Entrepreneur advocates the natural way to profit.

To become a successful businessman, Ed Lange has had to wear a lot of hats but very few clothes.

Lange is a niche publisher, resort operator, quasi-travel agent, import/exporter and a crusading marketer. He has spent the last 30 years marketing nudism, a pursuit that has led to a respectable bottom line for his company, EGL Enterprises Inc., as well as respectability for sun bathing au naturel.

"We are not selling a lifestyle but an attitude about self," says Lange, wearing a wool suit and a healthy tan. "We are all born sexual beings. But what's all the fuss about it? The fuss creates salacious, distasteful attitudes and a hush-hush mentality about the body. I was brought up a hard-shell Baptist, but my work has been my rebellion."

Lange's Elysium Fields is Los Angeles County's only nudist resort and The Elysium Growth Press is the world's only publishing company specializing in books about nudism. Those businesses and assorted spin-offs, throw off about $1.5 million in annual revenues.

But profits have been limited by the $1 million in legal fees Lange has had to pay to keep conservative neighbors and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from shutting him down the last 20 years.

Lange overturned the county's anti-nudity ordinance in a 1969 court case, but for the past two decades he has had to fend off homeowners' attempts to get his permit to operate Elysium Fields revoked. Neighbors have complained about illegal grading, parking lot expansions and alleged sexual hanky-panky under the big oak trees on Lange's eight acres. Lange has always taken the position that nudism is nothing but good, clean, family fun. Any Elysium guest who engages in "provocative play" gets bounced, according to the resort's rules of conduct.

Lange won his latest battle late in 1992, after which the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission approved a conditional-use permit. "I can't think of a better way to spend money. Those legal fees accomplished what I wanted to; it was money well spent," Lange said.

The resort has 1,200 members who pay $200 annually and daily ground fees ranging from $9 to $11 every time they visit. The eight-acre resort has a swimming pool, one old tennis court, a large co-ed sauna, an outdoor whirlpool bath that can accommodate 30 people and several small gardens for meditating. Singles are allowed, but drugs and alcohol are strictly forbidden. Cameras are another no-no for privacy reasons.

Elysium attracts a mix of creative types from the entertainment industry (Lange says Lynn Redgrave is a supporter) and also bankers and lawyers. On a late winter Friday afternoon, the resort seems like a place for aging baby boomers seeking a mellow retreat from city stress.

There is nothing Club-Med about the place. A quiet group of middle-aged, not terribly fit men laze in the hydro pool and seem to be in their own escapist world. Down on the tennis court a more spirited foursome of partially clad people play mixed doubles.

A few sunbathers sit around a covered swimming pool taking in the late afternoon sun. The small meditation gardens are filled only with birds and quirky sculpture. The place seems like a quiet version of a Borscht Belt (upstate New York) summer resort only the people aren't wearing any clothes.

As a publisher, Lange had a boom-bust ride in the 1960s and 1970s but has had more steady growth the last 10 years. In 1961, Lange published his first magazine, Nude Living, and by the end of the decade had seven other magazine titles. The business crashed in the early 1970s when explicit men's magazines flooded the market.

Today Elysium Growth Press publishes and distributes 20 books about nudist resorts/destinations and the psychology/sociology of not wearing clothing. Popular titles include, "Australian Bare Facts," "The World Guide to Nude Beaches and Recreation," "As Nature Intended" and "Beyond Nakedness."

There are 250 bookstores in the U.S. carrying the books and gradually the major chains are starting to carry some of the titles, Lange says. The books carry hefty price tags, often above $20, and are filled with color photos of tanned beach-goers.

Lange is also marketing five videos, which retail for $60 a pop. He sells T-shirts, towels, mugs and other items with Elysium logos at the resort's gift shop to generate more revenue.

In his newest side venture, Lange is booking passengers on the growing clothing-optional cruise circuit. The first nude cruise was a sellout in 1992, and this year two cruises are planned on boats twice the size. Lange says he made $12,000 in cruise commissions last year.

"It's a unique marketing ploy. Instead of marketing the cruises through traditional travel agents, the organizers use nudist parks and resorts to sign off on the passengers. We make sure the passengers are socially acceptable before they book it."

Lange defines "socially acceptable" as staying within the nudist code of acceptable behavior. "We have 30 people daily in the summer who come to Elysium to take tours and, when we tell them what is socially acceptable behavior, those who come for sexual permissiveness drift away," he says. "Those that come to enjoy what we have, stay, and some buy our books."