Chapter 6: Media Frenzy (1993, 1994): The Heidi Fleiss scandal breaks wide in the media, making Heidi the most famous woman and sending her clients into a panic
Everybody wants a cut of the Heidi Fleiss story, and some of the people in Heidi’s orbit are selling her out to get theirs. Plus a rabbit hole into how Pretty Woman connects to illegal arms dealing, the stories of call girls “Marilyn” and “Leann,” and how women in Hollywood (and Adrian Lyne) reacted to what the scandal said about the men in their industry in the 90s.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
The scandal has frozen the town. This kind of thing
happens in Hollywood once a decade. There off and guys
who have decorated their tables with hookers and felt totally
unimpeachable about it for years. If it's true they financed
it with development money, they deserved us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wet for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Julia Phillips, producer.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I haven't spoken to Heidi Flys in sometime.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Call my press agent, Robert Evans producer.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
Heidie Flyes is a family friend of Robert Evans, Robert
Evans press agent.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
She's a casual friend.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm not in her social loop.
Speaker 7 (00:53):
Elliott Mince talent manager.
Speaker 8 (00:56):
I have never used to professional services, and god knows
that don't need to.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Fortunately, I've never had to pay for sex.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Billy Idle.
Speaker 9 (01:08):
Billy Idol has met Heidi flies but doesn't know her well.
Speaker 10 (01:11):
There may have been sex, but there wasn't commerce. Billy
Idol's publicist, we knew each other pretty well. Frankly, I
had a little romantic interest in Heidi at one time,
but she's sort of a businesswoman. I haven't seen her
in months. I got a scoodattle now. Bob Crow, Texas
real Estate.
Speaker 11 (01:29):
Air and again, it's she is a mental case and
she does drugs. But there's one thing you can't take.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Away from Heidi. She was very good.
Speaker 11 (01:41):
And she sat at home and she answered those phones,
and she sent those girls out, and she worked, which
she built up she really deserves because she worked very
hard at it. Julie Conister rival, Madam.
Speaker 12 (01:57):
Talk to my lawyer.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Am.
Speaker 7 (02:03):
My client is a virtual prisoner in her house since
the publicity started in this matter. Anthony Brooklier, Heidie Flie's
defense attorney boy.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Previously on Heidi World, Heidi's high end escort empire has
come crashing down, bringing her life in the fast lane
to a screeching halt at a frightening crossroads. Welcome to
Heidi World, Chapter six. Media Frenzy. The Heidi Fly scandal
(02:45):
breaks wide in the media, making Heidi the most famous
woman in the world and sending her clients into a panic.
Nineteen ninety three, nineteen ninety four. Welcome back to Heidie World.
I'm your host, Mollie Lambert. It's August of nineteen ninety three.
(03:08):
An accused Hollywood madam Heidie Flies is now the center
of a national media maelstrom. What began as a local
story in Los Angeles has crossed into the mainstream and
everyone wants a piece of Heidi. While Heidie liked the
attention and notoriety that came with being a high end madam,
she is not prepared for the onslaught of media attention
(03:28):
that she is suddenly on the receiving end of. But
Heidi Flices is rating's gold. Her arraignment is watched by
one out of every four people who's watching TV at
the time that it's on. When a woman openly seeks attention,
whether for her sex appeal or smarts, or in Heidie's case, both,
the media sometimes decides to attention her to death, as
(03:51):
if to say, this is what you wanted right. Heidi
is completely freaked out about her trial and the narrative
has spun completely out of her control. People are selling
her out left and right for their tabloid cut. August tenth,
nineteen ninety three, Heidi appears at the courtroom and gets
mobbed by paparazzi who nearly knock her to the ground
(04:13):
in her spike heeled pumps, dark sunglasses, and conservative Beije
Norma Camali mini dress. After pleading not guilty to five
counts of pandering and one count of cocaine possession. Heidi
exits out the backstairwell into her lawyer Anthony Brooklyer's black BMW.
Since Heidi won't talk, the press descend on her friends,
(04:34):
Victoria Sellers and Benita Money, who have come out to
support her. The media imply that Heidi loves all the
press attention, but according to Heidi, every waking moment with
the paparazzi following her was a nightmare.
Speaker 12 (04:51):
I was like almost trampled to death.
Speaker 13 (04:53):
There was a motorcycle parked outside and the cameramen just
knocked it over. Cameras were swooping in under I face.
Someone was pulling my hair. I was panicked. I thought
someone was going to pull my clothes off.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
I was prepared to make a statement, but they treated
my client with no respect. I'm just returning the favor.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
The first story about the Heidi Fly scandal in the
La Times runs August first. By August twelfth, people are
writing in to complain there's way too much coverage of
the Heidi Fly scandal and that surely there must be
real news to cover. Unfortunately, for these hard news lovers,
Heidi draws eyeballs. Let's briefly discuss the LA news scene
(05:40):
in the early nineties. In nineteen ninety, the LAPD were
caught beating a black man named Rodney King during a
routine traffic stop when a civilian who randomly saw the
abuse while trying to get footage of James Cameron filming
Terminator two across the street, saw what was happening and
started filming it on a camp Despite the hard video
(06:02):
evidence of the cops beating Rodney King, they all got
off in court, which led to the nineteen ninety two
LA Riots or uprisings, where the over policed and harassed
black community expressed anger at the city of LA the
one way that upset the ruling class with property destruction.
It was an echo of the nineteen sixty five Watts Rebellion,
(06:24):
which also stemmed from the LAPD's racist harassment of black drivers.
News coverage of the LA Riots focused entirely on the
property damage and looting, and not on the structural inequalities
and racism that led to the uprisings and lootings. The
continuing tensions in Los Angeles over racism, policing, and extreme
(06:47):
financial inequality were never dealt with rather they were buried
and what came to bury them tabloid news. In nineteen
ninety one, a new channel launched on cable called Courtroom
Television TV, better known as court TV. Court TV is
the first television channel to run live courtroom trials as
(07:09):
the entire format. It becomes a staple of the then
booming daytime television market as it makes for perfect ambient
background noise. In July of nineteen ninety three, court TV
starts airing the Lyle and Eric Menendez trial, causing a
media frenzy over the two teenage boys who shot and
killed their parents at the family's Beverly Hills mansion in
(07:29):
nineteen eighty nine. While the Menendez brother's story was a
local sensation, the court TV coverage made it national news.
Court TV also allowed the story to take on a
life of its own, with every minute of the trial
now available to be parson processed on television. In episode two,
I mentioned with the writer Ed Sanders called stuff buffs,
(07:52):
people who showed up at criminal trials to sit in
the audience and watch. With the advent of channels like
court TV, now everyone can be a snuff buff. When
the Heidi fly story breaks in nineteen ninety three, every
newspaper and local news channel starts running NonStop coverage, pouring
over every new salacious detail, neglecting other more serious stories
(08:15):
the rebuilding of LA after the riots, corruption and racism
in the police, and the city's deep undealt with wounds
over race and class. But those stories are difficult, and furthermore,
the La Times, which has been printing LAPD's propaganda since
its inception, does not actually want to go that deep
(08:35):
on what's really wrong with Los Angeles. Instead, they are
here to talk about heidiflies and to make the LAPD
look like heroes for busting her. But people don't buy
what they're selling because everybody still hates the LAPD. Heidi
is not a violent criminal, and even though she's a young,
rich white woman, the LAPDS still went out of their
(08:57):
way to bust her while letting all of the rich
john off the hook who would possibly side with the
LAPD on this or think that arresting Heidi should have
been a major priority in Los Angeles besides the LAPD
and the LA Times. Of course, Heidi immediately becomes an
LA folk hero, sort of like OJ Simpson, although their
(09:18):
crimes are very different, somebody who serves as a walking
middle finger to all the injustices and hypocrisies and abuses
of the LAPD. Heidi has a lot of people rooting
for her to beat the entrenched system that is racist,
classist and treat sex workers like criminals.
Speaker 13 (09:39):
If you listen to what everyone says about you, then
you become their prisoner.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
So Heidi does what any sudden vice lord media superstar
would do. She gives a bunch of reporters exclusive coverage
of the Heidifly story straight from Heidi herself. First, she
talks to Variety in an adversarial interview where she ends
up threatening to leak everything for a million dollars before
immediately taking the offer back. Then, in August, she goes
(10:09):
to the La Times, who describe her as wearing a
denim shirt and exercise tights while she lounges on her
couch freaking out about the charges. The reporter, Sean Hubler,
who writes most of the Time's Heidi coverage and develops
a friendly rapport with her, seems to think that Heidi
wants it both ways, the good press without the bad.
(10:30):
She notes that Heidi got a facial haircut and her
makeup done before going to her court appearance, and shows
Heidi a clip of the endlessly replayed footage of her
walking into the courtroom. Heidi shrugs and smiles.
Speaker 12 (10:46):
Sex cells.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
On August thirteenth, the LAPD launched one of their famous
internal investigations to see if any of their cops were
consorting with Heidie Flies and her friends. Flies tells the
that she had no special relationship with the cops and
that her most recent contact with them was when she
tried to file a complaint about Yvonne Naj. She is
questioned by LAPD investigators for two hours about whether she
(11:13):
employed any cops as bodyguards or had sex with any
police officers. She says those stories are nefarious gossip planted
by her vindictive ex boyfriend, Yvonne Naj. She also denies
an allegation published in The New York Post that she
sent girls to a birthday party for Scott Khan, son
of the actor James Khan, and blames Yvonne Nag for
(11:34):
this story as well. James Kahn comments.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's not true. I've had enough bad publicity in my career.
I don't need this.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I've got a wife and two year old baby.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I don't go out and party. I don't want to
be trashed.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
James Khan actor.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Billy Idol decides to milk the press he gets for
being associated with Heidi and goes on Jay Leno to
deny it again.
Speaker 12 (12:04):
We used to go round a house and watch television.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Eh, maybe order a peta, maybe play yatzig.
Speaker 11 (12:12):
I didn't say that.
Speaker 14 (12:13):
I said I never paid for it.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
By this point, the story has gone global. The Heidi
Fly scandal is no longer just an LA story, or
even an American one. Although it is uniquely American. Everyone
all around the world is following the story of the
woman who has brought Hollywood to its knees. Meanwhile, that woman,
Heidiflies feels utterly trapped, boxed in by the press and
(12:39):
her personal circumstances.
Speaker 13 (12:44):
I felt so bad that I snuck out at one
am on Monday night and wrote handwritten notes of apology
to all my neighbors, telling them how.
Speaker 12 (12:53):
Sorry I was for the noise and disruption.
Speaker 13 (12:56):
But I ran out of stationary after the first staid notes.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Even Pompadour Papers, the stationary brand she used for the notes,
gets in on the press and profits. The designers hawk
the Trumpeting Angel's notepad that Heidi used, which they sell
at trendy high end boutique fred Siegel Trumpeting Angels stationary
becomes their number one sellar, and they want to send
Heidi a free pad to use at her trial. LAPD
(13:24):
tells their officers to stop answering press questions about the
Heidi Fli's trial because various LAPD spokespeople keep providing wildly
different stories. I always hear the Benny Hill music yakty
sacks in my head when the cops and sheriffs are
giving their crazy lying accounts of what just happened. All
press inquiries are to be handled from now on by
(13:44):
Commander David J. Gascon. The news falsely links to shooting
in Malibu to high end prostitution, and two spokespeople from
the Sheriff's department make statements about the Lorie Dolan case
that contradict each other. The Heidi Fly's story is taking
on a life of its own, separate from reality. Sound familiar.
(14:04):
The Internet exacerbates the conspiracy process to warp speed, but
in any medium, as soon as a big story breaks,
people come out of the woodwork. Claiming to have information
true or false. Mayor Richard reared In, sensing that people
are still not so hot on the cops in Los Angeles,
raises the question that newspapers seemingly won't. Why was it
(14:26):
such a top priority to bus Heidi flies? And why
are the cops acting like this makes the streets of
Los Angeles safer in any way? Shouldn't the self proclaimed
crime fighters be going after the violent crime they claim
runs rampant everywhere in LA without their help? Everyone in
town has an opinion.
Speaker 7 (14:46):
Should you be going after people in this situation?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
That's a legitimate issue.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
Richard Reardon, Mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't understand vice. I have to pay for it
in a whole So a woman who would give it
away for one line in a movie, all for no
line in a movie.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Ava Kapoor, August fourteenth, nineteen ninety three. The irs comes
for Heidi as well, launching a formal investigation into her
finances that ropes her dad into the proceedings for his
role as co signer on her home loan for the
Tower Grove estate. While Heidi can handle there being consequences
(15:29):
for her own actions, she cannot deal with her dad
being dragged into it. August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety three,
pop star Michael Jackson is accused of molesting a boy
named Jordan Chandler. This scandal trumps the Heidi Fly scandal
because Michael Jackson is an enormous worldwide superstar, but it's
(15:50):
all connected because Jackson is under contract at Sony, the
same Japanese media and electronics company that owns Columbia Pictures
where the Heidi scandal is reached. Michael Jackson also happens
to employ the same private detective as Columbia's Michael Nathanson,
Anthony Pelicano. Anthony Pelicano is with mj on his world
(16:12):
tour when he's tipped off that the cops are raiding
Jackson's property looking for evidence of child pornography. Pelicano puts
out a counter story, alleging that the victim's family is
just looking for a payout. All of this effects not
just Hollywood, but the Cola Wars PEPSI had recently picked
up two points in market share from Coke after making
Michael Jackson their new spokesperson. That summer, singer Rick James
(16:37):
also gets convicted at the same courthouse on two charges
of kidnapping and torturing women under the influence of crack cocaine.
