After each one of her 19 arrests, she just packed things up and moved to another house on the next street. When the “Black Widow” ran afoul of the law, the young Mitchell testified that her former boss had lured her into this “shameful business.” When Forrester went to jail, Mitchell-now Brenda Allen-took over the business.īuoyed by the power of her shrewd manager and boyfriend, the vice cop Jackson, Allen “grew the business.” Soon, 114 party girls were working for her, taking in $9,000 a day from customers who paid from $20 to $100 for the services of one of “Brenda’s girls.” Allen took 50% off the top and a third went to pay cops, doctors, lawyers and bail bondsmen.Īllen rented large, ornate party houses above the Sunset Strip on streets such as Cory Avenue, Harold Way and Miller Place. It wasn’t exactly Schwab’s, but she soon was “discovered” by Forrester, who took her off the street corner and into a pricey brothel. She had made her professional debut as a teenage streetwalker on a seedy stretch of West 6th Street between Union Avenue and Alvarado Street. Parker, who came in with City Hall’s mandate to clean things up.ĭuring the scandal, it also emerged that Allen’s real name was Marie Mitchell. Worton, who eventually was replaced by the hard-nosed William H. His place was temporarily taken by former Marine Corps Gen. ![]() The scandal forced Police Chief Clemence B. ![]() The key players in Allen’s operation included not only Jackson, but other vice cops paid to protect prostitutes. Her arrest shook Hollywood, which instantly began to buzz with rumors about a little black box containing the names of 250 celebrity clients, including entertainment industry figures, politicians and gangsters.īut the elaborate vice sting embarrassed the Los Angeles Police Department even more. Jackson, as her lover and business partner.īut in 1948, Allen too was indicted after an LAPD telephone tap recorded an all-too-chummy business chat between the bordello queen and her badge-bearing partner. As it later emerged, that was because she had improved on her predecessors’ notion of safe sex by taking a Hollywood vice cop, LAPD Sgt. She delighted in boasting that she had never spent a day in jail. vice, serving millionaires and movie stars alike. ![]() After going through the motions-and finding no one to arrest-the officers would sit down and enjoy her hospitality.įor the next decade, Allen-a redheaded “party girl”-reigned as the bawdy empress of L.A. The renowned Lee Francis always had French champagne chilled and dishes of Russian caviar waiting for the vice squad when it arrived. In fact, during the movies’ so-called “golden age” of the 1920s and 1930s, the madam of the moment usually could count on the cops she paid off to give her enough “pre-raid” warning to clear out any big-name customers. Those threats were taken seriously because, unlike Fleiss, her predecessors usually were even cozier with the cops than they were with their clients. As long as there has been a Hollywood, there has been a Hollywood madam.Īnd if parts of the industry trembled over talk that Heidi Fleiss, the most recent madam to the stars, had a “black book” filled with the names of celebrity customers, whole studios shook when some of her predecessors threatened to describe the sexual proclivities and eccentricities of actors and politicians.
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