Polly Adler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Polly Adler Born April 16, 1900 Yanow, Russia Died June 11, 1962 (aged 62) Nationality American Occupation Madam, author

Pearl "Polly" Adler (April 16, 1900 – June 11, 1962) was an American madam and author of Russian-Jewish origin.

The oldest of nine children of Gertrude Koval and Morris Adler[1][2], Polly Adler emigrated to America from Yanow, Russia, near the Polish border at the age of 14 just before World War I. The war stopped her family from joining her. She worked in clothing factories and sporadically attended school. At 19, she began to enjoy the company of theater people in Manhattan, and moved into the apartment of an actress and showgirl on Riverside Drive in New York City.

She opened her first bordello in 1920, under the protection of mobster Dutch Schultz and a friend of mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano. One building in which she plied her trade was The Majestic at 215 West 75th Street, designed by architects Schwartz and Gross and completed in 1924 with hidden stairways and secret doorways.[3] Her brothel there boasted such patrons as Robert Benchley, New York City mayor Jimmy Walker, and mobster Dutch Schultz.[4]

In the early 1930s, Adler was a star witness of the Seabury Commission investigations and spent a few months in hiding in Florida to avoid testifying. She refused to give up any mob names when apprehended by the police. She survived by providing half of her income to her underworld safety net. For over 20 years, Adler kept active by moving her brothel from apartment to apartment. She retired in 1944.

Adler attended college at age 50, and wrote a bestselling book, ghosted by Virginia Faulkner, A House is Not a Home (1953), allowing her to live off the proceeds. She died in Los Angeles, California in 1962. A House Is Not a Home was made into a movie two years later, starring Shelley Winters as Adler. Her notoriety led her to be included in Cleveland Amory's 1959 Celebrity Register.[5] Contents

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   1 Television and film portrayals

   2 Song

   3 Trials

       3.1 Spring 1935

       3.2 January 1943

   4 Footnotes

   5 References

[edit] Television and film portrayals It has been suggested that A House Is Not a Home (book) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2009.

The 1989 Perry Mason TV-movie Musical Murder revolved around a faux-musical based on Adler.

Adler was portrayed by the actress Gisèle Rousseau in the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.[6]

The television show 'M*A*S*H' episode "Bulletin Board" features a party/picnic called the "First Annual Polly Adler Birthday Cook-out Picnic and Bar-B-Que," with all proceeds going to Sr. Teresa's Orphanage. The picnic scene climaxes with a tug of war between the officers and enlisted men. [edit] Song

Pearl "Polly" Adler is remembered in the song "Pearl Polly Adler"[1] by Brooklyn musician Robin Aigner. [edit] Trials [edit] Spring 1935

During Fiorello La Guardia's time as a mayor, Polly Adler and three of her girls were brought to court. She was pleaded guilty and subsequently sentenced to 30 days of jail (of which she served 24, scrubbing the jail floors in May and June 1935) and paid an additional $500 fine.

"A plea of guilty was entered for Polly Adler in Special Sessions yesterday to a charge of possessing a motion picture machine with objectionable pictures in her East Fifty-fifth Street apartment when it was raided by the police last March 5."[7]

"Another unexpected plea of guilty to maintaining an objectionable apartment at 30 East Fifty-fifth Street blocked in Special Sessions yesterday the trial of Polly Adler[8] on that and another charge that she kept an obscene motion picture film in the suite last March when it was raided." [9] [edit] January 1943

"Polly Adler is in the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital, it became known yesterday, awaiting a hearing for the seventeenth time for maintaining a house of prostitution." -- N.Y. Times: Jan. 16, 1943, p. 28

"A charge of keeping and maintaining a house for prostitution against Pearl Davis, better known as Polly Adler, was dismissed by Magistrate Thomas H. Cullen in Woman's Court yesterday after the court ruled that police had failed to establish a case." -- N.Y. Times: Jan. 27, 1943, p. 23

