What does M*A*S*H and the famous prostitute Polly Adler have to do with each other?
Not much, but there is an interesting link, one that I learned about when I was actually not watching TV – and instead, out and about in the world.
Recently, I stepped away from work and writing The TV Professor and went on a family vacation with my two teenage daughters and my parents, the first substantial trip any of us had made since the pandemic. One of the places we went to was New York City, and while we were there, we took a guided tour of Central Park.
Near the end of the tour, somehow, the topic of The TV Professor came up. That’s when our fantastic tour guide, Beth Goffe, brought up Polly Adler and M*A*S*H. Ms. Goffe mentioned that Ms. Adler, the aforementioned famous prostitute, lived near Central Park.
She also told me that Adler was famous enough that she wound up getting mentioned in two different episodes of M*A*S*H.
“Really?” I said. “Wow, that’s just amazing that M*A*S*H mentioned Polly Adler twice. I can hardly believe it. Polly Adler twice. Who would have thought?”
I had no idea who Polly Adler was.
So for all of you suddenly curious about Polly Adler, or for any of you thinking, “I really do have a gap in my knowledge when it comes to famous historical courtesans,” well, you are all in luck.
Today's "TV Lesson" Breakdown:

How Polly Adler Fits into M*A*S*H
In the third season of M*A*S*H, in the episode, “Bulletin Board,” there’s a quick little mention of Polly Adler.
In this particular episode, the camp has had a particularly rough go of it. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake just lost a patient, and during a Shirley Temple movie, a fight breaks out with Klinger and another soldier – and at the same time, gunfire and bombs can be heard near the camp. Hawkeye and “Trapper” John decide that they need a little fun. So they put a notice on the bulletin board.
See this, Henry?” Hawkeye says. “First Annual Polly Adler Birthday Cookout, Picnic and Barbecue. All proceeds to go to Sister Teresa's Korean Orphans' Fund.”

Henry isn’t thrilled by the idea of having any sort of celebration. He knows that the doctors and nurses will have fun – and then the casualties will come in, and they’ll all feel depressed again.
Hawkeye argues, “Look, we need this. If we don't go crazy once in a while, we'll all go crazy.”
Henry concedes the point, and so the camp throws their cookout, picnic and barbecue. Polly Adler isn’t mentioned again. If you didn’t know who she was, you’d have probably missed the reference entirely. I’ve seen this episode a few times, and I had never noticed it.
Several seasons later, Polly Adler’s name came up again – this time from none other than Colonel Sherman Potter.
The episode was “Good Bye, Cruel World,” in the show’s eighth season. The main plot involved a suicidal soldier, but a subplot involved Klinger, who was trying to make his office more suited to his personality. He has his Aunt Fatima’s rug in the office, a strange looking lamp, beads hanging in the doorway. A Toledo Mudhens banner adorns the room. Bowling trophies are scattered throughout the office. Hawkeye describes the room as looking like “a rummage sale.”

