Broomfield's attentions at first, even after he sneaks into the clothing store she owns carrying a hidden camera. Later on, thinking he has talked her into an interview, he returns there to find Ms. Fleiss being interviewed by a Los Angeles television station. Fleiss explains to the woman from the Los Angeles station.
Crazy, huh? Broomfield erupts, waving his BBC microphone at the one from Channel 5. This is the voice of reason here? I've devoted six months of my life to this! She is incredulous. But it pays off, and long before Ms. Fleiss finally agrees to speak. Blunt, flirty and obviously frightened by her legal troubles, she speaks of running a prostitution business as if, in Hollywood, it were a sensible adjunct to many other Hollywood business operations.
Bloom; music by David Bergeaud; released by In Pictures. Running time: minutes. Rating: This film is not rated. KING: You were dating him? KING: Did your parents think it was strange? I said, dad, you know, I'm a secretary. KING: What did you -- in retrospect, what was the attraction? I really did. And he was the smartest man I'd ever met. I mean, he was this genius in so many ways. And the things I learned from him and the lessons -- he was always trying to make me a better person and make me understand things.
KING: You're glad you had him in your life? I miss him. And it was a great experience. KING: How did that end? We were close friends after three or four months passed. And I mean, by then we had a special bond, and we were close all the way up until he passed. His daughter testified on my behalf KING: We're going to get to that. When did he pass away? KING: So he was pretty old? KING: Oh, that's young. He had -- it's strange. He went to Israel, and his whole life -- he told "Newsweek" in , "the only time I've ever felt at home or at peace with myself when I've been in Israel.
She has a new video with her pal Victoria Sellers called "Sex Tips. We'll come back with more of her -- what can we say -- incredible life. We'll be right back. Her own line of women's lingerie called HeidiWear and speculation about her little black book, the names it might contain and what she would do with it. Hundreds of reporters and dozens of cameras documenting her every move.
It's certainly good to have her with us. OK, now, you break up with Bernie, goes on and what do you do then? And it came at a time where he was purchasing this hotel, Xanadu, built by Howard Hughes in the Bahamas. And it was Howard Hughes who thought it was the secret to eternity there or something. So I walk around -- we were living in the penthouse and look out and think, oh, Howard Hughes was here and get all energized.
And I'm thinking, what am I thinking? He was a morphine addict, heroin, everything was probably boarded up. And then Bernie and I weren't getting along, so I was like, I'm out of here. KING: Then what? I run into some nefarious character, I don't even want to mention his name, who introduces me to Madam Alex.
KING: How old were you at this time? KING: Did you go to work for her? I always heard about this woman, but I never met her. And when I met her, I was like, whoa, not at all -- you expect a madam like this really elegant figure like they have like on TV, who plays them, Candice Bergen played one and Faye Dunaway. They have all these really elegant women playing madams.
And here's this 5'3, bald-headed, Filipino woman in a see-through muumuu, telling me, Heidi, blue and white are regal colors. And I'm thinking, what does she know about regal? You know, I was just blown away. KING: So did you become a prostitute for her? KING: At age 23? She just got -- she was a coded police informant and she had just gone through her 13th arrest.
KING: Coded police -- meaning what? KING: Cops paid her. KING: Out of a reserve fund? I think all police agencies have them. I mean, it's KING: So were you prostituting as well? FLEISS: Let me tell you something, if you want to get into a business and you want to do it the best, I don't care whether it's cookies, cars, whatever it is, you have got to get down in the trenches, know what it's all about. That cookie formula, you just don't come in and start running it. You have got to know how much sugar, flour, chocolate chips.
I was down in the trenches for a little bit and I went straight to the top. KING: Did you like prostituting?
I think you have to take every situation that you're in into context and judge it by that experience itself. KING: Did you have any moral questions about it? It's a choice a woman has to make. If they are comfortable, if they want to do it, do it. If there's something about it that bothers you, if you have religious hangups, boyfriend hangups, whatever, don't do it.
KING: How about the fact that it was illegal? You know, you're that young, you think you're invincible and KING: First time you did it for money, what was that like? Was it hard?
