Sydney Biddle Barrows | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 14, 1952 |
| Other names | Sheila Devin Mayflower Madam |
| Alma mater | Fashion Institute of Technology |
| Occupation(s) | Madam, management consultant, socialite, and writer |
| Spouse | Darnay Hoffman (1994–?)(divorced) death May 2, 2011[ needs update ] |
| Relatives | Biddle family, three Mayflower passengers |
Sydney Biddle Barrows (born January 14, 1952) is an American businesswoman and socialite who became known as an escort agency owner under the name Sheila Devin; she later became known as "The Mayflower Madam". She has since become a management consultant and writer. [1]
In October 1984, her escort service was disbanded, and after pleading guilty and being fined $5,000 for promoting prostitution, she wrote a 1986 autobiography, Mayflower Madam: The Secret Life of Sydney Biddle Barrows. [2] A TV movie based on the book starring Candice Bergen was broadcast in 1987 under the title Mayflower Madam. [3]
Barrows comes from the Biddle family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is descended from Mayflower passengers William Brewster, John Howland, Elizabeth Tilley, and Thomas Rogers. [4] Her father is Donald Byers Barrows, Jr. (born 1926) of Rumson, New Jersey, and her mother is Jeannette Ballantine, [5] who is now married to Felix Molzer, a musician and director of the Monmouth Arts Center, N.J. [6]
Barrows attended Stoneleigh-Burnham, a girls' boarding school in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and is an alumna of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. She worked in 1975 as an assistant to Alan Snyder, the bath buyer for Abraham & Straus. [7] She was introduced to the world of high-class prostitution and started her own escort service named Cachet, which existed in New York City from 1979 to 1984. Some of its clients included industrialists, high-powered business executives, lawyers, foreign diplomats, and Arabian oil sheiks. [6]
In October 1984, Cachet was shut down, Barrows was arrested, and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office charged her with promoting prostitution. When arrested at her home office on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Barrows identified herself as Sheila Devin; one report describes her as the CEO. [8]
The name "Mayflower Madam" was coined by a New York Post reporter, Peter Fearon, who broke the story of Barrows's Mayflower connections. After her guilty plea, Barrows published a best-selling [2] autobiography, Mayflower Madam: The Secret Life of Sydney Biddle Barrows (1986). Barrows appeared in 1987 on the late-night television series Saturday Night Live with a parody of her book; the sketch included Candice Bergen, who portrayed Barrows in the made-for-TV movie Mayflower Madam (1987). Barrows subsequently wrote two books on sexual etiquette. [2]
In late 2008, Barrows finished Uncensored Sales Strategies: A Radical New Approach to Selling Your Customers What They Really Want—No Matter What Business You're In, co-authored with marketing expert Dan Kennedy. Since the mid-late 1990s, Barrows has run a consulting business with a focus on customer service and experience. [1] [9]
Barrows was divorced from the late Darnay Hoffman, a high-profile lawyer. [10]
Xaviera Hollander is a Dutch former call girl, madam and author. She is best known for her best-selling memoir The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.
Nevada is the only U.S. state where prostitution is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although only six allow it in every municipality. Six counties have at least one active brothel, which mainly operate in isolated, rural areas. The state's most populated counties, Clark and Washoe, are among those that do not permit prostitution. It is also illegal in Nevada's capital, Carson City, an independent city.
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill—is an erotic novel by the English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.
Mayflower was the ship that transported the Pilgrims from Plymouth to the New World in 1620.
Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown. She is also known for her role as Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama Boston Legal (2005–2008). In films, Bergen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Starting Over (1979) and for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Gandhi (1982).
A call girl or female escort is a prostitute who does not display her profession to the general public, nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency. The client must make an appointment, usually by calling a telephone number. Call girls often advertise their services in small ads in magazines and via the Internet, although an intermediary advertiser, such as an escort agency, may be involved in promoting escorts, while, less often, some may be handled by a pimp. Call girls may work either incall, where the client comes to them, or outcall, where they go to the client. Some porn stars are known to escort as well.
The Biddle family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is an Old Philadelphian family descended from English immigrants William Biddle (1630–1712) and Sarah Kempe (1634–1709), who arrived in the Province of New Jersey in 1681. Quakers, they had emigrated from England in part to escape religious persecution. Having acquired extensive rights to more than 43,000 acres (170 km2) of lands in West Jersey, they settled first at Burlington, a city which developed along the east side of the Delaware River.
Pearl "Polly" Adler was an American madam and author, best known for her work A House Is Not a Home, which was posthumously adapted into a film of the same name. In 2021, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Debby Applegate published a comprehensive account of Adler's life and times entitled Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age with Doubleday.
A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Julia Brown was an American madam and prostitute active in mid-nineteenth century New York City. Brown has been described as "the best-known prostitute in antebellum America". Brown was known for playing the piano in her brothel and for being a guest at functions hosted by the best families in New York. She also had season ticket to two theaters, paid for pews in various churches and contributed generously to local bible societies. She became a popular subject of tourist guidebooks, and her name appears often in diaries from the period.
Prostitution is illegal in the vast majority of the United States as a result of state laws rather than federal laws. It is, however, legal in some rural counties within the state of Nevada. Additionally, it is decriminalized in the state of Maine. Prostitution nevertheless occurs elsewhere in the country.
Prostitution in Ireland is legal. However, since March 2017, it has been an offence to buy sex. Third party involvement is also illegal. Since the law that criminalises clients came into being, with the purpose of reducing the demand for prostitution, the number of prosecutions for the purchase of sex increased from 10 to 92 between 2018 and 2020. In a report from UCD's Sexual Exploitation Research Programme the development is called ”a promising start in interrupting the demand for prostitution.”
Mark P. Denbeaux is an American attorney, professor, and author. He is a law professor at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey and the Director of its Center for Policy and Research.
Jody Gibson was an American madam, writer and actress who was active in Hollywood in the late 1980s through the 1990s.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the D. C. Madam by the news media, operated Pamela Martin and Associates, an escort agency in Washington, D. C. Although she maintained that the company's services were legal, she was convicted on April 15, 2008, of racketeering, using the mail for illegal purposes, and money laundering. Slightly over two weeks later, facing a prison sentence of five or six years, she was found hanged. Autopsy results and the final police investigative report concluded that her death was a suicide.
Arbor House was an independent publishing house founded by Donald Fine in 1969. Specializing in hard cover publications, Arbor House published works by Hortense Calisher, Ken Follett, Cynthia Freeman, Elmore Leonard and Irwin Shaw before being acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 1979 to move into paperback publishing. Arbor House became an imprint of William Morrow & Company in 1988.
Kristin M. Davis, previously known as the Manhattan Madam, is a former madam who was known for running a high-end prostitution ring in New York City which claimed to have offered its services to several high-profile clients, including Eliot Spitzer, Alex Rodriguez and David Beckham. After her conviction for prostitution related activities, Davis ran a protest campaign for Governor of New York in 2010 and was poised to run for New York City Comptroller in 2013 before being arrested for distributing drugs.
Brandi Britton was a professor of sociology and anthropology. She worked at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, resigning in 1999. In January 2006 she was arrested on charges of prostitution.
William Novak is a Canadian–American author who has co-written or ghostwritten numerous celebrity memoirs for people including Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, and Magic Johnson. He is also the editor, with Moshe Waldoks, of The Big Book of Jewish Humor. He has also written several "private" books, which he described in a 2015 essay for The New York Times.
Elizabeth Adams, known as Madam Alex and sometimes Alex Adams was an American madam and prostitute.
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