All this dirty laundry is a bonanza for the News
Channel's magazines and newspapers, both tabloid and serious. Scandal always
sells newspapers, but now it can also sell cable and
(16:58):
local news. US magazine plans to primpt what is allegedly
a check made out from Steve Roth's production company to
Heidi Flice. Roth denies the check as even real and
says he only saw but didn't meet Heidi once at
a Thanksgiving party thrown by Nathanson. Because Roth's movie Last
Action Hero went so over budget and was such a
(17:20):
big flop for Columbia, it now invites scrutiny about what
exactly they wasted all that money on. Roth's rise and
fall in Hollywood was swift. His production company joined Columbia
Pictures for a two year contract. His first movie was
a flop, but his second movie, the Arnold Schwarzenegger meta
action comedy Last Action Hero, written by Shane Black, seemed
(17:42):
like a guaranteed blockbuster. In nineteen ninety one, Roth was
at can with Sony executives at a giant party celebrating
Last Action Hero. Two years later, in nineteen ninety three,
he's washed up and thinks the studio is just using
the Heidi scandal as an excuse to drop his contract.
Heidi is freaking out, not just about the very real
(18:04):
possibility of going to jail, but about money to pay
all the fucking lawyers she's going to need to try
to avoid going to jail. Now that she's famous, that
means she's fucked. She's so famous now that there's already
a Heidi Flights impersonator named Kina Rose who can be
hired as a faux Heidi for parties. When Heidie World returns,
(18:31):
Heidi figures out a way to cash in on Heidi
Mania with her own custom line of clothing Welcome back
(18:59):
to High Tidy World. Heidi, of course, wants to control
the narrative, so she tries something risky, exploiting her current
level of notoriety to make a little more cash, or
at least try to sway public opinion over to her side.
More so, she makes public appearances. She appears in the
audience for an NBC special called Comedy Hall of Fame
(19:23):
that tapes of the place she knows very well. The
Beverly Hilton Hotel, Heidi spends the night watching comedic legends.
Carol Burnett, Milton Burrell, and George Burns receive honors. On
September fifth, she goes to a launch party for Rick
Rubin's new label, American Recordings, at the Shadow Lane's Bowling Alley.
In September of nineteen ninety three, Heidi announces that she
(19:45):
has found a fun and legal way to profit off
her nascent fame. She is launching a line of sleepwear
and lingerie. She tells the Eli Times, who say that
she prefers men's shirts and sweatpants to garter belts and
push up bras.
Speaker 13 (20:02):
Don't make it like it's going to have holes for
your tips to stick out. These are the kinds of
things I would wear.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Heidi faxes her designs to the La Times and tells
them that she should have a marketing deal for the
line any minute now. The designs include a bias cut
silk nightgown with a leg slit, a minimalist camusol, and
a garment for Heidie's mail fans, boxer shorts with a
pocket to stash a condom. Heidi gets turned down by
(20:30):
QBC and Home Shopping Network. She references the fact that
her friend Playboy playmate Barbie Benton, was also kept out
of that world.
Speaker 13 (20:40):
They're too Middle America. They don't want anything controversial. Barbie
Benton tried to sell a line of lingerie and even
she couldn't.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
So Heidi, a brilliant marketing genius, says she's going to
bypass Home shopping television by making her own infomercial themed
like a Heidi Girl slumber Party.
Speaker 13 (21:02):
I'll be wearing the stuff and I'll have on about
fifty of my girls too, not just twenty year old,
but all ages.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
She shows up at a gala for the National LGBTQ
Task Force, headlined by comedian Sandra Bernhardt, who performs in
a leather brazier with her band The strap Ons. This too,
takes place at the Beverly Hilton, where seemingly everything does.
Heidi is allegedly met with gasps when she arrives for
the event with her publicist, where other guests include Judith Light,
(21:32):
Jackie Collins, and Kathena Jimmy. Heidi says she's just there
to support gay rights.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
I think everybody should support this group. This is an
important cause to contribute to. Something has to be done.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Heidi also begins a series of long phone conversations with
reporter Nikki Fink, who would go on to start the
Hollywood trade gossip website dots Line Hollywood. She talks to
Nikki Fink for Details Magazine, and Fink's Heidi Flight's profile
story runs in October of nineteen ninety three in an
issue of Details with Christian Slater on the cover as
(22:13):
a feature called Heidi Talks. By this point, Heidi is
burned out on the press attention. Any sort of novelty
or appeal it may have initially had has worn off,
as her plausible fate of going to prison sinks in
how does the magazine profile go? Take a wild guess.
Speaker 12 (22:33):
Via a gun? I would just shoot myself.
Speaker 13 (22:36):
I can't take it. I'm being burned at the stake.
Everyone who wants to see me fail, They're killing me.
I'm dying every day. It's something weirder. Yesterday someone told
me I was being charged with wandering Columbia's money from
son near something, and I was like, what it looks
like I'm going into hell.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Niki Fink sits for hours of conversations with Flices and
come away with the conclusion that Heidi is her own
worst enemy. She sums it up by saying, forget all
the media hype, the reputed glamour, and the five thousand
dollars a pop blowjobs you've heard or read about. If
there is a moral to the Heidi chronicles, Hollywood's latest
tale of immorality, it may be as follows, Young girls,
(23:19):
wherever you are, stay away from ugly guys twice your age.
Fink is the first to name Yvonne naj as the
real culprit worthy of disdain, a bona fide creep, but
she can't help but also condescend to Heidi, who is
at the height of her predicament. Heidi fantasizes openly about
(23:39):
scenarios that would keep her out of jail, some white
knight from her past coming to rescue her. Meanwhile, she
has pled not guilty to the charges of pandering, narcotics violations,
and felony pimping. Heidi's off the record stories directly contradict
the new image nineties Hollywood is trying to peddle of
a cleaned up, family friendly industry where sex and drugs
(24:00):
aren't welcome. It's just the music business where those things happen,
they claim. Heidi is both astonished at the hypocrisy of
her own clients and surprised that the LAPD bothered to
bust her little operation after letting Madame Alex alone forever.
Why did Heidi get busted now and not earlier or later.
LAPD's Glen Ackerman, made busting Heidi an issue when he
(24:24):
became captain of the Vice division. He says it's because
of her big mouth that the LAPD had to come
for Heidi. But Nikki Fink thinks the toxic circle of
Madame Alex and Yvonne naj and Heidi and sometimes Yvonne's
girlfriend Julie Connister did themselves in by constantly turning on
each other and trying to turn each other in. Glenn Ackerman,
(24:47):
who certainly has no problem running his own big mouth
to the press constantly also wanted to make a splashy
media debut himself with a big staying operation. Who better
than Heidi for the LAPD to make up public example of.
Nicki Fink also doesn't buy Heidi's martyr act, having heard
rumors that flies applies her girls with drugs and knowingly
(25:08):
sends them to unsafe John's. Heidi also brags that she's
worked much harder than Madame Alex because she's been doing
it in a recession. Alex's business relied on oil money,
which dried up in the eighties. As always, Heidi is
by turns egomaniacal and self effacing. She's open and self
aware about her drug use, telling the magazine that von
(25:31):
Nauch supplied her with crystal meth, but rebutting any rumors
that she's a heroin junkie who's been using for six months.
Madame Alex is, of course, always available for media comment
on Heidi. Alex tells Nicki Fink that the cops called
her to see if Heidi was having sexual relations with
any officers around West LA.
Speaker 13 (25:52):
There were ten girls in my house practically crying, saying
we need you back.
Speaker 12 (25:57):
Nothing is right now, and I'm saying give me three years.
Speaker 13 (26:01):
I'll be successful at whatever I do, and I'll share
with all of you.
Speaker 12 (26:05):
If I had twenty million right now, I'd give nineteen.
Speaker 14 (26:08):
Of it away.
Speaker 13 (26:09):
That's what I said, and I really mean it too.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Also in October, Heidi's best friend Victoria Sellers is arranged
for a traffic stop where cops find an ounce of
weed in her purse and a gun in the car
driven by her friend who is drunk. On October twenty fifth,
Lisa Henson officially replaces Michael Nathanson as head of production
at Columbia. On Halloween, someone writes into The La Times
(26:38):
despairing the sad state of fame, saying the fact that
people like Heidi Flies and the cast of the first
ever reality show, The Real World on MTV can become
famous is the sign of a dying culture. November first,
The La Times runs a story about a sculptor from
Northridge named Russell Michael, who claims he saw Heidi's house
(27:00):
surrounded by paparazzi when he was installing a gate he
designed at a house down the street. He left a
note for Heidi in her mailbox saying if she wanted,
he'd be happy to build her a gate that would
provide her some more privacy. Heidi thought it might be
a trap, but called and asked Michael to send to
his portfolio. She told him that paparazzi and tabloid TV
reporters had breached her driveway and walked all the way
(27:23):
back into her yard, sabotaging her with cameras by the pool.
So Michael designs a gate that both blocks the hordes
and scares them a little.
Speaker 13 (27:34):
What impresses me is that he is self taught and
works in so many mediums. He uses stone, steel, wood,
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
The finish gate is called as beautiful as it is dangerous.
A metal pattern of vinework and leaves is legitimately sharp
and would injure someone trying to climb over. It's also
tall enough to stop anyone from being able to look
over it. Flies likes the gate so much she commissions
follow ups from Michael, including a wishing Well garden feature.
(28:09):
Russell Michael seems like a bit of a hustler himself.
He likes the press and free publicity. In association with
Heidi fly Springs, his biggest venture to date as a
sculptor is a fake stone replica of Rome's famous Trevi
fountain for a restaurant in the wealthy West Valley suburb
of Woodland Hills. While her clients are running from the
(28:29):
very mention of her name, everyone else in La and
the whole country is chasing heidiflies The story has everything
a tabloid could ever want, sex, drugs, money, powerful people,
and big institutions. The Heidi Fly story is, to put it,
bluntly sexy, and there's no death involved, although the media
(28:51):
starts sniffing around instantly for deaths that they can blame
on Heidi and therefore on the very idea of prostitution.
By this point, Heid and the news media are twin flames.
She is set on getting her story out there herself.
She even knows that a lot of people are rooting
for her. After all, the LAPD uprisings didn't exactly make
the LAPD look like the hero cops they think of
(29:13):
themselves as, and busting a nice young businesswoman like Heidi
Flies doesn't make them look great either. And if there's
one place that Heidi can out game the LAPD's longtime
connection to The La Times, it's on the other news
media outlets that she can control. So Heidi, of course
books another interview with the woman of the hour herself,
(29:36):
her biggest one yet, an exclusive for Connie Chung at
CBS on November fourth at ten pm on I to
Ie with Connie Chung, The La Times finds ways to
endlessly spin content out of the Heidi story even when
there's no new actual information to run. Much like the
nascent Court TV, it fills people's appetites for a constant
(29:57):
stream of content. They run a story about how the
success of nineteen nineties Pretty Women led to a bumper
crop of movies about prostitutes being developed. Pretty Woman is
a movie starring Richard Gear as a handsome businessman who
hires a beautiful Hollywood hooker for the night and turns
her into a high class lady Pygmalion style. It was
(30:18):
originally supposed to be a serious drama about prostitution, and
then became a Gary Marshall project and turned into a
mostly light romantic comedy about two very hot people, one
of whom happens to be a sex worker, falling in love. Now,
as we know, by this point, aspects of this story
were not too far removed from reality. There were rich
(30:40):
businessmen hiring women to pose as high class dates. Don
Simpson in particular was known for hiring Heidi girls and
telling his friends they were brain surgeons. Pretty Women is
produced by Regency International Pictures and Disney's adult film Shingle
Touchstone Pictures and distributed by Disney's Buena Vista Studio.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now just a.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Rabbit hole for fun. One of Pretty Women's producers, arn
And Milchahn of Regency, was allegedly an Israeli intelligence agent
and nuclear arms dealer before he became a producer. Besides
the second generational stuff, another fun aspect of the Heidi
story is how many people in Hollywood have crazy backstories
(31:21):
like this. So arn and Milchahn worked for lek M,
which was an Israeli military intelligence agency. He got roped
in with the nuclear arms dealing stuff when a guy
named Richard Kelly Smith got busted buying something called crytron
through Milchand's company Milco. As far as I a person
(31:43):
who knows very little about nuclear science can tell, a
criytron is something like a doomsday switch that can be
used to trigger perfectly harmless things, but is better known
for igniting exploding bridgewire and slapper detonators in nuclear weapons.
Richard Kelly Smith allegedly helped arn And milchon' ugal eight
hundred and ten crytrons to Israel in the nineteen eighties.
