Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 9, 1993 TAG: 9308090075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHAWN HUBLER and JAMES BATES LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
It surprised her that they had to ask. Everyone who was anyone in Hollywood knew Heidi. Gliding right in to the best booths at Jack Nicholson's place, The Monkey Bar. Clubbing with Billy Idol and Peter Sellers' daughter, Victoria. Hobnobbing with Robert Evans, the producer of "Chinatown." And wasn't it at Fleiss' house that they held that bash for Mick Jagger?
And now what a ruckus her arrest has raised.
She is not an actress, not a director, not even a producer, but she has surely been a player in this town. Most of the summer, her case has captivated the entertainment industry on both coasts and ignited speculation - lists of celebrity clients, heads rolling at studios, a mysterious tape recording that names names.
For police say that Fleiss, the 27-year-old daughter of a prominent pediatrician, has for the past three years filled a time-honored niche: madam to the stars. She was charged last week with five felony counts of pandering and a drug violation. She is to be arraigned today in Los Angeles Municipal Court.
Within a week of Fleiss' arrest - according to Fleiss, her friends and a tape recording of her phone conversations - four major producers had called directly to express their condolences. Eight more producers and entertainment industry executives had friends call on their behalf. Six big-name actors checked in, as did an international financier, a Sunset Strip rock impresario, a Texas real estate heir and a Beverly Hills real estate agent calling on behalf of an Italian multimillionaire who, for sentimental reasons, wanted to buy Fleiss' $1.6 million home in Benedict Canyon, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
Some called out of friendship. Others, Fleiss said, were concerned that the names in her big black book may come out when she goes to court today. "A lot of people are nervous," said one well-known producer. "She . . . fixes everybody up [and] there are a lot of married people in this town getting some booty."
For as long as there has been a Hollywood, there has been a Hollywood madam. But rarely has one arrest offered such a ready window into the world whose unspoken motto has been "discretion, discretion, discretion."
"I have warned her, you cannot mention johns, not even privately - it ruins careers," sighed Elizabeth "Madam Alex" Adams, who for 20 years was the reigning Beverly Hills Madam until her arrest in 1988 and who has known Fleiss for at least the past five years.
But, from Fleiss' standpoint, the potential for leaks of her client list could be of benefit.
Two well-known producers, according to a tape-recording of one of Fleiss' phone conversations that she confirmed, have already anted up several thousand dollars apiece toward her legal bills. Meanwhile, two other producers and a screenwriter have inquired about the rights to "The Heidi Fleiss Story."
"It's self-explanatory," said screenwriter Matt Tabak, who called Fleiss immediately to offer his help and ask for a 30-day option, minimum $300,000 on her end.
"How does someone go from being a nice Jewish girl whose father is a doctor to being arrested as an alleged Beverly Hills madam? How does that happen? It's gotta be an amazing story."
She was raised in a Spanish-style home in affluent Los Angeles community of Los Feliz, the third of six children born to Dr. Paul Fleiss and his now-ex-wife, Elissa, an elementary school teacher.
Success ran in the family. But Heidi - while charming and popular - was somewhat less than a model student. Pressed to earn straight A's in high school, she found herself unable or unwilling to compete.
Hoping to challenge her, her parents enrolled Heidi at a local parochial high school, but she flunked out after one semester, school officials said. By her senior year, she had become so alienated that she dropped out altogether, telling her parents she wanted to start college early.
But that summer, there was an automobile accident. Heidi was driving, and her sister was injured, nearly losing an arm. The guilt, Heidi's family said, sent her into a tailspin. "It was July 10, 1984," recalls her sister, Shana, 26, "and after it happened, it changed everyone's lives."
In 1985, Fleiss and a crowd of friends went to work waiting tables at an upscale Italian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. One night after work, a friend invited her to a party at a Beverly Hills mansion, and Fleiss - at all of 19 - embarked on a four-year affair with her much older host: the jet-set financier Bernie Cornfeld.
He took her to Europe, the Caribbean, his 12th century castle in France. But Cornfeld, she recalled, "was much older and not monogamous" - and neither was Fleiss. By the time the relationship ended four years later, Fleiss had a new attachment, to a Hungarian director named Ivan Nagy.
Like Cornfeld, Nagy was older by generations and on a downswing in his career. Though he had a steady string of credits - TV movies and action shows such as "Starsky and Hutch" - it had been several years since his last job.
