It's hard to imagine that this motherly 60-year-old cat lover once reigned as queen of the high-end Hollywood sex business. But in her heyday as Beverly Hills's super-madam during the '70s and '80s, Adams catered to the intimate desires of studio bosses, Arab sheiks and international businessmen with a stable of 300 glamorous call girls—whom she fondly refers to as her "creatures."
Now, she and coauthor William Stadiem have written an account of those high limes, titled Madam 90210 (Villard)—but don't expect to see the rich and famous exposed by name. Though Stadiem interviewed a dozen rival madams, 50 call girls and 50 Johns for the book, he and Adams took pains to protect her clients' identities by creating composite characters. The reason? "I don't want people to lose their work," says Adams. "I'm not a star f—-er."
Not that the madam won't name some names. She claims to have created Heidi Fleiss, who she says began working for her in 1989 when Fleiss's then boyfriend, Hungarian director Ivan Nagy, sold her to Alex for the $450 gambling debt Fleiss owed Nagy. (Nagy, who calls Adams "a very evil woman," says the transaction never happened. Fleiss doesn't admit owing Nagy any money but says he did receive money for the introduction; as for Adams, "there's not one redeeming quality to her," says Fleiss.) Adams claims that the notorious Heidi was power mad—so much so that after Adams was busted, Fleiss—who was moving into the madam business herself—stole her clientele. "I was fond of Heidi. But she has a streak that's so vindictive."
Madam 90210 opens with a party Fleiss hosted for Mick Jagger in 1992 at the $1.6 million Benedict Canyon mansion bought in her father's name from Michael Douglas. There were movie stars mingling with 300 glamorous call girls, but no sex was consummated at Heidi's that night, speculates coauthor Stadiem, who was there; the point was to drum up future business.
Adams got into business herself in 1971. The Philippine native came to America at 17 and later settled in Los Angeles, where she worked as a dance instructor. Her 1955 marriage to a physicist ended in divorce eight years later; her second husband, an Austrian businessman, died in 1972. The year before, when Adams was working in the flower shop of the Ambassador Hotel, a customer introduced her to a madam. The woman thought Adams was charming and a good manager and persuaded Adams to buy her book of clients and call girls for $5,000. "Bui the men were old, and the girls were ugly," says Alex, who got a break when another flower customer gave her the private phone numbers of moguls and stars. Alex began hiring beauties under 25, many of them aspiring actresses eager to make money and meet famous people.
By the early '80s, Alex was thriving. She charged $1,000 a night for one of her girls ($2,000 out of town) and took 40 percent for herself; her girls could easily have made $100,000 a year. Hollywood's high-powered men buy sex "so there won't be any commitments, explanations or ties," says Alex. And despite the danger of drugs and self-destruction for her girls, "I changed their lives [for the better]," she insists. "She liked us to wear silk dresses and high heels and not be overly made up," says Gabby, 31, who worked for Alex for three years. "Her manner was very low-key and discreet, and that was one of the secrets of her success."
Alex herself earned as much as $6,000 a day—enough to move from her Malibu beach house to an eight-bedroom mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Adams claims she had a "tacit agreement" with Los Angeles police for more than a decade: they allowed her to operate, and she fed them tips about the movement of power, money and drugs around town. She says she was shocked to be busted for pandering in 1988, an inconvenience she attributes to a change of policy in the LAPD's vice division. She was able to negotiate a plea bargain and avoid jail time when several detectives testified that she had been a reliable informant.
These days Adams, who just completed her 18 months of probation last April, lives in a white cottage in West Hollywood. She has two sons; a third died of AIDS in 1992. Adams, who runs a small catering business, will not talk about whatever savings or investments she still has. "It's traumatic to be on top, then come down to this pared-down lifestyle," she says. But Adams keeps in touch with former clients and "creatures," and even in retirement she lives by the watchword that served her so well for so long. Bidding farewell to a reporter, she raises a finger in warning and says, "Be discreet."
PAULA CHIN
LYNDON STAMBLER in West Hollywood
- Contributors:
- Lyndon Stambler.
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