Polly Adler

Pearl "Polly" Adler (April 16,1900 - June 11,1962) 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. The war stopped her family from joining her. 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. She was under the protection of Dutch Schultz and a friend of Charles "Lucky" Luciano. 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. 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 twenty years, Adler kept active by moving her brothel from apartment to apartment. She officially retired from prostitution in 1944.

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. She died in Los Angeles in 1962. A House Is Not a Home was made into a movie in 1964 with Shelley Winters as Adler.

References

• A House is Not a Home - autobiography - 1953 Rinehart & Co. Inc. N.Y. Toronto. L.C. 52-12195
• Link to Polly Adler's June 11, 1962 obituary in Washington Post