(32:04):
Four hundred and sixty nine were returned to America, and
Israel said the other three hundred and forty one were
quote destroyed in testing. Milchhon didn't confirm publicly that he
had been inn Israeli asset until twenty thirteen, when it
was all documented in a book called Confidential, The Life
of Secret Agent turned Hollywood Tycoon, about Arnin Milchhon that
(32:25):
mostly seems pretty impressed with him. In the meantime, Milchin's
production company, Regency made some of my favorite movies of
all time, including Martin Scorsesees The King of Comedy, Oliver
Stone's JFK, and Curtis Hanson's Ali Confidential. He's also still
alive and producing movies. Most recently he co produced The Northman.
I know the joke of the mobster who gets into
(32:47):
movies is done a lot, but it's honestly so funny
that this guy may have come to La just to
smuggle some nuclear weapons to Israel and ended up a
super successful producer who made a bunch of great movies
Fucking Hollywood, And which leads me to the question, is
Richard Gear playing Jeffrey Epstein in the movie Pretty Woman.
(33:07):
Pretty Woman's original ending was supposed to have Gear's character
throwing the Julia Roberts character out of the car, and
it became a Cinderella story fairy tale about a sex
worker falling in love with her John Heidi Mania hits
right as Disney is trying to move forward with Pretty
Woman Too. Also mentioned is a movie being developed at
Disney's other production Shingle Hollywood Pictures, called Sexual Healing by
(33:32):
none other than Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, a thriller
about a high class call girl in the world of Washington.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
D C.
Speaker 7 (33:41):
Captain Glenn Ackerman has publicly announced that the Los Angeles
Police Department has no intention of prosecuting the male customers
of Ms.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Fleiss.
Speaker 7 (33:51):
This official position, while certainly comforting to males who would
otherwise be prosecuted, smacks of a boys club mentality which
she can have no place if equal protection of the
law is to have real meaning.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
November third, nineteen ninety three, Heidi tries to get the
pandering charges against her dismissed on the grounds that the
LAPD unfairly target sex workers but not their customers. Heidie's lawyer,
Anthony Brooklier more on him later files a motion with
Assistant District Attorney Alan Carter, contending that Fliss was set
up in a sting and should be charged with the
(34:29):
tempted pandering, not pandering itself. November seventeenth, the paparazzi camp
out all day Monday waiting for Heidi to appear, so
she shows up Tuesday the seventeenth instead. When no cameras
are lurking in wait, she sneaks into the courthouse through
the stairwell entrance, taking the stairs up to the thirteenth floor,
(34:50):
and appears before a Superior Court judge whose name is
astoundingly Judge Judith L. Champagne. She gets the pre trial
hearing postp own from that week to December third. Also
that week, a Heidiflis inspired plotline begins airing on the
Fox nighttime soap opera melrose Place, the greatest TV show
ever made. Melrose Place was a spin off of Beverly
(35:12):
Hills nine two toe O about a group of gen
X sexy singles and one couple living in a Bungalow
Court apartment building in La Like nine O two to
one O, it started as a down to Earth's social
issues show with episodes about the La Riots, and then
increasingly went off the rails. The show's second season was
a different, sluttier animal from the first, in which they
(35:35):
introduced Heather Locklear as a girl boss bitch and the
show's signature hat fights by the pool. I love this
show because it has two different types of crazy redheads
Marsha Cross as crazy type A doctor Kimberly Shaw and
Laura Layton as Sydney Andrews, a chaos demon. All you
need to know about Sydney is that she immediately tries
(35:55):
to seduce her sister's husband. So Sydney, of course gets
the high Fli's plot line, which the writers put on
the show as a ripped from the headline attempt to
lure viewers. Sydney is approached by a fellow waitress played
by Gina Gershaan, who invites her to meet a woman
named Lauren Ethridge, who it turns out runs a high
(36:15):
end escort ring. Sydney becomes an escort and immediately gets
busted and goes to jail. It's a pretty brief plot line,
but it did serve its intended purpose of bolstering the
show's ratings, leading the show towards more and more sordid
stunt plot lines. The Heidi effect is strong. December third
(36:36):
the pre trial hearing, Heidie stays home while her attorney,
Anthony Brookleer makes his argument that Heidi is being discriminated
against due to sexism. He cites the comments that LIPD
gave to the media about how they have no intention
of going after any of Heidie's customers, just Heidie and
her girls. He also cites a rarely used eighty eight
year old law against paying money or any other valuable
(36:59):
thing for any person for the purpose of prostitution. Glenn
Ackerman testifies that he can't think of a single time
that a prostitute's customer was charged with a felony. He
can only remember busting John's on misdemeanors. When people who
live near street prostitution areas complained about the noise, Ackerman
says they've never arrested a single customer of a high
(37:21):
end call girl or escort service. Ackerman also says the
nineteen oh five statute invoked by Brooklyer is known as
the uh White Slave Law and is intended only for
prosecuting sex traffickers. Deputy District Attorney Alan Carter raises the
possibility of filing charges against some of Heidi's male clients,
(37:42):
which would also make the John's names public. Judge Judith L.
Champagne denies Brooklyar's motion to get Heidie's charges reduced from
pandering to attempted pandering on the grounds that she was
a victim of a police staying. The hearing is continued
to December seventeenth, while the cops scrambled to see if
anyone has ever been charged for purchasing sex, not just
(38:04):
for selling it. After the trial, Carter admits he isn't
sure if it's possible legally to prosecute the Johns, and
hasn't run the idea by his boss, District Attorney Gil Garcetti,
who is, yes, the father of La Faalsn Mayor Eric Garcetti.
December fourth, Heidi makes another public appearance, and this time
(38:27):
it's not even at the Beverly Hilton. It's at a
different hotel, the Bonadventure in downtown La a seventies postmodern
building that was the backdrop for a recent fenty Savage
lingerie fashion show. Heidi is there, for, of all things,
a classic rock station's yearly rock Expo, where vendors are
selling rock and roll memorabilia and records from the archives
(38:50):
of radio station came at FM along celebrities doing autograph signings.
Heidi is one of the celebrities signing headshots for her fans,
alongside rock stars like Mick Fleetwood, George Thoroughgood and Kenny Loggins.
And yes, I found getdy images of this that I
will post on the Patreon when Heidi World returns. Three
(39:16):
Los Angeles escorts tell all, welcome back to Heidi World.
(39:45):
December thirteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
It isn't just oh. I never thought it would end
this way. I never thought it would end Marilyn, former
Heidi Girl.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
On December thirteenth, the La Times runs a triple profile
of three call girls, two of whom are Heidi Girls.
Sean Hubler talks to a twenty three year old Heidi
Girl who will call Marilyn, a breathy blonde in a
short pink Gingham dress who smokes Capri cigarettes. Marilyn came
to LA with dreams of acting and may well leave
(40:23):
with nothing but her pink scrap book of her days
as a fifteen hundred dollars an hour Heidi Girl. She
has blown through the twelve thousand dollars she kept hidden
in a Teddy Bear. Since Heidi got busted, she's been
questioned by police and tailed by reporters. She had told
her parents that Heidi was her acting agent, so when
Heidi appeared on the cover of People as the sex
(40:44):
broker to the Stars, she tried calling to explain, but
her mother hung up on her. She's now trying to
turn her life story into a TV movie to cash
in on Heidi Mania.
Speaker 6 (40:57):
It's going to be a two hour movie. Melawyer's setting
it up. It'll say, based on a true story of Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
Like so many beautiful girls from all over, Marilyn came
to Los Angeles to become a star. Instead, she found
herself working two jobs to afford Los Angeles while trying
to save up for acting lessons and make time for auditions.
By day, she worked as a secretary for an accountant
in the Valley for nine dollars an hour. At night,
(41:30):
she was a waitress at the Rainbow Bar and Grill,
a notorious rockstar hangout on You Guessed It the Sunset Strip.
She dated her way through some musicians, but found it
hard to gain any traction in the entertainment industry. Marilyn
saves up four thousand dollars in cash tips from waitressing,
only to have it all stolen from her by a
(41:51):
sketchy roommate. So when a Rainbow customer asks if she
wants to meet his friend Heidi Flice, who she has
already heard tale of, she says, yes, it's time.
Speaker 6 (42:04):
I had no money and no place to go. I'd
never been on my own before. I never dream lik
be so hard.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Heidie approves of her and invites Marilyn to move into
the Tower Grove mansion with her and the other girls.
After a few months in Heidi's ritualistic cool nineties girl makeover,
she sends Marilyn on her first out call.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
It was exciting. He was me and one other girl.
We went to Paris for a week with an Arab prince.
He took us shopping at Chanel.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
Marilyn thinks she has a better chance of breaking into
the entertainment industry this way than just by auditioning, and
soon enough she's at a Christmas party with a producer
who introduces her to his friends as a member of
his bowling team. A businessman from Hong Kong asks for
a year long contract to make her his mistress. One
real estate guy gives her four k for one night
(43:06):
working for Heidi Flie, she discovers is a form of networking.
She meets everyone in the entertainment industry, trade writers, agents,
more rock stars, and if you can take yet another
colorful character in this story whose tie span Hollywood. In
the underworld, she is also introduced to a guy named
Vince Kanti. Vince Kanti is a photographer and actor, best
(43:31):
known for playing Sergeant Rizzo on the cop show Kojak.
Shortly before Heidi was busted, the sixty three year old
Kanti copped felony pandering charges of his own and was
sentenced to three years. Kanti was not a pimp per se,
but he was an arranger of mutually beneficial sexual transactions.
The cut was not in cash, but favors. He would
(43:53):
introduce a rich European to some nice young women who
liked rich old men, and return the rich guy would
set him up with a photography studio in Beverly Hills.
Vince Kanti, like Yvonne naj, knows people in both Hollywood
and the world of vice, and is able to parlay
his connections between the two worlds into personal influence that
(44:13):
benefits him.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
You know, look, I run in a pretty good chalon
of people. I got pretty girls around all the time.
Speaker 10 (44:21):
They come to my studio, I say, Joe, say hello
to Mary Hann What can sending adults do?
Speaker 12 (44:26):
I got no control over that.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Vince Kanti.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Kanti claims in an interview that he sets up his
good friends with aspiring actresses for no reason other than
to be a good guy. His photography portfolio includes the
likes of Michelle Pfeiffer Cher and Demi Moore. And again,
I urge you to read Demi Moore's book for more
on this time period. So Kanti introduces our girl Marylyn
(44:54):
to a European dignitary and a former California politician. But
escor doesn't really help her book any acting other than
some bit parts. But who needs an acting career when
your side gig is going this well. Marilyn wakes up
at noon and goes to bed at four am on
a handful of downers to quell the knight's cocaine. She
(45:15):
uses names like Tiffany and Sheena with clients, earning enough
cash to drop a grand on one dress if she desires.
But escorting is a gig to gig job, much like
acting or virtually every job now, so there would be
dry periods where Marilyn book no work. When she tried
to book work without Heidi through her own connections, she
(45:36):
ended up in some bad situations, like the Palm Springs
date with a pro wrestling producer who promised her and
a friend five thousand dollars and a quarter ounce of cocaine,
only to pay them with a check that immediately bounced.
When they tried confronting his wife at her house, she
just laughed at them and said her husband had been
broke for years. Two of the girls in the La
(45:57):
Times piece asked to be anonymous. The third girl is
Brandy McLain.
Speaker 14 (46:04):
People always expect some girl with like red lipstick and
bleach blonde hair, sekun dress and spiked pumps. But it's
a misconception. I don't even know own a pair of spike pumps.
Brandy McClain.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Sean Hubler describes Brandy as athletic and muscular, wearing a
cutoff tea, running shorts, and wire rimmed sunglasses, offering the
reporter some of her vegetarian casseroles she made when they
meet up at her San Diego apartment. Brandy McClain has
decided to flip on Heidi, even though she was never
charged after being taken into custody at the Beverly Hilton bust.
(46:42):
McLain is not angry at Heidi. She tells Hubler how
she decided to get into Heidie's game.
Speaker 14 (46:49):
I was living in New York working with the florist
two years ago, and there was this girl I ran
with a Central Park and she always seemed to have money,
and she had beautiful furniture. I thought, how does she
do it? I mean she was in nursing school. Well,
one day she told me, and like I never would
have guessed.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Sad wealthy friend introduced Brandy to Heidi. Heidi told Brandy
what the work entailed, assuring her that everything would be
on the up and up, rich clients, no weirdos. She
signed up and in a month was partying in Las
Vegas with a rich, middle aged man.
Speaker 12 (47:27):
It was like going on a weekend date, except it.
Speaker 14 (47:29):
Was very lucrative.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
Brandy, who was enrolled in a San Diego community college,
started driving up to La a couple times a month
to gig for Heidi. She says she did it just
enough to cover her rent, but there's also no denying
she was drawn in by the more glamorous aspects of
being a Heidi girl. Brandy wanted to cash in on
her youthful, blonde, beach volleyball good looks, but was too
(47:55):
short for real modeling and uninterested in acting. She was
also not interested in a desk job nine to five lifestyle,
and she was very beautiful, if too skinny. For some
of Heidi's richest clients from overseas, there.
Speaker 14 (48:11):
Were kids of celebrities, trust fund babies, one European billionaire.
