David Litvinoff

David Litvinoff (sometimes Litvinov; born David Levy; 3 February 1928 – 8 April 1975) was a consultant for the British film industry who traded on his knowledge of the low life of the East End of London. A man for whom there are few truly reliable facts, it is unclear how genuine his expertise really was, though he certainly knew the Kray Twins and was particularly friendly with Ronnie Kray, according to a biography published in 2016. He entertained his showbiz friends with stories of the Krays' activities and his niece Vida described him as "the court jester to the rich, smart Chelsea set of the sixties".

Litvinoff was born in 1928 at Hare Marsh,Whitechapel, London, into a Jewish family with Russian origins. His mother and her first husband had fled tsarist pogroms in Odessa in 1913. She had four children with her first husband and five including David Litvinoff with her second husband Solomon Levy whom she married after the first was lost after he joined the Russian army in 1917. He took the surname of his mother's first husband rather than his biological father. His older half-brothers were the writer Emanuel Litvinoff and the historian Barnet Litvinoff. The family were brought up in relative poverty, supported mainly by Mrs Litvinoff's earnings as a dressmaker.

Unlike his step-brothers, little is known of David's early adulthood but he seems to have been a well-known figure in the jazz clubs of Soho in the 1950s. He knew George Melly who he first met at Cy Laurie's jazz club in Great Windmill Street and he was also associated with Mick Mulligan. Melly, Mulligan and Litvinoff were all present at what Melly described as a near riot at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London at what was supposed to be a serious lecture by Melly on "Erotic Imagery in the Blues" but turned into an impromptu stag night for Melly who was getting married the next day. Litvinoff had a lifelong love of Blues music, and left detailed instructions for the disposal of his music recordings on his death, which mainly took the form of reel to reel tapes. When he later had a cottage in Wales, it was described by a local as being wall to wall recordings, including everything that Bing Crosby had ever done up to the latest from Bob Dylan, of whom Litvinoff was a huge fan.

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