In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy was in Paris for a summit. He used a fake excuse about a doctor’s visit to attend a long-arranged meet up with a call girl, but he ended up in the wrong building, knocking on doors of random Parisians, who were treated to the surprise of their lives. This tale is recounted in Madame Claude: Her Secret World of Pleasure, Privilege & Power, by William Stadiem.
According to the book, Madame Claude was one of the world’s most successful madams. She ran an exclusive, high-class prostitution ring that offered a specific type of woman — tall, gorgeous, and classy — to the world’s richest and most powerful men, starting in 1957.
According to Stadiem, her clients included: JFK, Frank Sinatra, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Sammy Davis Jr., former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, three generations of Gettys, the Shah of Iran, Marlon Brando, Darryl Zanuck, Groucho Marx.
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