Xaviera Hollander

Xaviera Hollander, born on June 15, 1943, is a renowned Dutch author and former call girl who gained prominence through her candid memoir, *The Happy Hooker: My Own Story*. Her journey began in Surabaya, in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies, where she was born as Xaviera "Vera" de Vries to a Dutch Jewish father and a mother of mixed French and German heritage. Early in her life, she endured the hardships of a Japanese internment camp.

In her early twenties, Hollander relocated to Johannesburg to be with her stepsister. It was there that she became engaged to American economist John Weber, but after the engagement ended, she moved to New York City. In 1968, she made a bold career shift from her role as a secretary at the Dutch consulate to becoming a call girl, earning an impressive $1,000 a night (approximately $8,400 today). By 1969, she had established her own brothel, the Vertical Whorehouse, quickly rising to prominence as New York's leading madam. However, her success was cut short in 1971 when she was arrested for prostitution and subsequently banned from the U.S.

That same year, she published her memoir, which was ghostwritten by Yvonne Dunleavy and titled by Robin Moore. Hollander continued to write, producing several more books, including *Child No More*, and contributed a long-running advice column for *Penthouse*. Besides her literary endeavors, she recorded a spoken-word album, launched an erotic board game in 1974, and starred in a semi-autobiographical film in 1975. In 2005, she opened her bed-and-breakfast, Xaviera's Happy House, in Amsterdam.