McLaren died in a Swiss hospital, his girlfriend Young Kim said. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of cancer, some time ago but had not made the news public.
"Malcolm McLaren was a man who changed the world and is a lasting influence."
McLaren's influence on the music industry cannot be under-estimated, Mr Molloy said. "Without Malcolm McLaren, the punk movement wouldn’t have exploded in the way that it did."
McLaren first made his name in 1971 when he opened a fashion boutique on the Kings Road in Chelsea with his partner, the designer Vivienne Westwood. With his unerring eye for publicity, he renamed the shop Sex.
In 1975, he spotted a young punk called John Lydon who regularly hung around outside the shop. McLaren signed him up as the frontman of the fledging punk band he managed and the Sex Pistols were born.
When the band released God Save The Queen during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, they became one of the most notorious acts in British music history.
McLaren continued to work in the music industry after the Sex Pistols broke up, and retained his love of publicity stunts. In 1999 he offered to stand as Mayor of London.
He and Westwood had a son, Joe Corre, founder of the lingerie label Agent Provocateur. He and Miss Kim, a Korean-American fashion historian, split their time between Paris and New York.
Music journalist Jon Savage, who wrote England’s Dreaming, the award-winning history of the Sex Pistols and punk, said: “Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk.
“He’s one of the rare individuals who had a huge impact on the cultural and social life of this nation.”
Mark Borkowski, who used to represent McLaren, said: "He was a showman extraordinaire. He knew how to create the news."
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