Polly Adler (brothel operator)

Polly Adler (born April 16, 1900 in Iwanawa , † June 9, 1962 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American brothel operator .

Polly Adler was born as Pearl Adler in Iwanawa, Belarus. Her father was a wealthy tailor who planned to leave for the United States. When she was twelve years old, her father had her taken to Holyoke , Massachusetts , where she stayed with distant family friends and received a monthly allowance from her father. When the First World War broke out, this financial support could no longer be sustained and the family's plans to travel to Germany were thwarted. So Polly Adler began to work in factories.

In 1920, she was hired by a gangster to check on his apartment for a fee, where he was meeting a married woman. Inspired by this, she began to work as a matchmaker and brothel operator . After she was arrested in 1922, she tried her hand at legal professions, but was unsuccessful. So she continued to run several fine brothels in New York City and Saratoga Springs . Gangsters like Dutch Schultz , but also intellectuals and wealthy personalities , frequented their establishments .

She tried to hide her work from her family, who had come to the United States in 1923. In 1935 she was charged with running a brothel and owning pornographic films. She was sentenced to 30 days in prison, spent six days there, then released for good conduct, and continued her old business. When investigations into her company came again in 1943, she gave up the pimp business and published her autobiography, A House Is Not a Home . She moved to Los Angeles , where she graduated from high school and attended college . In 1964 her book was filmed under the direction of Russell Rouse and with Shelley Winters in the lead role, the German title is Madame P. and her girls . In the film Mrs. Parker and Her Vicious Circle , Polly Adler was played in a supporting role by Gisèle Rousseau .

In 1962, Polly Adler died of cancer .

supporting documents

• Laura Madeline Wiseman: Adler, Polly . In: Melissa Hope Ditmore (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006. ISBN 0-313-32968-0
• Vern L. Bullough: Polly Adler. In: Judy B. Litoff, Judith McDonnell (Eds.): European Immigrant Women in the United States: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-8240-5306-0

literature

• Polly Adler: A House Is Not a Home . New York, Rinehart & Company, 1950
• Polly Adler: Madam P. and her girls , Lichtenberg Verlag, Munich, 1965 (translation from English)

Web links

• Ann Millin: Polly Adler . Jewish Women's Archive.