Usually I would meet them at their house, that is
the house their wives weren't it, and we'd go to
dinner Nikki Blairs or Spago or bistro, then maybe a
club and then back to the house and then we'll
whatever have sex. Do what you want, what they want.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
While Brandy McLain was not an actress, she knew how
to play her role. On these dates, she'd pretend to
be floored by the john's gold records or wildly impressed
by their oscar. The trick would introduce her to their
friends as his assistant or girlfriend. These men didn't just
want transactional sex behind closed doors. They wanted arm candy
(48:52):
to show off in public. They craved the girlfriend experience,
probably because they'd all been losers in high school. In Hollywood,
the land of fantasy, these men were paying for the
fantasy that a beautiful, fun, sexy young girl like Brandy
McLean would ever want to hang out with them if
there wasn't money involved. But Brandy was in it for
(49:14):
something else.
Speaker 14 (49:17):
Money. You tell me one job where you can make
fifteen hundred an hour, one job A doctor doesn't make
that much, A lawyer twice a month, and there you go.
Your bills are paid. Besides, anybody can get a job
at like the Limited. But how many girls could keep
a billionaire interested?
Speaker 13 (49:35):
I did?
Speaker 5 (49:38):
Sean Hubler then hits the pantry diner to talk with
a call girl, who she gives the pseudonym Leanne. Leanne
is not a Heidi Girl. She's a thirty five year
old escort who's been in the business since she was
twenty nine. Leanne reached out to the press when they
were speculating about the death of a woman presumed to
be a prostitute and Heidi Girl because she wanted to
tell the press that there was no that the dead
(50:00):
girl knew Heidi, and this is probably about Lori Dolan.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
As with anything else, there are echalons in this business.
God I've slept with the masses. Leanne.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
Leanne works a lower rung than Heidie's girls the middle
four hundred dollars an hour for mostly older businessmen and
a few former politicians, with a three hour minimum for
a local date. She specializes in charging the service to
her client's corporate credit cards and making it look plausible
that they'd just been a few hundred bucks on a
legitimate work expense. Leanne also specializes in appearing as an
(50:43):
age appropriate escort for older men, a woman in pearls
and sweater sets that one might mistake for a rich
man's wife. But beneath the sweater sets lie her secrets,
and her clientele is not so different from Heidie's. Aging
rock stars are a perennial client pool. She talks of
playing doctor with doctors, getting double teamed by comedy teams,
(51:06):
and of the many powerful men with secretive private lives
where they like to wear silk slips or get tied
up and spanked. One movie producer in particular, pays her
to dress him up as Ava Gardner. And compliment him, Oh, Ava,
you look wonderful tonight.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Oh you learn more about men than you would ever
need to know for the rest of your life.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Leanne's labors met her and estimated three hundred thousand dollars
a year, which buy her a house in the San
Fernando Valley with a pool, a jacuzzi, and a vegetable garden.
Unlike Heidi, she purposely keeps a low profile. She bought
her mom a new car, but she mostly doesn't splash
out on expensive stuff. The money is great, but she
(51:51):
does feel like her job makes it harder to date people.
Men will say they can handle her occupation, then reveal
that they actually can't.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
They say they love you, but when it comes time
to end the relationship, they're the first ones to turn
around and say, you fucking whore.
Speaker 5 (52:10):
But she doesn't regret her choice. What's so great about
regular old transactional heterosexuality anyway?
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Do you know how many women are going to El
Toedo on a Friday or Saturday night and giving it
away for three or four Margarita's Whereas I can go
for a couple of hours, collect my money, stop at
whatever restaurant I want on my way home, decide who
I want to sit across from and what I want
(52:40):
to eat, and not put up with anybody's shit.
Speaker 5 (52:46):
The story then returns to Marylyn showing Sean Hubler what's
in the pink scrap book pictures of her at nightclubs,
partying with friends in Las Vegas with Brandy MacLean. She
asks Hubler if she wants to see a home video
that she made at Heidie's Tower Grove mansion. Hubler, of
course says sure and watches as Marilyn pops in her
videotape of home movies from Heidie's house. In one, she
(53:10):
gives a tour of the mansion while wearing an azidin
Eliah cat suit, the girl's favorite designer. There's some footage
from last Christmas, including a bathrobe to Charlie Sheen giving
his holiday regards to one of the girl's mothers. Sheen's
publicist says the video was made as a favor for
a woman whose mother had cancer, and that Charlie Sheen
(53:30):
had no idea whether the women were call girls. He
didn't ask and they didn't tell. The profile ends on
a bitter sweet note, with Marilyn telling Sean Hubler, how
she's become afraid to fall asleep next to a man.
When things go badly like they did in Palm Springs,
or now with Heidie busted, she can get to wondering
where her life is going. She has a moment of
(53:53):
realization seeing a former client in public at an apartment
store called the Broadway. She locks eyes with the who
is there with his wife and child, and wonders if
anyone loves honestly.
Speaker 6 (54:07):
It leaves you wondering, what's it really like to, you know,
make love? What's it like not to put on an act?
It's nice to have someone treat with respect and buy
you things and take you for riots and his ferrari
to Siosa, But he catches up with you emotionally.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
You can't help but see the larger news angle creeping
in here again, aiming to make prostitution seem not only
a moral but bad for the soul. It seems silly
even in this context, because the clearly stated reasons for
Marilyn's bad experiences were a booking on her own and
b Heidi getting busted not because she posed any danger
(54:54):
to anyone, but as a statement on the morality of prostitution,
a profession that is older than dirt, but always inside
some moral panic in America. It feels like Marilyn and
the reader are led towards the conclusion of, oh, but
this is bad because the La Times cannot allow the
jump to the natural conclusion that sex work is fine.
(55:14):
The issue is criminalization and the Puritan insistence in America
that this doesn't happen here. December nineteenth, nineteen ninety three,
Madame Alex lists her West Hollywood house, already a downgrade
from Casa Pussy and Beverly Hills, and her Malibu mansion.
Since being forced out of Madaming by her nineteen ninety
(55:36):
one pandering conviction, Alex has used her managerial skills to
start a catering business, but catering hasn't taken off quite
like sex did, so Alex is forced to sell her cottage,
which was built in nineteen twenty four. December twenty third,
nineteen ninety three, Heidi goes to the press on her
own ish terms again to be on the cover of
(55:58):
Esquire magazine's yearly Dubie US Achievements Awards issue. The Dubious
Achievements Awards were a running gag and Esquire with funny,
mean joke items about public figures given to various public
figures every year from nineteen sixty two until they were
discontinued in two thousand and one after September eleventh. Dubious
Achievements was such a hit that it basically paved the
(56:19):
way for other good snotty, mean funny magazines like National,
Lampoon and Spy. The connection is the house style of
Quippi insidery, sometimes very mean writing about notable people. You
will recognize this style from the Internet, where it is
now the house style for everything. So Heidi appears on
(56:40):
the cover of Esquire doing a parody of a super
famous photo of Janet Jackson that appeared on the cover
of Rolling Stone, where Janet is topless in half unbuttoned
jeans with her breasts being cupped from behind by her
then husband Renee Elizondo, who is out of frame. It
was a very sensational photo the time and spawned a
(57:01):
million parodies. In the Esquire Paroity cover, Heidi flies is topless,
staring right at the camera. Her jenes rolled down to
reveal some hidiwear boxer shorts, and her breasts are being
grasped from behind by hands, one of which wears a
signature white glove. The cover line is Heidi and Michael
(57:22):
Who Knew, surrounded by smaller images with jokes about Barney
the Dinosaur, Fabio and John Wayne Bobbitt Ah nineteen ninety three.
Once again, Heidi is showing us that she is in
on the joke. She is steering the narrative naturally towards
where it actually wants to go. Heidi is not a criminal.
(57:42):
She's a folk hero standing up to the corruption and
hypocrisy of LA's richest men and the disgusting police forces
that protect them. How are women working in the film
industry in Hollywood dealing with the fallout of the Heidi scandal?
Funny you asked? The Heidi Flies scandal exposes some of
the fault lines in the movie business, a boys club
(58:04):
of all boys clubs that in the early nineties is
supposedly opening doors for women. What does it mean to
find out that maybe Hollywood isn't actually as progressive as
it says it is, and that their male peers might
still see women primarily as objects to be bought and sold?
Is that why they want to make movies like pretty
(58:24):
Women or in Decent Proposal, the Adrian Line directed movie
where a broke couple played by Widdy Harrelson and Demi
Moore agree to let the girlfriend have sex with a
rich guy played by Robert Redford for a million dollars.
Indecent Proposal was a huge success in nineteen ninety three,
and while directed by Adrian Lyne, it was written and
developed by women. Are movies like this brave for depicting
(58:48):
sex workers as people with minds and hearts? Or do
men in Hollywood just think that all women are whores?
Here is a range of takes.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Really, do feel more comfortable in the company of hookers
because that is how they see women? Julia Phillips, producer.
Speaker 15 (59:09):
Honestly, I'm irritated that the only power in movies that
goes to women is sexual power.
Speaker 6 (59:13):
In life, that's the only.
Speaker 15 (59:14):
Power that men can easily give to women. I find
it very simplistic and a true stretch to think of
that as empowering women in any way. Meg Ryan actor, so.
Speaker 8 (59:26):
This is the year of the woman. Well, yes, this
has been a very good year for women to mean more.
Was sold to Robert Redford for one million dollars. Uma
Thurman went for forty thousand dollars to mister de Niro. Well,
just three years ago Richard gear bought Julia Roberts for
what was it, three thousand dollars. I'd say that was
(59:48):
real progress. Michelle Pfeiffer, actress at the Crystal Awards luncheon, did.
Speaker 9 (59:57):
The mean more characters in control of her body in
makes all the decisions. She chooses to sleep with Robert
Redford and makes the decision Woody Harrelson doesn't do that
to me. That is what feminism is all about. Sherry Lansing,
chief of Paramount Pictures. See the problem with the movie,
It's a huge problem is if we don't do this right,
(01:00:19):
It's like Woody is the pimp and Demi's the hole.
Speaker 12 (01:00:23):
Adrian Lyne director.
Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Some male critics would like to dismiss indecent proposal as sexist.
The only thing that is sexist is the critics themselves.
They're clearly made uncomfortable by a film in which a
woman holds tremendous power over not one, but two men,
one of whom is our husband. Powerful women who do
what they like with our bodies make men like Kenneth
Turan uncomfortable. Men are very emotional about sex. Women are practical.
(01:00:51):
Amy Holden Jones, screenwriter of Indecent Proposal.
Speaker 13 (01:00:57):
If they ever make a movie where a man is
sexually arrest I'm there. Gel Sharon Stone, actress.
Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
December thirtieth, nineteen ninety three. Heidi Turns twenty eight years old,
December thirty first, nineteen ninety three. Yvonne Naj, forced out
of the escorting business for now at least, also has
(01:01:29):
a new venture technology. Naj is going full throttle into
the brand new field of CD ROMs, the digital proto
DVD technology that briefly ascended past floppy disks in the
early nineties. More specifically, he is trying to break into
the emerging space of CD rom erotica, a sex leads
all new forms of technology. He has a new company
(01:01:52):
called mac Daddy Entertainment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Look, this is mister Moltenmedia himself, Digitola of cd ram
That is my new title.
Speaker 5 (01:02:05):
Macdaddy Entertainment's first release is a CD ROM called Heidie's Girls.
The La Times Piece says cd ROMs are compact discs
that hold digital images, sound, graphics, and text, and play
on devices hooked up to personal computers. While the consumer
market for the shiny discs remains small, Ivan Naj believes
his product is sure to draw attention. The Heidie's Girl
(01:02:28):
cd rum is a cachet of one hundred and fifty
images of five women in lingerie at a fancy hotel.
There is also a euro version that has the images
with full nudity.
Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
It was only appropriate where else would you shoot a
Heidi girl but in a hotel suite.
Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
Naj partnered on the project with Alan Adler, a computer
programmer who worked at local camera store Sammy's Camera, running
the digital images division after as Sammy's customers suggested the idea.
Nase handled the photography end and Adler the digitization. The
real Heidi has no involvement with the project or the
(01:03:10):
girls on Yvonne cd ram, and she wants everyone to know.
Speaker 12 (01:03:16):
They're probably his girlfriends, was my response.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Who cares?
Speaker 12 (01:03:20):
He's pathetic? What can I say?
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
I am certainly not basing a company on Heidi flies.
We're just kicking it off with this. It will introduce
the company name to everybody because of the press attention
we will get.
Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
Yvonne Naj says he'll be premiering the Heidi's girls CD
rom at trade shows like Macworld in San Francisco and
the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which for years
famously took place at the same time as the Adult
Video News Award so that there could be overlapped between
the two. Her ex boyfriend, Bernie Kornfeld's connection to Hi
(01:04:00):
is uncovered by some journalists who try to get comment
from him. He calls Heidi to reassure her that he
is still there for her and always will be.
Speaker 13 (01:04:12):
I don't know what his financial situation was. I do
know that he was able to come up with a
million dollars whenever he wanted.
Speaker 5 (01:04:22):
Bernie Cornfeld has decamped from the United States entirely after
telling Heidi that the irs were coming for him, asking
for ninety two million dollars. He has gone to his
castle in France, taking ten gorgeous women on his private
jet with him, but Heidi Flie is stuck in Los Angeles,
(01:04:42):
wishing that she was on a private jet instead, headed
somewhere glamorous, chic and far far away from her troubles.
