2 -Gerda Munsinger A downtown-dwelling escort arrived from Germany in 1955 and sparked a political scandal after getting high-profiled customers, who happened to be elected members of the Conservative government, to sign her immigration application.
4-Nelly Arcan (nom de plume of Isabelle Fortier) came to Montreal from Megantic and penned much-celebrated autobiographical novels about her experience as a sparkling star of the escorting demimonde. She hanged herself dead at the age of 36 in 2009. Her hometown library named a room in her honour.***
For 320 pages of such Montreal history rush to your local bookstore or Amazon site and purchase Montreal 375 Tales. Reviews include:
- An interesting read which provides readers with the history of Montreal. Great description and anecdotes make you feel like you were there!
- If the gods created people so they'd have something to talk about, Kristian Gravenor's Montreal (2017) makes it clear that Canadians created Montrealers so they'd have something to talk about.
Paragraph Books at 2220 McGill College
Coles at Angrignon, Dorval and Cavendish
Librairie Au Vieux Bouc at 2884 Masson and 3615 Ontario)
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5-Mary GallagherThe hooker decapitated by a drunken rival in Griffintown in 1879 provides the principle mythological staple for the hardscrabble cold flats area south of downtown.
6-Maimie Pinzer, a prostitute and morphine addict originally from Philadelphia who had lost the use of one eye due to syphilis,launched a resource for prostitutes at Bleury and Ontario. Pinzer, whose parents were rich Jews, moved to Montreal in 1914 and launched the halfway home for hookers the next year. Little is known of her fate after 1922.
7- Lara Roxx forced the American adult film industry to re-examine its policies on unprotected sex after she tested positive for HIV in 2004.
8- Monica Proietti, aka, Machine Gun Molly grew up around St. Dominique and St. Catherine where many family members died in a blaze. She worked the streets to fend off hunger and then after hubby was deported back to Scotland, she became a full-fledged bankrobber. She was shot dead driving from a heist in 1967.
10-Sun Bonds Swedish stripper from the Chez Paree made history after fighting a legally-important, but ultimately fruitless palimony agreement she had signed with husband, the baseball star Barry Bonds.Among the thousands of others who might merit consideration: Erna Dietrich, escort who fought the taxman in 1985, Carol Cox, a tireless local online porn pioneer and sex club owner. Abbraxxa stripper turned internet porn star, Mya Lovely porn actress who gained some prominence in the USA before returning to live a quieter life, Sabrina Fisicaro, who wrote a biography I'd rather be a prostitute. Melina Roberge escort who made recent world headlines after being caught with a cocaine smuggler on a cruise liner.