Christine Wiltz chronicles the remarkable life of Norma Wallace, the French Quarter's most legendary madam, and the New Orleans underworld she ruled for decades.
In 1916, at age fifteen, Norma Wallace arrived in New Orleans. Sexy and shrewd, she quickly went from streetwalker to madam and by 1920 had opened what became a legendary house of prostitution. There she entertained a steady stream of governors, gangsters, and movie stars until she was arrested at last in 1962. Shortly before she died in 1974, she tape-recorded her memories — the scandalous stories of a powerful woman who had the city's politicians in her pocket and whose lovers included the twenty-five-year-old boy next door, whom she married when she was sixty-four. Combining those tapes with original research, Wiltz chronicles not just Norma's rise and fall but also the social history of New Orleans, thick with the vice and corruption that flourished there.
- Christine Wiltz, Author
- Published in 2001
- Paperback
- Published by Grand Central Publishing
- ISBN: 9780306810121
- 264 pages
Christine Wiltz chronicles the remarkable life of Norma Wallace, the French Quarter's most legendary madam, and the New Orleans underworld she ruled for decades.
In 1916, at age fifteen, Norma Wallace arrived in New Orleans. Sexy and shrewd, she quickly went from streetwalker to madam and by 1920 had opened what became a legendary house of prostitution. There she entertained a steady stream of governors, gangsters, and movie stars until she was arrested at last in 1962. Shortly before she died in 1974, she tape-recorded her memories — the scandalous stories of a powerful woman who had the city's politicians in her pocket and whose lovers included the twenty-five-year-old boy next door, whom she married when she was sixty-four. Combining those tapes with original research, Wiltz chronicles not just Norma's rise and fall but also the social history of New Orleans, thick with the vice and corruption that flourished there.
- Christine Wiltz, Author
- Published in 2001
- Paperback
- Published by Grand Central Publishing
- ISBN: 9780306810121
- 264 pages