Death of a strip club legend

Pallbearers carry John Nicholson's coffin from the church.

John Nicholson

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Strip club owner John Nicholson was as colourful a character in death as he was in life.

Despite opening the Las Vegas Strip Club on Auckland's red-light area of Karangahape Rd, and running the iconic nudie bar for nearly 40 years, he never drank or smoked and was a respected member of the claybird shooting fraternity.

The 150-plus who turned up at St Matthews in the City Church, Auckland, on Friday to pay their respects to Nicholson, who lost his battle with cancer four days earlier, reflected the many sides of the 72-year-old.

The mourners included strippers past and present – some in satin jumpsuits and leopard-print tops – New Zealand claybird shooting veterans in official blazers, world-weary citizens of the mean streets and hulking members of Auckland police dog squad.

Senior Constable John Fraser strode towards the altar, Nicholson's shotgun tucked under his arm and a dead pheasant in his hand, to deliver a eulogy.

He dropped the plump bird on the roof of the casket and placed an ejected shotgun cartridge beside it.

Fraser had shot the bird on Thursday with his unlikely mate's shotgun – a tribute to his hunting buddy of more than two decades.

His "warts-and-all" tribute to Nicholson noted the irony of the mateship between the pair.

"The strip club owner and the policeman. The great slayer of pheasants and the apprentice hunter. The street-savvy boxing fanatic and the young boy who would turn the other cheek rather than come to blows. The terrible womaniser and the playboy, and the innocent young boy who believed, and still does, in true love."

Fraser met Nicholson in the 1980s as a beat cop. He described him as being "like no other man I had ever met, or am ever likely to".

"He basically lived a life most people would only dream about. He did what he wanted, when he wanted."

Hunting had been a passion for Nicholson since age 14. His other obsession had been women, Fraser said. "He would often say, `After the need for food and water, sex was the strongest drive known to man'. `There are two things in this life I have never lied about', he would say. `And they are shooting and rooting... never lie about the numbers'."

Nicholson was married briefly in 1965 and had no children.

He was a founding member of the RSA – Roadside Shooters Association. Fraser spoke of witnessing Nicholson "drop a hawk" with a shot from the passenger window of a campervan travelling at 100kmh.

He bagged a dozen more shooting from a convertible driven by his wife on their honeymoon. Life with Nicholson was always an "adventure". Nicholson, wiry-thin, never had a bouncer at his strip club. He was a boxing champion at Auckland's Kings College and later in the army.

Friend Richard Skelly told Sunday News "Johnny Nic" was a "tough little rooster".

"He had to deal with all sorts. People all liquored-up. But it didn't matter how big they were, as tough as they came he dealt with the lot. He was very strict."

Skelly said Nicholson had the "common touch" and could relate to anyone – a skill that helped him "no end" as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman before his strip-club days.

"We were a bit surprised [when he opened Las Vegas] but he was a larger-than-life character. It just suited him," Skelly said. "He was a night dweller. He related to it. He was an entrepreneur, an entertainer. This was his life, his style." Nicholson – once voted Sunday News male of the year, pictured naked, his modesty obscured by dead pheasants – followed in his father Charles' footsteps.

His parents owned the Star Hotel in south Auckland's working class Otahuhu. Charles, who wore a singlet and boxing boots behind the bar, was known as the "fastest bartender in the country" during the days of the 6 o'clock swill.

"The running of the Vegas was important to Johnny in more ways than one... it was about showing the world that he could run a licensed premise just like his dad Charlie," Fraser said. Life-long mate Bobby Whitmore said his mate "Muncher"..."always tried to emulate his dad".

Nicholson's nephew, David Knot, promised mourners the Vegas bar would stay open.

- © Fairfax NZ News