In other words, you don't know this person. It might -- let me tell you the truth. My prostitution, where I actually experienced it, was very short-lived. I'm not a good hooker. I mean KING: You were not good? I'm not a man's fantasy. Come on. When men dream of prostitutes, they're not dreaming of a girl like me. They're dreaming of a KING: Whether you were good or not, what was it like for you?
FLEISS: Everything was great except the fact that the people involved that sent me there, the man was great, the money was great, the time.
If I met this guy in a restaurant, a bar, a nightclub, I would have dated him anyways. So it was a wonderful evening. It was just the other people involved made it creepy. KING: What do you mean the other people? KING: Oh, you didn't like all that? KING: How does this young, Jewish, attractive girl, daughter of a pediatrician, get into this business herself? KING: He left you money or he gave you money? I think drugs played a part and it kind of clouded my vision.
KING: How do you mean? And it kind of, like, clouded -- distorted my KING: Do you know why you took it? I don't know why. KING: People who take drugs don't know why they start, right? But you wanted to feel better? But I did it and I think that made it easier for when Madam Alex called me up and said, Heidi, do you want to make some green?
And I was like, sure. I was a little intimidated by her anyways. And then that was it. KING: Is she still living? She died the day my federal trial began.
KING: What did you parents think? Did they know about the drugs? KING: Know about the prostituting? My drug was, back then, was very short-lived.
KING: What did your father think you did? KING: That was your cover? That was my cover. I always said I'd have a cover. KING: So how did you get into the business on your own?
I was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated, so she was abusive and loving at the same time. KING: And you were taking drugs at this time? I was really kind of off of it.
I was running her whole business. Her business, by then, she was using the same girls she used for years. She needed a whole restructuring, revamping. I came in. I had a hot, new, young friends, 21, 22, all gorgeous, good looking from traveling the world with Bernie.
KING: How did you recruit them? They were just kind of my friends you'd meet along the way. KING: And you would call up and say, how would you like to be a call girl? And I'd say, you won't believe what I did. Well, I can meet that lady?
And it kind of just KING: I see, word of mouth. KING: So how did you -- did you break away from her or take over her business? And then she gave me like peanuts compared to that. And then, we had our own problems and I was off on my own. I mean, I didn't need her for anything. KING: At your height, what were you doing financially, as a business?
KING: It's a cash business, right? My worst day, I'd probably make 10 grand or something. KING: All right. Now, how did it work? What does the madam get? Took, took, it's all past tense. KING: So people pay and tip, too? You're dealing with -- Larry, it's not Hollywood people. These are the richest people on earth that I'm dealing with. KING: The men, you mean? And their conception of money is totally different than yours or mine. You know, I'll never know what it's like to have that kind of money.
KING: Are they typical of the Vegas big spenders who come in for a big fight weekend and would think nothing of gambling a million at the table? I mean, those are the type of people. You don't hear about them. Don't go away. It's been a nightmare and I've tried very hard to keep a little bit of dignity and go through it the best way I could. How long were you in the business? How long was it going along before you got busted? KING: How did you work it?
Where did you work out of? Did you have an office? And kind of word got out that if you wanted to meet Heidi Fleiss, go there on certain nights. And that's what happened and I would KING: And then how would it work? A john, so to speak, calls you? KING: How does it work? When I first started my business, I was just extremely frustrated with a lot of things in my life. I called Bernie Cornfield, and I said when Mr.
So and so comes to town, have him call me and everything will be taken care of. And I saw how deals are done with Bernie. I see how -- I learned how women are key in everything. And Mr. So and so came to town and I took care of everything and Mr. So and so tells so and so tells so and so and it snowballed. KING: So, give me an example of how a transaction works. A guy calls you up and says, I heard -- give me an An owner of a sports team that I'm familiar with calls me up.
I do business with him frequently. He says, Heidi, a friend of mine is going to call you, so and so. So then, so and so calls me up and I handle him and then KING: And he would tell you what he wants? FLEISS: He says, Heidi, I'll be in, whatever, Texas for two nights and this is that and he'll just tell me a little bit about himself and -- that quick, two minutes, I could tell what a guy wants.