(01:05:06):
Next time on Heidi World, Heidie Flice goes to trial
in downtown Los Angeles on pandering charges, and she is terrified,
The scandal has frozen the town. This kind of thing
happens in Hollywood once a decade. There off and guys
who have decorated their tables with hookers and felt totally
unimpeachable about it for years. If it's true they financed
it with development money, they deserved us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wet for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Julia Phillips, producer.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I haven't spoken to Heidi Flys in sometime.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Call my press agent, Robert Evans producer.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
Heidie Flyes is a family friend of Robert Evans, Robert
Evans press agent.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
She's a casual friend.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm not in her social loop.
Speaker 7 (00:53):
Elliott Mince talent manager.
Speaker 8 (00:56):
I have never used to professional services, and god knows
that don't need to.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Fortunately, I've never had to pay for sex.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Billy Idle.
Speaker 9 (01:08):
Billy Idol has met Heidi flies but doesn't know her well.
Speaker 10 (01:11):
There may have been sex, but there wasn't commerce. Billy
Idol's publicist, we knew each other pretty well. Frankly, I
had a little romantic interest in Heidi at one time,
but she's sort of a businesswoman. I haven't seen her
in months. I got a scoodattle now. Bob Crow, Texas
real Estate.
Speaker 11 (01:29):
Air and again, it's she is a mental case and
she does drugs. But there's one thing you can't take.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Away from Heidi. She was very good.
Speaker 11 (01:41):
And she sat at home and she answered those phones,
and she sent those girls out, and she worked, which
she built up she really deserves because she worked very
hard at it. Julie Conister rival, Madam.
Speaker 12 (01:57):
Talk to my lawyer.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Am.
Speaker 7 (02:03):
My client is a virtual prisoner in her house since
the publicity started in this matter. Anthony Brooklier, Heidie Flie's
defense attorney boy.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Previously on Heidi World, Heidi's high end escort empire has
come crashing down, bringing her life in the fast lane
to a screeching halt at a frightening crossroads. Welcome to
Heidi World, Chapter six. Media Frenzy. The Heidi Fly scandal
(02:45):
breaks wide in the media, making Heidi the most famous
woman in the world and sending her clients into a panic.
Nineteen ninety three, nineteen ninety four. Welcome back to Heidie World.
I'm your host, Mollie Lambert. It's August of nineteen ninety three.
(03:08):
An accused Hollywood madam Heidie Flies is now the center
of a national media maelstrom. What began as a local
story in Los Angeles has crossed into the mainstream and
everyone wants a piece of Heidi. While Heidie liked the
attention and notoriety that came with being a high end madam,
she is not prepared for the onslaught of media attention
(03:28):
that she is suddenly on the receiving end of. But
Heidi Flices is rating's gold. Her arraignment is watched by
one out of every four people who's watching TV at
the time that it's on. When a woman openly seeks attention,
whether for her sex appeal or smarts, or in Heidie's case, both,
the media sometimes decides to attention her to death, as
(03:51):
if to say, this is what you wanted right. Heidi
is completely freaked out about her trial and the narrative
has spun completely out of her control. People are selling
her out left and right for their tabloid cut. August tenth,
nineteen ninety three, Heidi appears at the courtroom and gets
mobbed by paparazzi who nearly knock her to the ground
(04:13):
in her spike heeled pumps, dark sunglasses, and conservative Beije
Norma Camali mini dress. After pleading not guilty to five
counts of pandering and one count of cocaine possession. Heidi
exits out the backstairwell into her lawyer Anthony Brooklyer's black BMW.
Since Heidi won't talk, the press descend on her friends,
(04:34):
Victoria Sellers and Benita Money, who have come out to
support her. The media imply that Heidi loves all the
press attention, but according to Heidi, every waking moment with
the paparazzi following her was a nightmare.
Speaker 12 (04:51):
I was like almost trampled to death.
Speaker 13 (04:53):
There was a motorcycle parked outside and the cameramen just
knocked it over. Cameras were swooping in under I face.
Someone was pulling my hair. I was panicked. I thought
someone was going to pull my clothes off.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
I was prepared to make a statement, but they treated
my client with no respect. I'm just returning the favor.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
The first story about the Heidi Fly scandal in the
La Times runs August first. By August twelfth, people are
writing in to complain there's way too much coverage of
the Heidi Fly scandal and that surely there must be
real news to cover. Unfortunately, for these hard news lovers,
Heidi draws eyeballs. Let's briefly discuss the LA news scene
(05:40):
in the early nineties. In nineteen ninety, the LAPD were
caught beating a black man named Rodney King during a
routine traffic stop when a civilian who randomly saw the
abuse while trying to get footage of James Cameron filming
Terminator two across the street, saw what was happening and
started filming it on a camp Despite the hard video
(06:02):
evidence of the cops beating Rodney King, they all got
off in court, which led to the nineteen ninety two
LA Riots or uprisings, where the over policed and harassed
black community expressed anger at the city of LA the
one way that upset the ruling class with property destruction.
It was an echo of the nineteen sixty five Watts Rebellion,
(06:24):
which also stemmed from the LAPD's racist harassment of black drivers.
News coverage of the LA Riots focused entirely on the
property damage and looting, and not on the structural inequalities
and racism that led to the uprisings and lootings. The
continuing tensions in Los Angeles over racism, policing, and extreme
(06:47):
financial inequality were never dealt with rather they were buried
and what came to bury them tabloid news. In nineteen
ninety one, a new channel launched on cable called Courtroom
Television TV, better known as court TV. Court TV is
the first television channel to run live courtroom trials as
(07:09):
the entire format. It becomes a staple of the then
booming daytime television market as it makes for perfect ambient
background noise. In July of nineteen ninety three, court TV
starts airing the Lyle and Eric Menendez trial, causing a
media frenzy over the two teenage boys who shot and
killed their parents at the family's Beverly Hills mansion in
(07:29):
nineteen eighty nine. While the Menendez brother's story was a
local sensation, the court TV coverage made it national news.
Court TV also allowed the story to take on a
life of its own, with every minute of the trial
now available to be parson processed on television. In episode two,
I mentioned with the writer Ed Sanders called stuff buffs,
(07:52):
people who showed up at criminal trials to sit in
the audience and watch. With the advent of channels like
court TV, now everyone can be a snuff buff. When
the Heidi fly story breaks in nineteen ninety three, every
newspaper and local news channel starts running NonStop coverage, pouring
over every new salacious detail, neglecting other more serious stories
(08:15):
the rebuilding of LA after the riots, corruption and racism
in the police, and the city's deep undealt with wounds
over race and class. But those stories are difficult, and furthermore,
the La Times, which has been printing LAPD's propaganda since
its inception, does not actually want to go that deep
(08:35):
on what's really wrong with Los Angeles. Instead, they are
here to talk about heidiflies and to make the LAPD
look like heroes for busting her. But people don't buy
what they're selling because everybody still hates the LAPD. Heidi
is not a violent criminal, and even though she's a young,
rich white woman, the LAPDS still went out of their
(08:57):
way to bust her while letting all of the rich
john off the hook who would possibly side with the
LAPD on this or think that arresting Heidi should have
been a major priority in Los Angeles besides the LAPD
and the LA Times. Of course, Heidi immediately becomes an
LA folk hero, sort of like OJ Simpson, although their
(09:18):
crimes are very different, somebody who serves as a walking
middle finger to all the injustices and hypocrisies and abuses
of the LAPD. Heidi has a lot of people rooting
for her to beat the entrenched system that is racist,
classist and treat sex workers like criminals.
Speaker 13 (09:39):
If you listen to what everyone says about you, then
you become their prisoner.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
So Heidi does what any sudden vice lord media superstar
would do. She gives a bunch of reporters exclusive coverage
of the Heidifly story straight from Heidi herself. First, she
talks to Variety in an adversarial interview where she ends
up threatening to leak everything for a million dollars before
immediately taking the offer back. Then, in August, she goes
(10:09):
to the La Times, who describe her as wearing a
denim shirt and exercise tights while she lounges on her
couch freaking out about the charges. The reporter, Sean Hubler,
who writes most of the Time's Heidi coverage and develops
a friendly rapport with her, seems to think that Heidi
wants it both ways, the good press without the bad.
(10:30):
She notes that Heidi got a facial haircut and her
makeup done before going to her court appearance, and shows
Heidi a clip of the endlessly replayed footage of her
walking into the courtroom. Heidi shrugs and smiles.
Speaker 12 (10:46):
Sex cells.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
On August thirteenth, the LAPD launched one of their famous
internal investigations to see if any of their cops were
consorting with Heidie Flies and her friends. Flies tells the
that she had no special relationship with the cops and
that her most recent contact with them was when she
tried to file a complaint about Yvonne Naj. She is
questioned by LAPD investigators for two hours about whether she
(11:13):
employed any cops as bodyguards or had sex with any
police officers. She says those stories are nefarious gossip planted
by her vindictive ex boyfriend, Yvonne Naj. She also denies
an allegation published in The New York Post that she
sent girls to a birthday party for Scott Khan, son
of the actor James Khan, and blames Yvonne Nag for
(11:34):
this story as well. James Kahn comments.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's not true. I've had enough bad publicity in my career.
I don't need this.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I've got a wife and two year old baby.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
I don't go out and party. I don't want to
be trashed.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
James Khan actor.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Billy Idol decides to milk the press he gets for
being associated with Heidi and goes on Jay Leno to
deny it again.
Speaker 12 (12:04):
We used to go round a house and watch television.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Eh, maybe order a peta, maybe play yatzig.
Speaker 11 (12:12):
I didn't say that.
Speaker 14 (12:13):
I said I never paid for it.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
By this point, the story has gone global. The Heidi
Fly scandal is no longer just an LA story, or
even an American one. Although it is uniquely American. Everyone
all around the world is following the story of the
woman who has brought Hollywood to its knees. Meanwhile, that woman,
Heidiflies feels utterly trapped, boxed in by the press and
(12:39):
her personal circumstances.
Speaker 13 (12:44):
I felt so bad that I snuck out at one
am on Monday night and wrote handwritten notes of apology
to all my neighbors, telling them how.
Speaker 12 (12:53):
Sorry I was for the noise and disruption.
Speaker 13 (12:56):
But I ran out of stationary after the first staid notes.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Even Pompadour Papers, the stationary brand she used for the notes,
gets in on the press and profits. The designers hawk
the Trumpeting Angel's notepad that Heidi used, which they sell
at trendy high end boutique fred Siegel Trumpeting Angels stationary
becomes their number one sellar, and they want to send
Heidi a free pad to use at her trial. LAPD
(13:24):
tells their officers to stop answering press questions about the
Heidi Fli's trial because various LAPD spokespeople keep providing wildly
different stories. I always hear the Benny Hill music yakty
sacks in my head when the cops and sheriffs are
giving their crazy lying accounts of what just happened. All
press inquiries are to be handled from now on by
(13:44):
Commander David J. Gascon. The news falsely links to shooting
in Malibu to high end prostitution, and two spokespeople from
the Sheriff's department make statements about the Lorie Dolan case
that contradict each other. The Heidi Fly's story is taking
on a life of its own, separate from reality. Sound familiar.
(14:04):
The Internet exacerbates the conspiracy process to warp speed, but
in any medium, as soon as a big story breaks,
people come out of the woodwork. Claiming to have information
true or false. Mayor Richard reared In, sensing that people
are still not so hot on the cops in Los Angeles,
raises the question that newspapers seemingly won't. Why was it
(14:26):
such a top priority to bus Heidi flies? And why
are the cops acting like this makes the streets of
Los Angeles safer in any way? Shouldn't the self proclaimed
crime fighters be going after the violent crime they claim
runs rampant everywhere in LA without their help? Everyone in
town has an opinion.
Speaker 7 (14:46):
Should you be going after people in this situation?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
That's a legitimate issue.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
Richard Reardon, Mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't understand vice. I have to pay for it
in a whole So a woman who would give it
away for one line in a movie, all for no
line in a movie.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Ava Kapoor, August fourteenth, nineteen ninety three. The irs comes
for Heidi as well, launching a formal investigation into her
finances that ropes her dad into the proceedings for his
role as co signer on her home loan for the
Tower Grove estate. While Heidi can handle there being consequences
(15:29):
for her own actions, she cannot deal with her dad
being dragged into it. August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety three,
pop star Michael Jackson is accused of molesting a boy
named Jordan Chandler. This scandal trumps the Heidi Fly scandal
because Michael Jackson is an enormous worldwide superstar, but it's
(15:50):
all connected because Jackson is under contract at Sony, the
same Japanese media and electronics company that owns Columbia Pictures
where the Heidi scandal is reached. Michael Jackson also happens
to employ the same private detective as Columbia's Michael Nathanson,
Anthony Pelicano. Anthony Pelicano is with mj on his world
(16:12):
tour when he's tipped off that the cops are raiding
Jackson's property looking for evidence of child pornography. Pelicano puts
out a counter story, alleging that the victim's family is
just looking for a payout. All of this effects not
just Hollywood, but the Cola Wars PEPSI had recently picked
up two points in market share from Coke after making
Michael Jackson their new spokesperson. That summer, singer Rick James
(16:37):
also gets convicted at the same courthouse on two charges
of kidnapping and torturing women under the influence of crack cocaine.
