Long before 50 Shades of Grey, before Belle de Jour, before Emmanuelle, even before Deep Throat, there was Miss Xaviera Hollander - author, Penthouse columnist, performer, raconteur and theatrical entrepreneur - The Happy Hooker!
The great Madam, celebrating her 70th birthday today, caused a sensation when her no-holds-barred memoir was published way back in 1971. Telling the story of her life as a Japanese internment survivor in the Dutch East Indies and her progress from secretary to call-girl to proprietor of the fabulously-named Vertical Whorehouse in New York, it broke all the boundaries for its depictions of uninhibited sexual encounters from the woman's perspective, and laid the foundations for much of the "sexual liberation" [especially soft - and hardcore - porn] that was abundant in the 1970s.
Now running the "Happy House" B&B in Amsterdam (where else?), she offers "workshops" to couples: "Here she will, after a nice meal, cooked by her adorable husband Philip, teach you THE ART OF LOVEMAKING, or in short 'the DO's and DON'ts of sex.'" Ahem.
She is uncompromising about the later "stars" who followed her lead into the world of erotica:
Xaviera on Sylvia Kristel: "Not a very good actress, and thick, I think, not like me, as I am brainy."Now, it seems, a whole musical is in production, based upon her life and her Happy Hooker memoirs - this could be interesting! Here are a couple of the numbers:
On Linda Lovelace, who came to her for a job as one of her hookers but was turned down: "I said to her: 'You look too shabby. I'm sorry, you do. You have no class.' She had buck teeth from all the blow-jobs she'd given."
I guess it won't just be candles this fabulous woman will be blowing on her birthday.
Xaviera Hollander official website
Read an interview with Miss Hollander by Deborah Ross in The Independent in December 2012.
