Call her "Madam": The notorious Polly Adler

I could see Debbie Allen playing this part🤗😘❣️❤️💖

Please Netflix make a movie about this lady

"It was a business pleasuring you." Priceless.

These historical pieces are priceless, am so enthralled by them!

Everyone in the comments saying she was passing, lol. I see it- she looked more and more like one of my grandmothers as they showed older pics. It is fully possible she made up the Russian background to help her pass if she was indeed black. Black ppl who passed often left their whole lives and families behind and changed their identities completely so they couldn't be found out.

"...a business doing pleasure with you" ICONIC

I'm almost positive she was passing

Just finished the book "Madam", thoroughly enjoyed it.

The older she became the more Black American she looked.

Really, how many options did a woman have back then to make a living? Like in Old West days. A single woman who had to work in a town was either a schoolteacher if she was educated, or a saloon girl if she wasn't. Yes, prostitution is awful for the women and the community as a whole. However, some women saw it as a good alternative to starving.

Sex, dancing, and music became sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

I have read (and highly recommend) Polly Adler's book "A House Is Not A Home," which rips the glamour off of any image her business had. It is also an entertaining read!

I love that business card!

As Sam Martineau said, "Ask not what Polly can do for you - ask what can you do for Polly."

Really interesting! Always appreciate Sunday Morning 🌄

I can't help but think of how we tend to glamorize things like this instead of think of the reality of all the diseases that were (or could have been) spread to people's wives & girlfriends without them knowing. Go read real history books about these diseases. There are many stories out there of women who were given syphilis for just being a wife. They had to deal with the physical & mental torture of the disease and sometimes passed it down to their newborns. Why do people always think they are immune to this stuff? I'm sure Al Capone thought that way too and he died from it. NOTE: there are experts who believe that many people with issues ranging from neuropathy to psychiatric problems are the descendants of people who had syphillis at one time. Nothing glamorous about it.

SHE WAS ALSO A BLACK WOMAN PASSING AS WHITE!!! BUT THEY WON'T SPEAK ON THAT PART.

Thank you for this story. I had never heard of her until now. I thought she had quite a bit of melanin in her skin tone until they said she was from Russia. Could she have been a Black woman in Russia who "passed" for White here in America? Very interesting documentary.

A profession as old as time.

Those women were so pretty back then 😊 Their hairstyles, their makeup…vintage beauty 😍😍