Parents: Morris Adler and Gertrude Koval. [1]

Brief Biography

The eldest of nine children of Gertrude Koval and Morris Adler, a tailor, Pearl Adler hoped to complete gymnasium studies in her native Belorussia. However, her father sent her to America to prepare the way for the immigration of the rest of the family. On her own in New York, she was raped at 17 by a sweatshop foreman and resorted to an abortion. Alienated from relatives, she learned to support herself in the sex industry, a survival necessity followed by a significant number of Jewish female immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Unsuccessful in legitimate undertakings, Adler became a madam, operating a series of increasingly upscale brothels catering to gangsters and the fashionable upper classes.

Her notoriety as the classic American madam, "a feisty, albeit disreputable, victor over adversity," was sealed by the publication of her popular memoir, A House Is Not a Home (1953) and its film version (1964).

Rum Runners, Writers & Ball Players

Called "Prohibition-era New York’s favorite madam," [2] hers is no typical Ellis Island kind of story.

After toiling away in a Brooklyn corset factory, 24-year-old Adler found a more lucrative gig: supplying prostitutes, liquor, and an all-night party to top entertainers, politicians, and gangsters.

Adler created clubhouse-like brothels at different locations through the 1920s and 1930s. She ran a house of ill repute in the Majestic Apartments on Central Park West, as well as at other luxe addresses on the Upper East and Upper West Sides.

The famous and important of both sexes (Dorothy Parker was a regular) hung out and mingled. Mayor Jimmy Walker, Joe DiMaggio, and Dutch Schultz reportedly enjoyed the sexual services.

Adler was arrested more than a dozen times, exiting the madam business in the mid-1940s. She attended college, wrote her memoirs, and died in 1962 in Los Angeles.

Polly and the Law

In the early 1930s, Adler was a star witness of the Seabury Commission investigations and spent a few months in hiding in Florida to avoid testifying. She refused to give up any mob names when apprehended by the police. She survived by providing half of her income to her underworld safety net.

Quotes

"The women who take husbands not out of love but out of greed, to get their bills paid, to get a fine house and clothes and jewels; the women who marry to get out of a tiresome job, or to get away from disagreeable relatives, or to avoid being called an old maid -- these are whores in everything but name. The only difference between them and my girls is that my girls gave a man his money's worth."
"What it comes down to is this: the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the merchant, the landlord, the druggist, the liquor dealer, the policeman, the doctor, the city father and the politician -- these are the people who make money out of prostitution, these are the real reapers of the wages of sin." [3]

Song

• Pearl Polly Adler

n.b. This song is great! Here's more about the singer/songwriter:

• http://swordfishblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/profile-robin-aigner-...

Links

• http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_...
• Polly Adler

Sources

• Hyman, Paula, Deborah D. Moore, and Phyllis H. Weisbard. Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.
• Cinema: Queen of Tarts

Citations

1. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_...
2. Prohibition-era New York’s favorite madam
3. http://www.answers.com/topic/polly-adler#ixzz19l5BkJ3p

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• Immigration: She was listed as Perl Adler, 17, female, single, a dressmaker, last residence Janow, Russia, nearest relative in old country, father, Moische Adler, Janow, Grodno. She was going to Springfield, Mass. and had a ticket to that destination. She had $25 and was going to her uncle S. Resnik, 108 Greenwood Str., Springfield. She was described as 5 ft. 2 in., with a fair complexion, brown hair, and brown eyes. She was born in Janow, Russia. - Dec 10 1913 - on the SS Neckar sailing on Nov 27 from Bremen, Germany into the port of, New York, NY, USA
• Census: Pear Adler 16, 1 year in the US, occupation: opperate dresser (?). She lived with her cousin Briene Friedman and family - June 1915 - 366 Powell St, New York, 11212, USA
• Census: 1930
  • Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Jul 20 2019, 16:33:28 UTC