All this dirty laundry is a bonanza for the News
Channel's magazines and newspapers, both tabloid and serious. Scandal always
sells newspapers, but now it can also sell cable and
(16:58):
local news. US magazine plans to primpt what is allegedly
a check made out from Steve Roth's production company to
Heidi Flice. Roth denies the check as even real and
says he only saw but didn't meet Heidi once at
a Thanksgiving party thrown by Nathanson. Because Roth's movie Last
Action Hero went so over budget and was such a
(17:20):
big flop for Columbia, it now invites scrutiny about what
exactly they wasted all that money on. Roth's rise and
fall in Hollywood was swift. His production company joined Columbia
Pictures for a two year contract. His first movie was
a flop, but his second movie, the Arnold Schwarzenegger meta
action comedy Last Action Hero, written by Shane Black, seemed
(17:42):
like a guaranteed blockbuster. In nineteen ninety one, Roth was
at can with Sony executives at a giant party celebrating
Last Action Hero. Two years later, in nineteen ninety three,
he's washed up and thinks the studio is just using
the Heidi scandal as an excuse to drop his contract.
Heidi is freaking out, not just about the very real
(18:04):
possibility of going to jail, but about money to pay
all the fucking lawyers she's going to need to try
to avoid going to jail. Now that she's famous, that
means she's fucked. She's so famous now that there's already
a Heidi Flights impersonator named Kina Rose who can be
hired as a faux Heidi for parties. When Heidie World returns,
(18:31):
Heidi figures out a way to cash in on Heidi
Mania with her own custom line of clothing Welcome back
(18:59):
to High Tidy World. Heidi, of course, wants to control
the narrative, so she tries something risky, exploiting her current
level of notoriety to make a little more cash, or
at least try to sway public opinion over to her side.
More so, she makes public appearances. She appears in the
audience for an NBC special called Comedy Hall of Fame
(19:23):
that tapes of the place she knows very well. The
Beverly Hilton Hotel, Heidi spends the night watching comedic legends.
Carol Burnett, Milton Burrell, and George Burns receive honors. On
September fifth, she goes to a launch party for Rick
Rubin's new label, American Recordings, at the Shadow Lane's Bowling Alley.
In September of nineteen ninety three, Heidi announces that she
(19:45):
has found a fun and legal way to profit off
her nascent fame. She is launching a line of sleepwear
and lingerie. She tells the Eli Times, who say that
she prefers men's shirts and sweatpants to garter belts and
push up bras.
Speaker 13 (20:02):
Don't make it like it's going to have holes for
your tips to stick out. These are the kinds of
things I would wear.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Heidi faxes her designs to the La Times and tells
them that she should have a marketing deal for the
line any minute now. The designs include a bias cut
silk nightgown with a leg slit, a minimalist camusol, and
a garment for Heidie's mail fans, boxer shorts with a
pocket to stash a condom. Heidi gets turned down by
(20:30):
QBC and Home Shopping Network. She references the fact that
her friend Playboy playmate Barbie Benton, was also kept out
of that world.
Speaker 13 (20:40):
They're too Middle America. They don't want anything controversial. Barbie
Benton tried to sell a line of lingerie and even
she couldn't.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
So Heidi, a brilliant marketing genius, says she's going to
bypass Home shopping television by making her own infomercial themed
like a Heidi Girl slumber Party.
Speaker 13 (21:02):
I'll be wearing the stuff and I'll have on about
fifty of my girls too, not just twenty year old,
but all ages.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
She shows up at a gala for the National LGBTQ
Task Force, headlined by comedian Sandra Bernhardt, who performs in
a leather brazier with her band The strap Ons. This too,
takes place at the Beverly Hilton, where seemingly everything does.
Heidi is allegedly met with gasps when she arrives for
the event with her publicist, where other guests include Judith Light,
(21:32):
Jackie Collins, and Kathena Jimmy. Heidi says she's just there
to support gay rights.
Speaker 13 (21:40):
I think everybody should support this group. This is an
important cause to contribute to. Something has to be done.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Heidi also begins a series of long phone conversations with
reporter Nikki Fink, who would go on to start the
Hollywood trade gossip website dots Line Hollywood. She talks to
Nikki Fink for Details Magazine, and Fink's Heidi Flight's profile
story runs in October of nineteen ninety three in an
issue of Details with Christian Slater on the cover as
(22:13):
a feature called Heidi Talks. By this point, Heidi is
burned out on the press attention. Any sort of novelty
or appeal it may have initially had has worn off,
as her plausible fate of going to prison sinks in
how does the magazine profile go? Take a wild guess.
Speaker 12 (22:33):
Via a gun? I would just shoot myself.
Speaker 13 (22:36):
I can't take it. I'm being burned at the stake.
Everyone who wants to see me fail, They're killing me.
I'm dying every day. It's something weirder. Yesterday someone told
me I was being charged with wandering Columbia's money from
son near something, and I was like, what it looks
like I'm going into hell.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Niki Fink sits for hours of conversations with Flices and
come away with the conclusion that Heidi is her own
worst enemy. She sums it up by saying, forget all
the media hype, the reputed glamour, and the five thousand
dollars a pop blowjobs you've heard or read about. If
there is a moral to the Heidi chronicles, Hollywood's latest
tale of immorality, it may be as follows, Young girls,
(23:19):
wherever you are, stay away from ugly guys twice your age.
Fink is the first to name Yvonne naj as the
real culprit worthy of disdain, a bona fide creep, but
she can't help but also condescend to Heidi, who is
at the height of her predicament. Heidi fantasizes openly about
(23:39):
scenarios that would keep her out of jail, some white
knight from her past coming to rescue her. Meanwhile, she
has pled not guilty to the charges of pandering, narcotics violations,
and felony pimping. Heidi's off the record stories directly contradict
the new image nineties Hollywood is trying to peddle of
a cleaned up, family friendly industry where sex and drugs
(24:00):
aren't welcome. It's just the music business where those things happen,
they claim. Heidi is both astonished at the hypocrisy of
her own clients and surprised that the LAPD bothered to
bust her little operation after letting Madame Alex alone forever.
Why did Heidi get busted now and not earlier or later.
LAPD's Glen Ackerman, made busting Heidi an issue when he
(24:24):
became captain of the Vice division. He says it's because
of her big mouth that the LAPD had to come
for Heidi. But Nikki Fink thinks the toxic circle of
Madame Alex and Yvonne naj and Heidi and sometimes Yvonne's
girlfriend Julie Connister did themselves in by constantly turning on
each other and trying to turn each other in. Glenn Ackerman,
(24:47):
who certainly has no problem running his own big mouth
to the press constantly also wanted to make a splashy
media debut himself with a big staying operation. Who better
than Heidi for the LAPD to make up public example of.
Nicki Fink also doesn't buy Heidi's martyr act, having heard
rumors that flies applies her girls with drugs and knowingly
(25:08):
sends them to unsafe John's. Heidi also brags that she's
worked much harder than Madame Alex because she's been doing
it in a recession. Alex's business relied on oil money,
which dried up in the eighties. As always, Heidi is
by turns egomaniacal and self effacing. She's open and self
aware about her drug use, telling the magazine that von
(25:31):
Nauch supplied her with crystal meth, but rebutting any rumors
that she's a heroin junkie who's been using for six months.
Madame Alex is, of course, always available for media comment
on Heidi. Alex tells Nicki Fink that the cops called
her to see if Heidi was having sexual relations with
any officers around West LA.
Speaker 13 (25:52):
There were ten girls in my house practically crying, saying
we need you back.
Speaker 12 (25:57):
Nothing is right now, and I'm saying give me three years.
Speaker 13 (26:01):
I'll be successful at whatever I do, and I'll share
with all of you.
Speaker 12 (26:05):
If I had twenty million right now, I'd give nineteen.
Speaker 14 (26:08):
Of it away.
Speaker 13 (26:09):
That's what I said, and I really mean it too.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Also in October, Heidi's best friend Victoria Sellers is arranged
for a traffic stop where cops find an ounce of
weed in her purse and a gun in the car
driven by her friend who is drunk. On October twenty fifth,
Lisa Henson officially replaces Michael Nathanson as head of production
at Columbia. On Halloween, someone writes into The La Times
(26:38):
despairing the sad state of fame, saying the fact that
people like Heidi Flies and the cast of the first
ever reality show, The Real World on MTV can become
famous is the sign of a dying culture. November first,
The La Times runs a story about a sculptor from
Northridge named Russell Michael, who claims he saw Heidi's house
(27:00):
surrounded by paparazzi when he was installing a gate he
designed at a house down the street. He left a
note for Heidi in her mailbox saying if she wanted,
he'd be happy to build her a gate that would
provide her some more privacy. Heidi thought it might be
a trap, but called and asked Michael to send to
his portfolio. She told him that paparazzi and tabloid TV
reporters had breached her driveway and walked all the way
(27:23):
back into her yard, sabotaging her with cameras by the pool.
So Michael designs a gate that both blocks the hordes
and scares them a little.
Speaker 13 (27:34):
What impresses me is that he is self taught and
works in so many mediums. He uses stone, steel, wood,
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
The finish gate is called as beautiful as it is dangerous.
A metal pattern of vinework and leaves is legitimately sharp
and would injure someone trying to climb over. It's also
tall enough to stop anyone from being able to look
over it. Flies likes the gate so much she commissions
follow ups from Michael, including a wishing Well garden feature.
(28:09):
Russell Michael seems like a bit of a hustler himself.
He likes the press and free publicity. In association with
Heidi fly Springs, his biggest venture to date as a
sculptor is a fake stone replica of Rome's famous Trevi
fountain for a restaurant in the wealthy West Valley suburb
of Woodland Hills. While her clients are running from the
(28:29):
very mention of her name, everyone else in La and
the whole country is chasing heidiflies The story has everything
a tabloid could ever want, sex, drugs, money, powerful people,
and big institutions. The Heidi Fly story is, to put it,
bluntly sexy, and there's no death involved, although the media
(28:51):
starts sniffing around instantly for deaths that they can blame
on Heidi and therefore on the very idea of prostitution.
By this point, Heid and the news media are twin flames.
She is set on getting her story out there herself.
She even knows that a lot of people are rooting
for her. After all, the LAPD uprisings didn't exactly make
the LAPD look like the hero cops they think of
(29:13):
themselves as, and busting a nice young businesswoman like Heidi
Flies doesn't make them look great either. And if there's
one place that Heidi can out game the LAPD's longtime
connection to The La Times, it's on the other news
media outlets that she can control. So Heidi, of course
books another interview with the woman of the hour herself,
(29:36):
her biggest one yet, an exclusive for Connie Chung at
CBS on November fourth at ten pm on I to
Ie with Connie Chung, The La Times finds ways to
endlessly spin content out of the Heidi story even when
there's no new actual information to run. Much like the
nascent Court TV, it fills people's appetites for a constant
(29:57):
stream of content. They run a story about how the
success of nineteen nineties Pretty Women led to a bumper
crop of movies about prostitutes being developed. Pretty Woman is
a movie starring Richard Gear as a handsome businessman who
hires a beautiful Hollywood hooker for the night and turns
her into a high class lady Pygmalion style. It was
(30:18):
originally supposed to be a serious drama about prostitution, and
then became a Gary Marshall project and turned into a
mostly light romantic comedy about two very hot people, one
of whom happens to be a sex worker, falling in love. Now,
as we know, by this point, aspects of this story
were not too far removed from reality. There were rich
(30:40):
businessmen hiring women to pose as high class dates. Don
Simpson in particular was known for hiring Heidi girls and
telling his friends they were brain surgeons. Pretty Women is
produced by Regency International Pictures and Disney's adult film Shingle
Touchstone Pictures and distributed by Disney's Buena Vista Studio.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now just a.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Rabbit hole for fun. One of Pretty Women's producers, arn
And Milchahn of Regency, was allegedly an Israeli intelligence agent
and nuclear arms dealer before he became a producer. Besides
the second generational stuff, another fun aspect of the Heidi
story is how many people in Hollywood have crazy backstories
(31:21):
like this. So arn and Milchahn worked for lek M,
which was an Israeli military intelligence agency. He got roped
in with the nuclear arms dealing stuff when a guy
named Richard Kelly Smith got busted buying something called crytron
through Milchand's company Milco. As far as I a person
(31:43):
who knows very little about nuclear science can tell, a
criytron is something like a doomsday switch that can be
used to trigger perfectly harmless things, but is better known
for igniting exploding bridgewire and slapper detonators in nuclear weapons.
Richard Kelly Smith allegedly helped arn And milchon' ugal eight
hundred and ten crytrons to Israel in the nineteen eighties.
(32:04):
Four hundred and sixty nine were returned to America, and
Israel said the other three hundred and forty one were
quote destroyed in testing. Milchhon didn't confirm publicly that he
had been inn Israeli asset until twenty thirteen, when it
was all documented in a book called Confidential, The Life
of Secret Agent turned Hollywood Tycoon, about Arnin Milchhon that
(32:25):
mostly seems pretty impressed with him. In the meantime, Milchin's
production company, Regency made some of my favorite movies of
all time, including Martin Scorsesees The King of Comedy, Oliver
Stone's JFK, and Curtis Hanson's Ali Confidential. He's also still
alive and producing movies. Most recently he co produced The Northman.
