the arm, he reacts immediately by grabbing it with his free hand, wincing, and maybe uttering an 'Unh!' When he is shot in the chest, a spot of blood appears and he is thrown backwards, usually with arms flailing, to land motionless and silent." Theodore wrote in 1985, "The truth is that no bullet from a sidearm, no matter what the caliber, will bowl a man over." He described this "knock-down power" as "the figment of the collective imagination of Hollywood screenwriters."

As a child, Theodore appeared as "Nibs" in NBC's 1955 broadcast of "Peter Pan" staring Mary Martin. In 1962, Theodore married Lee Becker, the Tony-nominated dancer and choreographer and founder of The American DanceMachine, who died in 1987. He is survived by his sons, Ali and Said Theodore and Paris Kain. Kain, a filmmaker, is currently producing a documentary based on the life of his late father.

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Kentucky Colonel, Tennessee Squire & Combat Leprechaun
"You won't rise to the occasion - you'll default to your level of training." Barrett Tillman

I do wish Mr.Theodore eternal rest.

Sigh!!

I guess I should not expect delivery of the two holsters I ordered and paid for and he stiffed me on in the early 1970's.

Along with his other investions and long career he appears to have developed the technique of ignoring calls and letters from peeved customers until they go away. :

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The mature gentleman sitting quietly in the far corner, sipping Lagavulin and very much enjoying the "Stan Getz's CD.

Not exactly sure of the time line, however, IIRC, when Paris Theodore, in effect, gave the rights to his holster patterns to Mr. Kenneth Null, back orders were to be filled by Mr. Null.

While Paris was a genius in a number of areas, business acumen was not one of them. I am sure that he did not stiff you intentionally.

As you said, may he rest in eternal peace.

BTW, after 30 years for a couple of bucks and considering the nature of the original post, I thought your comments were misplaced - JMO.

John

An annotated and less hyperbolic version of the obituary.

http://www.thegunzone.com/people/paris_theodore.html

I'd not thought I'd add to the obituary as posted on the internet, but folks on this forum are in the main a cut above most of the gun forums and don't seem to feel the need to enhance their egos by tearing down someone else. It's certainly been interesting to see some of the comments made in various forums about an obituary provided by a man's sons following his death.

Paris Theodore made his mark in the world of holster development and weapons development. It's interesting to see folks with minimal accomplishments poke and prod and quibble and urinate on and weigh in to find faults. Initially conceived for a special user, Paris' ASP was rejected by a company who after the ASP had spun off a cottage industry among custom gunsmiths in providing their own ASP variants, later added a factory version of the weapon to their line in several variants which have proven popular sellers to folks who never heard of Paris, or Seventrees, or the ASP.

The ASP proved that a service calibre handgun could be produced practically in a compact version. Now the market is flooded with tiny service calibre sidearms. The ASP was and is a trendsetter. Is it state of the art nearly a half century later---well, no, but without the ASP we'd not likely have the cornucopia of compact and sub compact pistols that exist today. And, as a sidenote, by the 1980's, the ASP was also outdated in Paris Theodore's mind and had been supplanted by a new, state of the art variant which existed in prototype.

The forefinger pocket which was copied by so many big companies is now passe, but if one puts it in the context of the time, it was cutting edge. Time's change, some of us, however, still under stress revert to the forward hold on our Colt Swenson squared and checkered trigger guards which few belittle because it is no longer the grip of choice.

The Guttersnipe sight was also a cutting edge development and did most excellently what it was intended to do. To provide a fast sight picture for killing hits on a hostile---it did NOT do well in gun games, did not do well on qualification courses, and, of course, was not popular. For myself, I tried it on both an ASP and a 1911 frame, and it didn't suit my needs at the time. It was a remarkable and innovative concept and, of course, the fact that someone improved on it down the line, hardly invalidates that.

It's ever so easy to forget the historical continuum in which we exist in our age of quick fixes and sound bites. The ASP's see thru Lexan grips were cutting edge at the time when folks either forget or weren't around in the days when everyone was so sure that they could count their expended and remaining rounds in real combat. Just don't happen in the real world all that often--the see thru grips were a viable solution to a perceived need.

Paris' QUELL SYSTEM was first introduced at a Soldier of Fiction convention in the early eighties. It was a concept of stopping power, a shooting stance, and a target system. Most simply dismissed the stance as impractical---again, it was designed to offer an operative who needed to be able to protect himself with fast, immediate stops with minimal training time and interest on the part of the operative. VERY REAL limitations mind you. The Quell Zone or target zone was the central nervous system. Mind you, this was at a time when the open press of the gun world spoke ONLY about magic calibres, velocity vs bullet wt and diameter, and paid lip service to shot placement but only at the most specific into the "sniper triangle" if the writer had ever heard of that. After QUELL, not only did the open source media leap to central nervous system hits as the obvious answer, but in the typical pendulum swing of such things, one reads now about pistol power as if being shot with a handgun is hardly worse than taking a B-B.

The Seventrees holsters were state of the art for concealment holsters in their time. Hell, even their advertising slogan, 'Unseen in the best Places' was adopted by another company. The better Seventrees rigs provide the basis of the vast majority of the better concealment holsters on the market today. Did the Seventrees holsters spring out of nowhere with no precursors? No, like most concepts they had a base to develop from. They were stimulated by Chic Gaylord and his designs, and then carried on. One has but to look at a Gaylord holster to see the external similarities just as one has but to look at the Seventrees holsters to see the source of many of the copies and spinoffs available today. The Null holsters use the Seventrees patterns and machinery albeit in a heavier weight horsehide and offer most of the the old Seventrees designs just as they were. Others have further refined the Seventrees ideas to produce even better holsters---and some worse.

Paris' devices built for use in the world of clandestine and covert operations were many and equally innovative, but this is hardly the place. The world's smallest machine gun, silent rounds, a remarkably compact sound suppressor in the days when the Maxim was still the operative model were just a few of his contributions.

Paris THeodore left his mark on the gun world--whether he was credited or not. It's a shame that his contributions have been ignored and even swept into the back closet for a variety of reasons---only a few dealing with security classifications. He was a Renaissance man in the old sense of the term before HollyWeird popularized the term in a dumbed down fashion.

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And unfortunately, in the final result it does not matter how brave a man is, but how closely he can hold.

fm SEW, THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS

I guess you had to know the man to really appreciate his intellectual, and mechanical genius. I knew him, not quite as well as the above writer, but I did spend a good amount of time with Paris both in his New York offices, and he at my home, and at my shop.

I was constantly amazed at the workings of his mind, and how he could conceptualize an idea into something workable. Weather it be a holster, or an extremely quiet, simple sound suppressor.

I did see many of his design concepts, and ideas that were being tested by the covert community in the 80's, and they were indeed innovative to say the least. Some of which would be cutting edge to this day.

He did make some enemies, but I have come to realize that it was a result of some of his 'friends' that he misplaced his trust in.

Because of the circles Paris moved in, he trusted very few, and some of those who he did trust turned out to be a bad investment.

Lou

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Alessi Holsters, Inc.
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