Paris Theodore
| Paris Theodore | |
|---|---|
Innovative Firearms Inventor and Manufacturer
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| Born |
January 9, 1943 New York City, New York |
| Died | November 16, 2006 (aged 63) New York City, New York |
Paris Theodore (January 9, 1943 – November 16, 2006) was an American 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.
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. As a child, Theodore appeared as “Nibs” in NBC’s 1955 broadcast of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin. He graduated from The Browning School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In 1962, Theodore married Lee Becker, the Tony-nominated dancer and choreographer and founder of The American DanceMachine.
According to his own accounts, Theodore supplemented his work as an abstract painter by serving as an independent contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency while still a teenager in the early 1960s. For several years, he supposedly performed a number of dangerous covert missions for the Agency, many of which, if true, required him to carry and use handguns. His supposed 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.
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