Their romance was brief and harsh, their breakup protracted. They still beset each other with restraining orders and speak of each other in hostile terms. At one point in 1991, they were convicted on misdemeanor bookmaking charges, the result, Nagy says, of an informal betting circle that got out of hand.
But that, Fleiss contends, was the least of it.
Nagy, she said, introduced her to Adams, the Beverly Hills Madam. But Nagy remembers it differently. The day he told Madam Alex about his new love, he said, he got a surprise.
"She said, `Yes, she is working for me,' " Nagy said.
Fleiss said that she was Adams' assistant, not a "working girl." However, in a June 9 search warrant affidavit, Patricia A. Corso, a Los Angeles Police Department administrative vice officer. alleges that Fleiss "was Elizabeth Adams' No. 1 `girl' until she broke off . . . to start her own prostitution business."
At first, police say, Fleiss operated out of a quiet cottage in Hollywood. Neighbors there recall the parties and the fancy cars - the Rolls-Royce convertibles and Porsches and Corvettes.
According to a law enforcement affidavit on file in Los Angeles Municipal Court, the prostitutes charged customers $1,500, and Fleiss received 40 percent of the money. Women who said they worked for Fleiss said they were paid not only in cash, but also by checks, some of them drawn on real estate corporations and movie production companies.
Soon she moved to a sprawling ranch house in Benedict Canyon. Records show it was purchased last summer from actor Michael Douglas and the deed shows Fleiss' father as owner.
Fleiss' father refused to comment on the purchase or allegations against Fleiss. Other relatives said that the family until recently believed Heidi made her living from real estate.
The police operation was complicated, like so much in Heidi Fleiss' life. But what triggered it was simple, said LAPD Administrative Vice Capt. Glenn Ackerman: "Her own big mouth."
When it comes to vice enforcement, the Los Angeles Police Department prioritizes according to the "the three C's" - commercial, conspicuous and complained about. Fleiss was all three and then some, police said.
She lived lavishly. Gossip columns made references to her; tabloids sent paparazzi to shoot her photograph. And, police said, there were complaints aplenty about her from rival madams, jealous boyfriends, spurned employees.
"When I came in, Heidi became one of my priorities," said Ackerman, who took over the department's administrative vice division in December. Within months, a multiagency law enforcement task force had been assembled to investigate Fleiss, drawing officers from the LAPD, Beverly Hills Police Department, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Agency and the state attorney general's office.
On June 9, authorities swept into Fleiss' house, seizing 13 grams of cocaine and other evidence, including travelers checks signed, according to Fleiss, by a well-known actor. She was arrested on felony pimping, pandering and narcotics charges.
An affidavit in support of the search warrants alleged that Fleiss had admitted being a madam in an earlier interview with authorities. "In the history of this business, in one year, no one has ever been able to do what I do," Fleiss allegedly said.
Rumors started within days of her arrest: Studio executives had been paying Fleiss with movie development funds and corporate credit cards. Veteran vice officers said such rumors have circulated for years, but no hard evidence has emerged.
In a more tangible twist, however, a tape surfaced, containing some of Fleiss' phone conversations following the bust.
Dan Hanks, a private investigator who has previously served as a police undercover operative, said he made the tape by monitoring transmissions from an apparent wiretap of Fleiss' phone. "I thought maybe I can . . . sell a story to the tabloids or `A Current Affair' - if I could catch a celebrity with her [and] get some pictures," he said. "It could be happenin'."
Fleiss said she bought a copy of the tape from Hanks and intends to use it in her defense. Her attorney, Anthony Brooklier, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, who actually tapped into Fleiss' conversations remains a mystery. Authorities said they are aware of the tape but it was not culled from a law enforcement wiretap.
But the tape, played for a Los Angeles Times reporter, alludes to a number of rich or famous people who know Fleiss. And as their names have begun to leak out, some have rushed to distance themselves from her. Others acknowledged knowing Fleiss but said they were only social acquaintances or friends.
Billy Idol's personal publicist Ellen Golden said, "He's been to [On the Roxx, a nightclub] and met her, but doesn't know her well."
Elliot Mintz, a well-known media handler for rock stars, acknowledged chatting with Fleiss shortly after her arrest. "She's a casual friend," he added. "I'm not in her social loop."
As for Fleiss, she has only one thing to say when asked for details about her alleged business: "Talk to my lawyer."
by CNB