Florence Louise Fisher Bacolod[1] (September 18, 1918 – May 26, 1972) was an American motivational speaker in the 1960s and 1970s who traveled to high schools in the United States, telling stories about her past as a heroin addict and prostitute.
Her eccentric mannerisms and often lurid stories – which included tales of prostitution, jailhouse lesbianism, and botched abortions – made her into a cult figure in the late 1970s and 1980s, with VHS tapes of her speaking engagements becoming collector's items.
She describes being married at least four separate times: first in a family-arranged marriage to a childhood friend named Joe Rosinsky; next, to her pimp, whom she identified in her autobiography as David Bohm; to a heroin junkie identified as Danny Orenstein, who claimed to be an insurance collector in Miami, Florida; and lastly, in 1968,[5] to a Filipino sheet metal foreman named Manuel Bacolod, whom she initially met as a pen pal just prior to becoming a motivational speaker.
[6] Fisher then began speaking at schools and wrote the autobiography The Lonely Trip Back, which told of her life from childhood up to the point when she became a motivational speaker.
(Synanon was later described as one of the "most dangerous and violent cults America had ever seen";[10][11] it disbanded in 1991 after several members were convicted of offenses including financial misdeeds, evidence tampering, terrorism, and attempted murder.