“Paula Noble was a typical 60s girl, full of confidence, very beautiful and very successful. A very good model who had a good business brain.” John d Green
John photographed Paula Noble for Birds of Britain at his Kensington studio on 21 June 1966.
Paula was a successful model and also owned and ran The Ad Lib Club, a very popular nightclub on the top floor of 7 Leicester Place. It was THE hangout for pop-stars such as the Stones and the Kinks, fashion designers Mary Quant and Jean Muir and actresses Hayley Mills and Julie Christie; it was even visited on occasion by Princess Margaret. The club was apparently the destination chosen by Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison when they experienced LSD for the first time. The name of the club was later mocked during John Lennon’s appearance on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s ‘Not Only… But Also’ when he played the doorman of ‘London’s most fashionable lavatory spot’, the Ad Lav club – in reality the underground public toilets in Broadwick Street.
Paula attracted some press attention in the mid-sixties for having her Mini resprayed from time to time. One press cutting refers to “Paula Noble, a twenty-four-year-old London model who spends 21 guineas every few months having her Mini resprayed to match her clothes. She began with Rolls-Royce silver grey, now it’s shocking pink…”