I know the joke of the mobster who gets into
(32:47):
movies is done a lot, but it's honestly so funny
that this guy may have come to La just to
smuggle some nuclear weapons to Israel and ended up a
super successful producer who made a bunch of great movies
Fucking Hollywood, And which leads me to the question, is
Richard Gear playing Jeffrey Epstein in the movie Pretty Woman.
(33:07):
Pretty Woman's original ending was supposed to have Gear's character
throwing the Julia Roberts character out of the car, and
it became a Cinderella story fairy tale about a sex
worker falling in love with her John Heidi Mania hits
right as Disney is trying to move forward with Pretty
Woman Too. Also mentioned is a movie being developed at
Disney's other production Shingle Hollywood Pictures, called Sexual Healing by
(33:32):
none other than Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, a thriller
about a high class call girl in the world of Washington.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
D C.
Speaker 7 (33:41):
Captain Glenn Ackerman has publicly announced that the Los Angeles
Police Department has no intention of prosecuting the male customers
of Ms.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Fleiss.
Speaker 7 (33:51):
This official position, while certainly comforting to males who would
otherwise be prosecuted, smacks of a boys club mentality which
she can have no place if equal protection of the
law is to have real meaning.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
November third, nineteen ninety three, Heidi tries to get the
pandering charges against her dismissed on the grounds that the
LAPD unfairly target sex workers but not their customers. Heidie's lawyer,
Anthony Brooklier more on him later files a motion with
Assistant District Attorney Alan Carter, contending that Fliss was set
up in a sting and should be charged with the
(34:29):
tempted pandering, not pandering itself. November seventeenth, the paparazzi camp
out all day Monday waiting for Heidi to appear, so
she shows up Tuesday the seventeenth instead. When no cameras
are lurking in wait, she sneaks into the courthouse through
the stairwell entrance, taking the stairs up to the thirteenth floor,
(34:50):
and appears before a Superior Court judge whose name is
astoundingly Judge Judith L. Champagne. She gets the pre trial
hearing postp own from that week to December third. Also
that week, a Heidiflis inspired plotline begins airing on the
Fox nighttime soap opera melrose Place, the greatest TV show
ever made. Melrose Place was a spin off of Beverly
(35:12):
Hills nine two toe O about a group of gen
X sexy singles and one couple living in a Bungalow
Court apartment building in La Like nine O two to
one O, it started as a down to Earth's social
issues show with episodes about the La Riots, and then
increasingly went off the rails. The show's second season was
a different, sluttier animal from the first, in which they
(35:35):
introduced Heather Locklear as a girl boss bitch and the
show's signature hat fights by the pool. I love this
show because it has two different types of crazy redheads
Marsha Cross as crazy type A doctor Kimberly Shaw and
Laura Layton as Sydney Andrews, a chaos demon. All you
need to know about Sydney is that she immediately tries
(35:55):
to seduce her sister's husband. So Sydney, of course gets
the high Fli's plot line, which the writers put on
the show as a ripped from the headline attempt to
lure viewers. Sydney is approached by a fellow waitress played
by Gina Gershaan, who invites her to meet a woman
named Lauren Ethridge, who it turns out runs a high
(36:15):
end escort ring. Sydney becomes an escort and immediately gets
busted and goes to jail. It's a pretty brief plot line,
but it did serve its intended purpose of bolstering the
show's ratings, leading the show towards more and more sordid
stunt plot lines. The Heidi effect is strong. December third
(36:36):
the pre trial hearing, Heidie stays home while her attorney,
Anthony Brookleer makes his argument that Heidi is being discriminated
against due to sexism. He cites the comments that LIPD
gave to the media about how they have no intention
of going after any of Heidie's customers, just Heidie and
her girls. He also cites a rarely used eighty eight
year old law against paying money or any other valuable
(36:59):
thing for any person for the purpose of prostitution. Glenn
Ackerman testifies that he can't think of a single time
that a prostitute's customer was charged with a felony. He
can only remember busting John's on misdemeanors. When people who
live near street prostitution areas complained about the noise, Ackerman
says they've never arrested a single customer of a high
(37:21):
end call girl or escort service. Ackerman also says the
nineteen oh five statute invoked by Brooklyer is known as
the uh White Slave Law and is intended only for
prosecuting sex traffickers. Deputy District Attorney Alan Carter raises the
possibility of filing charges against some of Heidi's male clients,
(37:42):
which would also make the John's names public. Judge Judith L.
Champagne denies Brooklyar's motion to get Heidie's charges reduced from
pandering to attempted pandering on the grounds that she was
a victim of a police staying. The hearing is continued
to December seventeenth, while the cops scrambled to see if
anyone has ever been charged for purchasing sex, not just
(38:04):
for selling it. After the trial, Carter admits he isn't
sure if it's possible legally to prosecute the Johns, and
hasn't run the idea by his boss, District Attorney Gil Garcetti,
who is, yes, the father of La Faalsn Mayor Eric Garcetti.
December fourth, Heidi makes another public appearance, and this time
(38:27):
it's not even at the Beverly Hilton. It's at a
different hotel, the Bonadventure in downtown La a seventies postmodern
building that was the backdrop for a recent fenty Savage
lingerie fashion show. Heidi is there, for, of all things,
a classic rock station's yearly rock Expo, where vendors are
selling rock and roll memorabilia and records from the archives
(38:50):
of radio station came at FM along celebrities doing autograph signings.
Heidi is one of the celebrities signing headshots for her fans,
alongside rock stars like Mick Fleetwood, George Thoroughgood and Kenny Loggins.
And yes, I found getdy images of this that I
will post on the Patreon when Heidi World returns. Three
(39:16):
Los Angeles escorts tell all, welcome back to Heidi World.
(39:45):
December thirteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 6 (39:51):
It isn't just oh. I never thought it would end
this way. I never thought it would end Marilyn, former
Heidi Girl.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
On December thirteenth, the La Times runs a triple profile
of three call girls, two of whom are Heidi Girls.
Sean Hubler talks to a twenty three year old Heidi
Girl who will call Marilyn, a breathy blonde in a
short pink Gingham dress who smokes Capri cigarettes. Marilyn came
to LA with dreams of acting and may well leave
(40:23):
with nothing but her pink scrap book of her days
as a fifteen hundred dollars an hour Heidi Girl. She
has blown through the twelve thousand dollars she kept hidden
in a Teddy Bear. Since Heidi got busted, she's been
questioned by police and tailed by reporters. She had told
her parents that Heidi was her acting agent, so when
Heidi appeared on the cover of People as the sex
(40:44):
broker to the Stars, she tried calling to explain, but
her mother hung up on her. She's now trying to
turn her life story into a TV movie to cash
in on Heidi Mania.
Speaker 6 (40:57):
It's going to be a two hour movie. Melawyer's setting
it up. It'll say, based on a true story of Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
Like so many beautiful girls from all over, Marilyn came
to Los Angeles to become a star. Instead, she found
herself working two jobs to afford Los Angeles while trying
to save up for acting lessons and make time for auditions.
By day, she worked as a secretary for an accountant
in the Valley for nine dollars an hour. At night,
(41:30):
she was a waitress at the Rainbow Bar and Grill,
a notorious rockstar hangout on You Guessed It the Sunset Strip.
She dated her way through some musicians, but found it
hard to gain any traction in the entertainment industry. Marilyn
saves up four thousand dollars in cash tips from waitressing,
only to have it all stolen from her by a
(41:51):
sketchy roommate. So when a Rainbow customer asks if she
wants to meet his friend Heidi Flice, who she has
already heard tale of, she says, yes, it's time.
Speaker 6 (42:04):
I had no money and no place to go. I'd
never been on my own before. I never dream lik
be so hard.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Heidie approves of her and invites Marilyn to move into
the Tower Grove mansion with her and the other girls.
After a few months in Heidi's ritualistic cool nineties girl makeover,
she sends Marilyn on her first out call.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
It was exciting. He was me and one other girl.
We went to Paris for a week with an Arab prince.
He took us shopping at Chanel.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
Marilyn thinks she has a better chance of breaking into
the entertainment industry this way than just by auditioning, and
soon enough she's at a Christmas party with a producer
who introduces her to his friends as a member of
his bowling team. A businessman from Hong Kong asks for
a year long contract to make her his mistress. One
real estate guy gives her four k for one night
(43:06):
working for Heidi Flie, she discovers is a form of networking.
She meets everyone in the entertainment industry, trade writers, agents,
more rock stars, and if you can take yet another
colorful character in this story whose tie span Hollywood. In
the underworld, she is also introduced to a guy named
Vince Kanti. Vince Kanti is a photographer and actor, best
(43:31):
known for playing Sergeant Rizzo on the cop show Kojak.
Shortly before Heidi was busted, the sixty three year old
Kanti copped felony pandering charges of his own and was
sentenced to three years. Kanti was not a pimp per se,
but he was an arranger of mutually beneficial sexual transactions.
The cut was not in cash, but favors. He would
(43:53):
introduce a rich European to some nice young women who
liked rich old men, and return the rich guy would
set him up with a photography studio in Beverly Hills.
Vince Kanti, like Yvonne naj, knows people in both Hollywood
and the world of vice, and is able to parlay
his connections between the two worlds into personal influence that
(44:13):
benefits him.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
You know, look, I run in a pretty good chalon
of people. I got pretty girls around all the time.
Speaker 10 (44:21):
They come to my studio, I say, Joe, say hello
to Mary Hann What can sending adults do?
Speaker 12 (44:26):
I got no control over that.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Vince Kanti.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Kanti claims in an interview that he sets up his
good friends with aspiring actresses for no reason other than
to be a good guy. His photography portfolio includes the
likes of Michelle Pfeiffer Cher and Demi Moore. And again,
I urge you to read Demi Moore's book for more
on this time period. So Kanti introduces our girl Marylyn
(44:54):
to a European dignitary and a former California politician. But
escor doesn't really help her book any acting other than
some bit parts. But who needs an acting career when
your side gig is going this well. Marilyn wakes up
at noon and goes to bed at four am on
a handful of downers to quell the knight's cocaine. She
(45:15):
uses names like Tiffany and Sheena with clients, earning enough
cash to drop a grand on one dress if she desires.
But escorting is a gig to gig job, much like
acting or virtually every job now, so there would be
dry periods where Marilyn book no work. When she tried
to book work without Heidi through her own connections, she
(45:36):
ended up in some bad situations, like the Palm Springs
date with a pro wrestling producer who promised her and
a friend five thousand dollars and a quarter ounce of cocaine,
only to pay them with a check that immediately bounced.
When they tried confronting his wife at her house, she
just laughed at them and said her husband had been
broke for years. Two of the girls in the La
(45:57):
Times piece asked to be anonymous. The third girl is
Brandy McLain.
Speaker 14 (46:04):
People always expect some girl with like red lipstick and
bleach blonde hair, sekun dress and spiked pumps. But it's
a misconception. I don't even know own a pair of spike pumps.
Brandy McClain.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Sean Hubler describes Brandy as athletic and muscular, wearing a
cutoff tea, running shorts, and wire rimmed sunglasses, offering the
reporter some of her vegetarian casseroles she made when they
meet up at her San Diego apartment. Brandy McClain has
decided to flip on Heidi, even though she was never
charged after being taken into custody at the Beverly Hilton bust.
(46:42):
McLain is not angry at Heidi. She tells Hubler how
she decided to get into Heidie's game.
Speaker 14 (46:49):
I was living in New York working with the florist
two years ago, and there was this girl I ran
with a Central Park and she always seemed to have money,
and she had beautiful furniture. I thought, how does she
do it? I mean she was in nursing school. Well,
one day she told me, and like I never would
have guessed.
Speaker 5 (47:11):
Sad wealthy friend introduced Brandy to Heidi. Heidi told Brandy
what the work entailed, assuring her that everything would be
on the up and up, rich clients, no weirdos. She
signed up and in a month was partying in Las
Vegas with a rich, middle aged man.
Speaker 12 (47:27):
It was like going on a weekend date, except it.
Speaker 14 (47:29):
Was very lucrative.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
Brandy, who was enrolled in a San Diego community college,
started driving up to La a couple times a month
to gig for Heidi. She says she did it just
enough to cover her rent, but there's also no denying
she was drawn in by the more glamorous aspects of
being a Heidi girl. Brandy wanted to cash in on
her youthful, blonde, beach volleyball good looks, but was too
(47:55):
short for real modeling and uninterested in acting. She was
also not interested in a desk job nine to five lifestyle,
and she was very beautiful, if too skinny. For some
of Heidi's richest clients from overseas, there.
Speaker 14 (48:11):
Were kids of celebrities, trust fund babies, one European billionaire.
