Madam, born in Avanovo, Russia. Emigrating to the USA at age 12, she worked in factories, and in 1920 opened a house of prostitution in New York City. Her clients included politicians, gangsters, and vice squad police, and this was said to be the reason she survived so long. Subpoenaed by the Seabury Commission in 1930, she refused to testify. She closed down in 1943 and moved to Los Angeles. She later graduated from college and wrote A House is Not a Home (1953).
Pearl "Polly" Adler (April 16, 1900 - 1962) was a Russian-born madam and author.
The oldest child of a large family, Polly Adler emigrated to America from Yanow, Russia, near the Polish border at the age of 14 just before World War I. She worked in clothing factories and sporadically attended school and at the age of nineteen began to enjoy the company of theater people in Manhattan and moved into the apartment of an actress and showgirl on Riverside Drive, New York.
She opened her first bordello in 1920. In the early thirties, Polly was a star witness of the Seabury Commission investigations and spent a few months in hiding in Florida to avoid testifying. For over twenty years, Adler kept active by moving her brothel from apartment to apartment.
She went to college at the age of fifty and wrote a bestselling book, ghosted by Virginia Faulkner, A House is Not a Home in 1953 and lived off the proceeds.
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