Pearl "Polly" Adler (April 16, 1900 – June 9, 1962)[1][2] was an American madam and author, best known for her work A House Is Not a Home, which was adapted into a film of the same name.

In the U.S., she lived for a time with friends of her family in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she cleaned house and attended school and, at age 14, began working in the local paper mill.

At 19, she began to enjoy the company of theater people in Manhattan, and shared an apartment with an actress and showgirl on Riverside Drive in New York City.

[5] Her new friends were involved in vaudeville, Broadway revues, Tin Pan Alley, burlesque, and the sleazy underbelly of show business.

It included a bar styled to resemble the recently excavated Tutankhamun's tomb, a Chinese Room where visitors could play mahjong, a Gobelin tapestry, hidden stairways and secret doorways.

[6][7] Her brothel's patrons included Peter Arno, Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman (who had an account and paid for services rendered at the end of each month),[8][9] Robert Benchley,[9] Donald Ogden Stewart,[8] Dorothy Parker (who would chat with Adler while her male friends partook of the girls' services),[5][9] Milton Berle,[9] John Garfield,[9] New York City mayor Jimmy Walker, gossip columnist Walter Winchell, and mobster Dutch Schultz.

[10][5] There has been speculation that New York State Supreme Court justice Joseph Force Crater, who vanished on August 6, 1930, died in Adler's brothel.

She determined that gaining publicity would be to her advantage, and she cultivated newspaper coverage by dressing flamboyantly, making grand appearances at nightclubs, and drawing attention to her beautiful employees.

[1] Adler's brothels were distinguished by drink from the best bootleggers, food from her own private cooks, good hygiene, and well-selected, mostly working-class girls.

In 1953, she and ghost writer Virginia Faulkner published her memoir, A House Is Not a Home; it was issued by Rinehart and Co. and sold two million copies in both hard cover and mass-market paperback.

"[14] "Another unexpected plea of guilty to maintaining an objectionable apartment at 30 East Fifty-fifth Street blocked in Special Sessions yesterday the trial of Polly Adler[15][16] on that and another charge that she kept an 'obscene motion picture film' in the suite last March when it was raided.

[20] The television show M*A*S*H episode "Bulletin Board" features a party/picnic called the "First Annual Polly Adler Birthday Cook-out Picnic and Bar-B-Que", with all proceeds going to Sr. Teresa's Orphanage.