Rolling Stones’ money man Prince Rupert Loewenstein dies at age 80
Prince Rupert Loewenstein, the band's former business manager, helped the Stones churn their musical talent into mountains of gold. He died on Tuesday at age 80 after suffering from Parkinson's disease.
He was the prince who helped make the Rolling Stones as rich as kings.
Prince Rupert Loewenstein, the band's former business manager, helped the Stones churn their musical talent into mountains of gold. He died on Tuesday at age 80 after suffering from Parkinson's disease.
The Oxford-educated German aristocrat advised the Stones for almost four decades beginning in 1968.
He was introduced to Mick Jagger by a mutual friend at a time when the Stones were eager to extricate themselves from American manager Allen Klein.
"Rupert was a merchant banker, very pukka, trustworthy," Keith Richards said in his autobiography Life - and he proved invaluable to the band.
Loewenstein saw the Stones through their labyrinthine legal dispute with Klein, masterminded their year of tax exile in the south of France in the 1970s and oversaw their transformation from a rackety rock group to a formidable money-making machine that pioneered the lucrative mega-tour with the Steel Wheels extravaganza in 1989.