“My God,” she told him. “Me and Bette used to buy your shoes in Paris — we assumed you were French, gay and dead.”

In Mr. de Havilland’s version of that story, in The Guardian, Cher was wearing “a daggy old tracksuit,” and after crying out, “I thought you were dead!” she told him that she and Ms. Midler “were down to sharing their last pair of de Havilland shoes.” She bought 13 pairs on the spot “to tide her over,” he said.

Mr. de Havilland said he always loved women, and he fathered three sons with three different ones. His only criterion for them seemed to be that they had small feet — what he called “sample size,” preferably Size 5. “Couldn’t have lived with them otherwise,” he wrote.

No doubt his sky-high heels could be difficult to wear. But Mr. de Havilland took care that they did not impede his clientele, whether it was Beyoncé, Amy Winehouse or Madonna, from dancing or otherwise performing. And no one complained.

“The effect on the wearer’s confidence, to his mind, far outweighed any discomfort,” The Telegraph said in its obituary, “and when questioned about his heels he insisted: ‘I think they empower women. They give you your own little stage to stand on.’”

He was born Terrence Higgins in London’s East End on March 21, 1938, and grew up there. During the war, his cobbler parents made black-market shoes from scavenged scraps for showgirls. By the time he was 5, Terry was hammering in dowels for their three-tier wedges.