KING: Most of them married? I don't know a whole lot about KING: You never asked? KING: Would, many times, it include taking the prostitute out to dinner? They went to those big dinners in Century City for the president, fundraisers and stuff like that. KING: Hookers at a presidential dinner? Yes, sometimes I'd have 11 of them there. Or are there enough people out there who think Heidi will be as good at bra manufacturing as she supposedly was at. SHE: I was expecting Fleiss to come out with a brand of hide-all shades, a line of little black books or an assortment of quick-change wigs-- anything but lingerie.
The whole idea makes me sick. HE: Should we really be surprised by all this? Incredulous, aghast, dumbstruck, appalled, sure. They then go steaming in and muck up the works worse than ever, and get paid a huge salary for it, all the while spitting ideas back at the bosses that are about as original as pratfall jokes. SHE: Who will buy? Hate to say it, but probably guys who think the stuff will make their girlfriends or wives into raving nymphomaniacs.
In a recent TV documentary, Lewinsky was visibly upset by the hard-hearted nature of some of the questions put to her by an invited audience. Fleiss, it would seem, has survived her ordeal by media and the justice system better, for the simple reason that she never really had any illusions about a society that would spend millions more pursuing a madam than on the sort of corporate malfeasance that led to the Enron collapse. The questions he asked were more perverse than the actions. Why was he interested in the answers to those questions anyway?
That was a real eye-opener for the country. Who wants a president that doesn't have sex? The laws do not make sense. I don't think prostitution should be legal, but I do think that a woman has a right to choose, whether it's abortion or whatever - she has a right to her own body. I certainly don't recommend prostitution as a career, but if a guy gives a girl money, I don't see it as prostitution at all. A lot of people work so hard during the day, they don't have time to go and meet someone.
When I was there, they knew they were going to get something incredible. Born 36 years ago in Los Angeles, Fleiss was one of six children, four girls and two boys. Her father, Paul, is a successful paediatrician, her mother, Elissa, a teacher; the couple have since separated. One sister is now a vet near Palm Springs, another is a social worker, a third works for their father and makes baby blankets; one brother is a doctor in Oregon, the other an aspiring actor.
They were brought up according to the principles of the libertarian Scottish educationalist AS Neill, founder of Summerhill School, who believed in allowing children to learn at their own speed. Childhood holidays were spent hiking in California's redwood forests, skiing in Idaho or swimming in Hawaii. The messages they tried to teach all of us kids were that there were other people here besides us, to appreciate life, that the environment was important.
And they taught us compassion. My father's a great man and my mother was very doting and loving. She started a babysitting business when she was 12, realising that if she could win people's confidence and give them what they wanted, there were some bucks to be made. There was also a bit of recreational shoplifting and drug-taking to indicate that she might not always be operating on the sunny side of the street. At 15, she was working in a flower store. Then she dropped out of school, backpacked in Greece and jumped into LA high life feet first.
At 19, she embarked on an affair with Bernie Cornfeld, the billionaire financier and chairman of the Investors Overseas Service. He was more than 40 years her senior, and gave her a Rolls-Royce Corniche for her 21st birthday.
When they split up, she took up with another much older man, Ivan Nagy, a Hungarian-American film-maker who introduced her to "Madam Alex", then the main procurer of prostitutes in LA. Fleiss realised she could run a similar operation perfectly well herself.
It was a little different from the baby-sitting business, but the principle was the same - the babies were just bigger and richer. She recruited women in nightclubs and at parties, and went on to become the biggest madam in the business, marrying the relaxed s sexual morality she was born into with the let's-cut-a-deal s in which she grew up.
She was, for a time, a brilliant success story: Fleiss's prostitutes were younger and better-looking than the competition, they gave the impression of enjoying their work, and Fleiss herself seemed the antithesis of a madam, just a girl having fun. She has a Californian openness and frankness that to nervous businessmen must have seemed reassuring.
I'd say 'condoms are a must', but I don't know what really went on in the room. The rules were that there was nothing abusive. Some guys liked two girls, that's a normal thing. I always told the girls, 'If you're ever somewhere on this earth that I have sent you and you feel uncomfortable, just call me and I will fly you home first class and I will not even be mad.
Sometimes, it was the clients who called her because they felt uncomfortable. After a few drinks, she had observed to him, "You're a prince - what's the difference? You shit, I shit.
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