The Miami Herald | BY GLENN GARVIN | March 29, 2004
As the soothing strains of Don't Worry, Be Happyfloat in the background, convicted Hollywood madame Heidi Fleiss delivers the Zen core of her philosophy:
''If you realize most women are evil rotten bitches, most men are predictable pigs, and someone else is always going to be on a morality crusade, it should be easy to sit back and smile.''
That's about as good a summary as can be given for Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, a sardonic, sexy and highly entertaining account of the rise and fall of Hollywood's happiest hooker.
Fleiss, the daughter of a well-to-do Southern California dentist, started out as a none-too-promising call girl (her pitch to a Saudi prince: ''What do you want, for God's sakes? Besides a heap of dead Jews'') but by age 23 was running her own $5 million-a-year stable of hookers.
Her client list read like the production credits of a Hollywood blockbuster; her directory of services, a cross between the Kama Sutra and the Marquis de Sade. Observed Fleiss: ''We don't say pervert, we say erotically challenged.''
Alas, her climb to the top left too many high-heel marks on other people's backs, and four years later she was in jail facing charges of pandering and tax evasion.
Refreshingly free of Freudian twaddle, Call Mehas Fleiss going into the sex trade not because her mom was cold or her kitten died, but because she made a lot of money and got to hang out with the rich and powerful. ''Leaders of countries called for sex,'' she brags. ''If I came out and talked, I could have stopped NAFTA.''
Jamie-Lynn DiScala, best known as Tony's sullen daughter Meadow on The Sopranos, offers a cheeky performance as a sleek and cynical Fleiss. ''When a guy tells you he loves you and he wants to have babies with you, it means he loves having sex with you for free,'' she philosophizes at one point. If only she'd told Carmela.The Miami Herald:
