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Xaviera Hollander

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Xaviera Hollander
Hollander in 2008
Born
Xaviera de Vries

(1943-06-15)15 June 1943(age 81)
Soerabaia,Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies
CitizenshipNetherlands
Known forThe Happy Hooker: My Own Story
Spouse(s)Frank Applebaum (m.?)
Philip de Haan
​
(m.2007)​
Websitewww.xavierahollander.com

Xaviera Hollander(born 15 June 1943) is a Dutch formercall girl,madamand author. She is best known for her best-selling memoirThe Happy Hooker: My Own Story.

Early life[edit]

Hollander was bornXaviera "Vera" de VriesinSurabaya,Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies,which later became part of present-dayIndonesia,to aDutch Jewishphysician father and a mother of French and German descent.[1]She spent the first years of her life in aJapanese-run internment camp.[2]

In her early 20s she leftAmsterdamforJohannesburg,where her stepsister lived. There she met and became engaged to American economist John Weber. When the engagement was broken off, she left South Africa forNew York City.[3]

Career[edit]

In 1968 she resigned from her job as a secretary in the Dutch consulate inNew York Cityto become acall girl,[1]making $1,000 a night[4]($8800 today). A year later, she opened her own brothel, the Vertical Whorehouse, and soon becameNew York City's leading madam. In 1971, she was arrested forprostitutionbyNew York Policeand forced to leave the United States.[5][6]

Author[edit]

In 1971, Hollander published a memoir,The Happy Hooker:My Own Story.Robin Moore,who took Hollander's dictation of the book's contents, came up with the title, whileYvonne Dunleavyghostwrote it.[7]Hollander later wrote a number of other books and produced plays inAmsterdam.Her second book,Child No More,is the story of losing her mother. For 35 years she wrote an advice column forPenthousemagazine, entitled "Call Me Madam."[1]

Other ventures[edit]

Appearingon TV programmeAfter Darkin 1989

In the early 1970s, she recorded a primarily spoken-word album titledXaviera!for the CanadianGRT Recordslabel (GRT 9230-1033), on which she discussed her philosophy regarding sex and prostitution, sang acover versionof theBeatles' song "Michelle",and recorded several simulated sexual encounters, including an example ofphone sex,athreesome,and a celebrity encounter with guest "vocal" byRonnie Hawkins.Xaviera's Game,an erotic board game, was released in 1974 by Reiss Games, Inc. In 1975, she starred in the semi-autobiographical filmMy Pleasure is My Business.Beginning in 2005, she operated Xaviera's Happy House, a bed-and-breakfast, in her Amsterdam home.[8]

Personal life[edit]

For several years in the 1970s, Hollander lived inToronto,where she married Frank Applebaum, a Canadian antique dealer, and was a regular fixture on the downtown scene. She mentioned a lover named John Drummond, with whom she partnered for many years, co-authoring two books, includingLet's Get Moving(1988) about their life together: "I went there with, who for years had been the love of my life, John Drummond, a wild Scottish intellectual who, at times, liked his whisky, beer, and wines too much. We had great sex, often up to three times a day — all that and he was about 17 years older than me."[4]During a 2018 interview, she revealed a darker side of the relationship with the man she called "the love of my life!": "The love of my life, 25 years ago, John Drummond, a brilliant and boisterous Scotsman with a 'Thatcheresque' accent had, especially under the influence of a few scotches, beers, or wine, become quite destructive towards me. He is the only one who managed to deprive me of my self-esteem or identity, temporarily. He used to say that a British man’s way of saying 'I love you' is to put his woman down."[9]Drummond is listed as one of her husbands.[10]Hollander claimed to have "turned gay" around 1997, establishing a long-term relationship with a Dutch poet called Dia.[2]In January 2007, she married a Dutch man, Philip de Haan, in Amsterdam.[11]

Other works[edit]

Hollander has been depicted in film five times:

She appears in at least two films:

  • My Pleasure Is My Business(1975, Al Waxman) as Gabrielle
  • Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker: Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary,a 2008 documentary directed, jointly produced, photographed and edited by Robert Dunlap. Hollander made additional contributions to the script.[12]

In 1989, Hollander made anextended appearanceon British discussion programmeAfter Dark,alongsideMary Stott,Malcolm BennettandHans Eysenck,among others.

A musical about her life was written and composed by Richard Hansom and Warren Wills.[13]

Books[edit]

Non-fiction[edit]

  • Robin Moore; Yvonne Dunleavy; Xaviera de Vries Hollander (1971).The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Sphere Books.ISBN978-0-900735-13-4.Moore took Hollander's dictation, and Dunleavy transcribed the results.
  • Letters to the Happy Hooker.New York: Warner Paperback Library. 1973.ISBN978-0-446-78277-7.
  • Xaviera!: Her Continuing Adventures.New York: Warner Paperback Library. 1973.
  • Xaviera Goes Wild.New York: Warner Paperback Library. 1974.
  • Xaviera on the Best Part of a Man.New York: New American Library. 1975.
  • Marilyn Chambers (1976).Xaviera Meets Marilyn Chambers.New York: Warner Paperback Library.
  • Xaviera's Supersex: Her Personal Techniques for Total Lovemaking.New York: New American Library. 1976.
  • Xaviera's Fantastic Sex.New York: New American Library. 1978.ISBN978-0-451-15104-9.
  • Xaviera's Magic Mushrooms.Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library. 1981.ISBN978-0-450-05064-0.
  • The Inner Circle.London: Granada. 1983.
  • Fiesta of the Flesh.London: Panther. 1984.ISBN978-0-586-06195-4.
  • The Best of Xaviera.Sydney: Horwitz Grahame. 1985.ISBN978-0-7255-1841-7.
  • Knights in the Garden of Spain.London: Grafton. 1988.ISBN978-0-586-07432-9.
  • Child No More: A Memoir.New York: ReganBooks. 2002.ISBN978-0-06-001417-9.
  • The Happy Hooker's Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex: 69 Orgasmic Ways to Pleasure a Woman.New York:Skyhorse Pub.2008.ISBN978-1-60239-240-3.

Fiction[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abcRoss, Deborah (8 December 2012)."Xaviera Hollander: Is the Happy Hooker still happy after all these years?".The Independent.Archivedfrom the original on 7 May 2022.Retrieved29 July2013.
  2. ^abChe, Cathay (20 August 2002). "The Happy Hooker gets the girl".The Advocate:80–3.
  3. ^Hollander, Xaviera (1971).The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Sphere Books.ISBN978-0-06-001416-2.
  4. ^abWoodson, Bert (18 April 2014)."Interview: Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker".Feminine Collective.Retrieved14 December2020.
  5. ^"5 Police Corruption Scandals that Rocked New York City".New York Post.28 December 2015.Retrieved11 September2017.
  6. ^"Notorious New York City brothels: 'Manhattan Madam' Kristin Davis supplied hookers for clients including Eliot Spitzer".New York Daily News.6 March 2012.Retrieved10 December2018.
  7. ^John Cassidy, "The hell-raiser",Sydney Morning Herald,9 December 2000, Good Weekend, p. 80
  8. ^"Xaviera Hollander's 'Happy House Bed&Breakfast'".xavierahollander.com.Retrieved10 December2018.
  9. ^"Living in the Netherlands Archives".Expat Guide to the Netherlands | Expatica.
  10. ^"Xaviera Hollander".www.nndb.com.
  11. ^Faber, Judy (2 January 2007)."Happy Hooker Gets Hitched".www.cbsnews.com.Retrieved10 December2018.
  12. ^"Documentary,The Happy Hooker: Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary".www.xavierahollander.com.Retrieved10 December2018.
  13. ^"Happy Hooker Musical".www.xavierahollander.com.Retrieved10 December2018.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Xaviera_Hollander&oldid=1218037841"