Colonel Potter isn’t pleased with what he sees. “Great balls of fire,” he roars.
Klinger is hammering something on a wall. “Could you give me a nail?” he asks.
“You wouldn't like where I put it,” Potter growls. And then he demands: “Why does my company clerk's office look like Polly Adler's parlor?”
Klinger doesn’t bat an eye. We’ll assume he knows who Polly Adler is. Instead, Klinger says, “Sir, these are treasures of my civilian world. My mom sent me a few things from my room."
None of this tells us, of course, who Polly Adler is, and since M*A*S*H didn't fill you in, I will.
A Little About Polly Adler
Her goal was to be the best “madam” in America, a word that is sometimes applied to a woman who runs a house of prostitution.
Now, in the spirit of this blog, and in the spirit of a lot of the classic TV shows featured on this blog, I’ll try to keep this as G-rated as possible and not use some of the more colorful words for Ms. Adler's occupation. As for where the information about Polly Adler came from, in case anyone's wondering, a lot of it was from a Smithsonian article, but I also combed newspaper archives, especially The New York Times, at the online the Cincinnati, Ohio public library website.
OK, so here we go. A brief rundown of who this lady was, which may or may not give you some insight as to why Polly Adler made an impression on Hawkeye Pierce, “Trapper John” McIntyre and Sherman Potter.
- Polly Adler was born Pearl Adler (her nickname “Polly” came later) in 1900, in Yanow, Russia. She was the oldest of nine children. Her family immigrated to America, or at least some of the family did. The plan was that her father would send the kids to the United States one at a time. Polly traveled to America first, when she was 12, and at first, she lived with friends of the family in Holyoke, Massachusetts and received a monthly allowance from her parents.
- World War I came about, and the rest of Polly’s family didn’t make it to America, at least not right away.
- Apparently the family friends felt they couldn’t watch Polly indefinitely, and so she wound up living with cousins in Brooklyn, attending school and working at a corset factory for five bucks a week.
- But at age 17, Polly’s life really went dark. She was raped by her foreman and became pregnant. So she found a doctor who charged $150 for abortions. She told him she had $35. He accepted $25 and told her to buy shoes and stockings with the rest of her money. Oh, and her cousins kicked Polly out of their home.
At age 20, Polly was living in Manhattan, working in a factory and living with a roommate, who introduced her to Tony, a guy making and selling his own liquor, which, yes, was illegal during this age of Prohibition. Tony was having an affair with a high society married woman, and he must have liked Polly just fine because he came up with an idea.
If Polly wouldn’t mind renting her own apartment and letting Tony meet his married gal pal there, he would pay her rent. Polly agreed, and while it might have not been the most ethical decision one could make, after all she had been through, can you really blame her?
Ms. Adler located a furnished two-room apartment, and soon, she had a nice little business. She found other women who would sleep with Tony (okay, they weren't exactly sleeping) and some of his friends -- earning a hundred bucks a week. That said, she had a brief run in with the law and decided that instead of running her, uh, matchmaking service, she would sell lingerie. That didn't work out, and so she decided that, no, on second thought, she was going back to the world's oldest profession.
It's interesting. Adler evidently didn’t do too well as a businesswoman selling lingerie, but she was very savvy as an entrepreneur when it came to her house of ill repute. For instance, she didn’t treat her female employees as anything but human beings. She taught the ones who needed lessons, table manners, and she encouraged them to read. She reminded them that they couldn’t stay in this life forever and pushed them to think about their futures.
Adler had no trouble finding employees and wound up turning away a lot of women who wanted to work for her.
She also had no shortage of clients. Her business grew in the 1920s, and she kept hiring more ladies of the night and moving into fancier and fancier apartments where everybody could meet. As for her apartment, it was an “objectionable apartment,” as The New York Times put it in 1935.
Yes, the media covered Adler – after the police became interested in her. For quite awhile, Adler was able to keep the authorities at bay from investigating her business. She would shake an officer’s hand, and he would look down and realize he had just been palmed a hundred dollar bill. No wonder she was able to evade arrest throughout the 1920s.
But during the 1930s, she was under a legal microscope. In 1935, Adler went to jail, sentenced to 30 days in the slammer, though she was out in 24.
When she was arrested in 1936, The New York Times noted that it was the 16th arrest in her career.
She was often in hot water but just as often, getting charges dropped and dismissed.
In 1938, the federal government filed an income tax lien against her, amounting to $12,425.72. She paid it in full the following year.
In 1943, she was arrested again, and once again, charges were dismissed. Still, Adler had enough. She moved to Burbank, California, and decided to finish high school. She also started writing her autobiography.

Meanwhile, in the World of M*A*S*H
During the 1930s, at his home in Hannibal, Missouri, future colonel Sherman Potter would have been reading newspaper articles about Polly Adler in the paper. Hawkeye and “Trapper” John, future surgeons, would have been kids in the 1930s, but they would have been smart young lads and were probably well aware of Adler’s antics.
I mention this in part because when Hawkeye and “Trapper” John concocted the “First Annual Polly Adler Birthday Cookout, Picnic and Barbecue,” it was the beginning of the Korean War, and in 1950, Ms. Adler was mostly out of the news and limelight, though occasional news reports would mention the book she was working on.
In the last year of the Korean War, however, in 1953, Ms. Adler’s autobiography came out – called A House Is Not a Home, and it was a huge bestseller. There was no ignoring it. So when Colonel Potter came into his office late in the series and the war, and he saw the redecorating that Klinger had done, Ms. Adler and her book was probably on his mind.

If You Want to Learn More About Polly Adler…
Ms. Adler’s autobiography is on Amazon.com. It’s in paperback, at least at the time of this writing, for about $28, and in hardcover for (gasp, ack) about $900.
Meanwhile, Beth Goffe, who showed me, my kids and my parents around Central Park, does webinars on historical places out and about in New York -- and has one coming up, at least, at the time of this writing, on scandalous tales from the early 20th century in the Upper West Side and Harlem.
Or, of course, if you’re anywhere near Central Park, you could hire Ms. Goffe to show you around, and she’ll point out exactly where Polly Adler lived. Something tells me that if Hawkeye Pierce or Sherman Potter were around, they’d sign up for that tour.
Where you can watch this show (at the time of this writing): M*A*S*H can be found on Hulu.com.
Articles similar to this M*A*S*H one: The TV Professor has found M*A*S*H to have a lot of interesting history to mine. If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy Movie Theatre History: M*A*S*H and “Dish Night” and True Crime History You Can Learn From Mash.

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