Usually I would meet them at their house, that is
the house their wives weren't it, and we'd go to
dinner Nikki Blairs or Spago or bistro, then maybe a
club and then back to the house and then we'll
whatever have sex. Do what you want, what they want.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
While Brandy McLain was not an actress, she knew how
to play her role. On these dates, she'd pretend to
be floored by the john's gold records or wildly impressed
by their oscar. The trick would introduce her to their
friends as his assistant or girlfriend. These men didn't just
want transactional sex behind closed doors. They wanted arm candy
(48:52):
to show off in public. They craved the girlfriend experience,
probably because they'd all been losers in high school. In Hollywood,
the land of fantasy, these men were paying for the
fantasy that a beautiful, fun, sexy young girl like Brandy
McLean would ever want to hang out with them if
there wasn't money involved. But Brandy was in it for
(49:14):
something else.
Speaker 14 (49:17):
Money. You tell me one job where you can make
fifteen hundred an hour, one job A doctor doesn't make
that much, A lawyer twice a month, and there you go.
Your bills are paid. Besides, anybody can get a job
at like the Limited. But how many girls could keep
a billionaire interested?
Speaker 13 (49:35):
I did?
Speaker 5 (49:38):
Sean Hubler then hits the pantry diner to talk with
a call girl, who she gives the pseudonym Leanne. Leanne
is not a Heidi Girl. She's a thirty five year
old escort who's been in the business since she was
twenty nine. Leanne reached out to the press when they
were speculating about the death of a woman presumed to
be a prostitute and Heidi Girl because she wanted to
tell the press that there was no that the dead
(50:00):
girl knew Heidi, and this is probably about Lori Dolan.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
As with anything else, there are echalons in this business.
God I've slept with the masses. Leanne.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
Leanne works a lower rung than Heidie's girls the middle
four hundred dollars an hour for mostly older businessmen and
a few former politicians, with a three hour minimum for
a local date. She specializes in charging the service to
her client's corporate credit cards and making it look plausible
that they'd just been a few hundred bucks on a
legitimate work expense. Leanne also specializes in appearing as an
(50:43):
age appropriate escort for older men, a woman in pearls
and sweater sets that one might mistake for a rich
man's wife. But beneath the sweater sets lie her secrets,
and her clientele is not so different from Heidie's. Aging
rock stars are a perennial client pool. She talks of
playing doctor with doctors, getting double teamed by comedy teams,
(51:06):
and of the many powerful men with secretive private lives
where they like to wear silk slips or get tied
up and spanked. One movie producer in particular, pays her
to dress him up as Ava Gardner. And compliment him, Oh, Ava,
you look wonderful tonight.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Oh you learn more about men than you would ever
need to know for the rest of your life.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Leanne's labors met her and estimated three hundred thousand dollars
a year, which buy her a house in the San
Fernando Valley with a pool, a jacuzzi, and a vegetable garden.
Unlike Heidi, she purposely keeps a low profile. She bought
her mom a new car, but she mostly doesn't splash
out on expensive stuff. The money is great, but she
(51:51):
does feel like her job makes it harder to date people.
Men will say they can handle her occupation, then reveal
that they actually can't.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
They say they love you, but when it comes time
to end the relationship, they're the first ones to turn
around and say, you fucking whore.
Speaker 5 (52:10):
But she doesn't regret her choice. What's so great about
regular old transactional heterosexuality anyway?
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Do you know how many women are going to El
Toedo on a Friday or Saturday night and giving it
away for three or four Margarita's Whereas I can go
for a couple of hours, collect my money, stop at
whatever restaurant I want on my way home, decide who
I want to sit across from and what I want
(52:40):
to eat, and not put up with anybody's shit.
Speaker 5 (52:46):
The story then returns to Marylyn showing Sean Hubler what's
in the pink scrap book pictures of her at nightclubs,
partying with friends in Las Vegas with Brandy MacLean. She
asks Hubler if she wants to see a home video
that she made at Heidie's Tower Grove mansion. Hubler, of
course says sure and watches as Marilyn pops in her
videotape of home movies from Heidie's house. In one, she
(53:10):
gives a tour of the mansion while wearing an azidin
Eliah cat suit, the girl's favorite designer. There's some footage
from last Christmas, including a bathrobe to Charlie Sheen giving
his holiday regards to one of the girl's mothers. Sheen's
publicist says the video was made as a favor for
a woman whose mother had cancer, and that Charlie Sheen
(53:30):
had no idea whether the women were call girls. He
didn't ask and they didn't tell. The profile ends on
a bitter sweet note, with Marilyn telling Sean Hubler, how
she's become afraid to fall asleep next to a man.
When things go badly like they did in Palm Springs,
or now with Heidie busted, she can get to wondering
where her life is going. She has a moment of
(53:53):
realization seeing a former client in public at an apartment
store called the Broadway. She locks eyes with the who
is there with his wife and child, and wonders if
anyone loves honestly.
Speaker 6 (54:07):
It leaves you wondering, what's it really like to, you know,
make love? What's it like not to put on an act?
It's nice to have someone treat with respect and buy
you things and take you for riots and his ferrari
to Siosa, But he catches up with you emotionally.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
You can't help but see the larger news angle creeping
in here again, aiming to make prostitution seem not only
a moral but bad for the soul. It seems silly
even in this context, because the clearly stated reasons for
Marilyn's bad experiences were a booking on her own and
b Heidi getting busted not because she posed any danger
(54:54):
to anyone, but as a statement on the morality of prostitution,
a profession that is older than dirt, but always inside
some moral panic in America. It feels like Marilyn and
the reader are led towards the conclusion of, oh, but
this is bad because the La Times cannot allow the
jump to the natural conclusion that sex work is fine.
(55:14):
The issue is criminalization and the Puritan insistence in America
that this doesn't happen here. December nineteenth, nineteen ninety three,
Madame Alex lists her West Hollywood house, already a downgrade
from Casa Pussy and Beverly Hills, and her Malibu mansion.
Since being forced out of Madaming by her nineteen ninety
(55:36):
one pandering conviction, Alex has used her managerial skills to
start a catering business, but catering hasn't taken off quite
like sex did, so Alex is forced to sell her cottage,
which was built in nineteen twenty four. December twenty third,
nineteen ninety three, Heidi goes to the press on her
own ish terms again to be on the cover of
(55:58):
Esquire magazine's yearly Dubie US Achievements Awards issue. The Dubious
Achievements Awards were a running gag and Esquire with funny,
mean joke items about public figures given to various public
figures every year from nineteen sixty two until they were
discontinued in two thousand and one after September eleventh. Dubious
Achievements was such a hit that it basically paved the
(56:19):
way for other good snotty, mean funny magazines like National,
Lampoon and Spy. The connection is the house style of
Quippi insidery, sometimes very mean writing about notable people. You
will recognize this style from the Internet, where it is
now the house style for everything. So Heidi appears on
(56:40):
the cover of Esquire doing a parody of a super
famous photo of Janet Jackson that appeared on the cover
of Rolling Stone, where Janet is topless in half unbuttoned
jeans with her breasts being cupped from behind by her
then husband Renee Elizondo, who is out of frame. It
was a very sensational photo the time and spawned a
(57:01):
million parodies. In the Esquire Paroity cover, Heidi flies is topless,
staring right at the camera. Her jenes rolled down to
reveal some hidiwear boxer shorts, and her breasts are being
grasped from behind by hands, one of which wears a
signature white glove. The cover line is Heidi and Michael
(57:22):
Who Knew, surrounded by smaller images with jokes about Barney
the Dinosaur, Fabio and John Wayne Bobbitt Ah nineteen ninety three.
Once again, Heidi is showing us that she is in
on the joke. She is steering the narrative naturally towards
where it actually wants to go. Heidi is not a criminal.
(57:42):
She's a folk hero standing up to the corruption and
hypocrisy of LA's richest men and the disgusting police forces
that protect them. How are women working in the film
industry in Hollywood dealing with the fallout of the Heidi scandal?
Funny you asked? The Heidi Flies scandal exposes some of
the fault lines in the movie business, a boys club
(58:04):
of all boys clubs that in the early nineties is
supposedly opening doors for women. What does it mean to
find out that maybe Hollywood isn't actually as progressive as
it says it is, and that their male peers might
still see women primarily as objects to be bought and sold?
Is that why they want to make movies like pretty
(58:24):
Women or in Decent Proposal, the Adrian Line directed movie
where a broke couple played by Widdy Harrelson and Demi
Moore agree to let the girlfriend have sex with a
rich guy played by Robert Redford for a million dollars.
Indecent Proposal was a huge success in nineteen ninety three,
and while directed by Adrian Lyne, it was written and
developed by women. Are movies like this brave for depicting
(58:48):
sex workers as people with minds and hearts? Or do
men in Hollywood just think that all women are whores?
Here is a range of takes.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Really, do feel more comfortable in the company of hookers
because that is how they see women? Julia Phillips, producer.
Speaker 15 (59:09):
Honestly, I'm irritated that the only power in movies that
goes to women is sexual power.
Speaker 6 (59:13):
In life, that's the only.
Speaker 15 (59:14):
Power that men can easily give to women. I find
it very simplistic and a true stretch to think of
that as empowering women in any way. Meg Ryan actor, so.
Speaker 8 (59:26):
This is the year of the woman. Well, yes, this
has been a very good year for women to mean more.
Was sold to Robert Redford for one million dollars. Uma
Thurman went for forty thousand dollars to mister de Niro. Well,
just three years ago Richard gear bought Julia Roberts for
what was it, three thousand dollars. I'd say that was
(59:48):
real progress. Michelle Pfeiffer, actress at the Crystal Awards luncheon, did.
Speaker 9 (59:57):
The mean more characters in control of her body in
makes all the decisions. She chooses to sleep with Robert
Redford and makes the decision Woody Harrelson doesn't do that
to me. That is what feminism is all about. Sherry Lansing,
chief of Paramount Pictures. See the problem with the movie,
It's a huge problem is if we don't do this right,
(01:00:19):
It's like Woody is the pimp and Demi's the hole.
Speaker 12 (01:00:23):
Adrian Lyne director.
Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Some male critics would like to dismiss indecent proposal as sexist.
The only thing that is sexist is the critics themselves.
They're clearly made uncomfortable by a film in which a
woman holds tremendous power over not one, but two men,
one of whom is our husband. Powerful women who do
what they like with our bodies make men like Kenneth
Turan uncomfortable. Men are very emotional about sex. Women are practical.
(01:00:51):
Amy Holden Jones, screenwriter of Indecent Proposal.
Speaker 13 (01:00:57):
If they ever make a movie where a man is
sexually arrest I'm there. Gel Sharon Stone, actress.
Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
December thirtieth, nineteen ninety three. Heidi Turns twenty eight years old,
December thirty first, nineteen ninety three. Yvonne Naj, forced out
of the escorting business for now at least, also has
(01:01:29):
a new venture technology. Naj is going full throttle into
the brand new field of CD ROMs, the digital proto
DVD technology that briefly ascended past floppy disks in the
early nineties. More specifically, he is trying to break into
the emerging space of CD rom erotica, a sex leads
all new forms of technology. He has a new company
(01:01:52):
called mac Daddy Entertainment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Look, this is mister Moltenmedia himself, Digitola of cd ram
That is my new title.
Speaker 5 (01:02:05):
Macdaddy Entertainment's first release is a CD ROM called Heidie's Girls.
The La Times Piece says cd ROMs are compact discs
that hold digital images, sound, graphics, and text, and play
on devices hooked up to personal computers. While the consumer
market for the shiny discs remains small, Ivan Naj believes
his product is sure to draw attention. The Heidie's Girl
(01:02:28):
cd rum is a cachet of one hundred and fifty
images of five women in lingerie at a fancy hotel.
There is also a euro version that has the images
with full nudity.
Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
It was only appropriate where else would you shoot a
Heidi girl but in a hotel suite.
Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
Naj partnered on the project with Alan Adler, a computer
programmer who worked at local camera store Sammy's Camera, running
the digital images division after as Sammy's customers suggested the idea.
Nase handled the photography end and Adler the digitization. The
real Heidi has no involvement with the project or the
(01:03:10):
girls on Yvonne cd ram, and she wants everyone to know.
Speaker 12 (01:03:16):
They're probably his girlfriends, was my response.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Who cares?
Speaker 12 (01:03:20):
He's pathetic? What can I say?
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
I am certainly not basing a company on Heidi flies.
We're just kicking it off with this. It will introduce
the company name to everybody because of the press attention
we will get.
Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
Yvonne Naj says he'll be premiering the Heidi's girls CD
rom at trade shows like Macworld in San Francisco and
the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which for years
famously took place at the same time as the Adult
Video News Award so that there could be overlapped between
the two. Her ex boyfriend, Bernie Kornfeld's connection to Hi
(01:04:00):
is uncovered by some journalists who try to get comment
from him. He calls Heidi to reassure her that he
is still there for her and always will be.
Speaker 13 (01:04:12):
I don't know what his financial situation was. I do
know that he was able to come up with a
million dollars whenever he wanted.
Speaker 5 (01:04:22):
Bernie Cornfeld has decamped from the United States entirely after
telling Heidi that the irs were coming for him, asking
for ninety two million dollars. He has gone to his
castle in France, taking ten gorgeous women on his private
jet with him, but Heidi Flie is stuck in Los Angeles,
(01:04:42):
wishing that she was on a private jet instead, headed
somewhere glamorous, chic and far far away from her troubles.
(01:05:06):
Next time on Heidi World, Heidie Flice goes to trial
in downtown Los Angeles on pandering charges, and she is terrified,
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