Origins & Early Life

Xaviera Hollander (born 15 June 1943) is a Dutch former call girl, madam and author. She is best known for her best-selling memoir The Happy Hooker. Hollander was born Xaviera de Vries in Surabaya, Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies, which later became part of present-day Indonesia, to a Dutch Jewish physician father and a mother of French and German descent. She spent the first years of her life in a Japanese-run internment camp.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

After the end of Japanese occupation the family returned to the Netherlands. In her early twenties she left Amsterdam for Johannesburg, 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 for New York City. In 1968, she resigned from her job as a secretary in the Dutch consulate in New York City to become a call girl, making up to US$1,000 a night (equivalent to $9,300 in 2025).

Enduring Legacy & Impact

A year later, she opened her own brothel, the Vertical Whorehouse, and soon became New York City's leading madam. In 1971, she was arrested for prostitution by New York Police and forced to leave the United States. In 1972, Hollander published...

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

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