Like many men on a business trip, Hollywood has a love affair with hookers. While in reality, it seems like a career choice fraught with complications, in film, it leads to more love matches than eHarmony. Sure, some hard knocks might come calling for the proceeding ladies of the evening in the form of assault, bias, attempted murder, rape, or rude shopkeepers on Rodeo Dr., but these women are tough, tenacious, and (mostly) lovable pros in a presumably crowded field.
Movie hookers have come before and after, but Julia Roberts’ Vivian is their reigning queen, so let’s start with her. “Pretty Woman” is the ultimate fairy tale between a rich man and a woman in this dishonorable profession. But she is beautiful, cleans up nice and has a laugh to launch a thousand ships. (Or is that a thousand bottles of Advil?) And like most of the ladies on our list will show, in film, once a man meets his prostitute, a bond of love will surely follow.
This is the film that launched Julia Roberts’ stratospheric rise to Hollywood’s biggest star. Also, “Pretty Woman” has become the standard bearer for all romantic comedies. Her Vivian is a tall, leggy redhead who can stand out in a polo match as easily as she can on a corner on Hollywood Blvd. Even her inability to eat escargot is just adorable.
Before she was a barmaid slinging suds on “Cheers,” Shelly Long was slinging skin as Belinda in 1982’s “Night Shift.” Director Ron Howard’s first comedy hit, “Night Shift” follows Henry Winkler as he transforms from nebbishy morgue attendant to nebbishy pimp with the encouragement of Long and Winkler’s new co-worker, (an outrageously hilarious and unhinged) Michael Keaton.
She may be working the mean streets of NYC but Belinda is sweet and vulnerable-usually hooker traits that can hasten a bad end. But in Howard’s comedic universe, it is her blossoming love with Winkler that brings her the most conflict, further movie proof that prostitution will usually lead to finding the man of your dreams.
Alabama Whitman’s world has all the trappings of a proper movie prostitute: murder, stolen drugs, physical abuse, trailing gangsters, Hollywood deals and true love. As the “True Romance” heroine, she not only takes this all in stride but holds her own quite admirably as the forces aligned against her and new husband, Clarence, close in on them both.
Played with bright optimism by Patricia Arquette, she is one of few hookers on the list we’d consider taking home to mother had we not already known the brutal fate that befell her father-in-law right after she met him.
If you marry a hooker by accident under the influence of roofies in Las Vegas, you could do a whole lot worse than Heather Graham as Jade. Sure, she is a single mother who strips as well, but she’s hot and she won’t steal your jewelry-even a family heirloom-despite her unlawful profession.
A lesson one should take from “The Hangover” is that when deciding on a bachelor party venue, steer clear of Vegas-maybe all of Nevada, even. There you will find naked, vengeful gangsters; angry, vengeful boxing legends; and hungry, vengeful tigers. But on second thought, this is also the home of the Jades, and lady luck can be an unstoppable force despite all other obvious or unexpected hazards.
In Sin City, it looks as if the leading occupation among women is prostitution. And in this violent, black-and-white (save for usually one random burst of color) world, abuse, torture and/or murder usually mark their fates. When Goldie, a call girl sweet on the seemingly unlovable Marv, ends up dead in the bed beside him, the gentle giant springs into uncontainable action to avenge her death and maybe clear his name in the process.
Then, all of a sudden, Goldie appears to be trailing the hellbent Marv and he starts to question her demise or the effectiveness of his anti-psychotic drugs. Yet it is soon revealed that it’s Goldie’s twin sister Wendy, also in the skin trade, who is following Marv, looking for revenge herself.
Jaime King is gorgeous on her own, but in black and white, with a pop of gold, she’s literally a work of art. Hers is a badass hooker, one not afraid to get her hands bloody, with or without a gun. But she has a softer side as well and shows it to the hulking Marv, who will never shake the impact her twin had on his heart.
What do you do when you fall in love with a trick who’s come to the real Sin City to drink himself to death? That’s the question Elizabeth Shue needs to confront as Sera in 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas.” A proper setting for this love story constricted in a veil of toxic shock.
Sera is beautiful, but convincingly frayed and edgy, as one must become walking the streets of the gambling playground. And while Jade’s experiences in Vegas orbit around more comedic travails in “The Hangover,” Shue’s takes decidedly gut-wrenching turns in and out of Nicholas Cage’s drunken arms.
She may be no Pam Anderson, but who is? And don’t call her “sloppy seconds” either. She is Luenell, one of Atlanta’s finest hos, whose blond hair and big smile could capture any man’s heart, be he American or Kazakhstani.
It turns out Luenell, played by Luenell, doesn’t need a to be stuffed into a traditional marriage sack to show her love for Borat. She’s just another hooker on this list who’s romantic soul neutralizes her john, sending them both off arm and arm, happily ever after. In this case to Kazakhstan, perhaps the happiest place on earth.
The worlds that Martin Scorsese creates in his films are dangerous ones, where women often are left to bear the brunt of the consequences of men’s misdeeds. As 12-year-old prostitute Iris, Jodie Foster may be the most vulnerable example, the most deluded and naïve. To her rescue is DeNiro’s Travis Bickle, who just happens to be the silver screen’s most controversial antihero.
The hot underbelly boiling beneath New York City is a frequent subject captured throughout film’s history, and “Taxi Driver” sits at the top this list. While Iris’s age and devotion to her chosen profession is tragic enough, the bloody climax in “Taxi Driver” proves this underbelly is no place for a child, whatever circumstance brought her there.
She’s a hooker with a pimp-sized sense of humor, that’s for sure. In “Porky’s”-the holy grail of ’80s sex comedies-pranks abound, and one of the most intricate features Cherry Forever, a working girl who, despite her name, has been around a block or two.
Susan Clark plays the co-conspirator with a sexy swagger, complete with fishnets and cherry red lingerie. The “Porky’s” boys are quickly coaxed out of their clothes in the hopes of making it with this hot mamacita. But their buddies have set them up, and Cherry’s machete wielding jealous “husband” sends them all running, naked and afraid.
Unlike the other ladies on our list, love doesn’t find Cherry Forever. She’s just there for kicks and to get a job done. She may not grab hold of your heart, but she’s the kinda whore you can always depend on.
Aileen Wournos may also inhabit Cherry Forever’s state of Florida, but their paths are quite different. 2003’s “Monster” details the true story of the Sunshine State’s infamous female serial killer or men. And the gorgeous Charlize Theron loses all her beauty to portray this haggard, psychotic prostitute in an Oscar-winning performance.
There are no men to come to Aileen’s rescue and no rescue for the men who cross her murderous path. Even Aileen’s true love only seems to create problems for her. The film portrays a hooker without the Hollywood gloss or even manicured edginess. There is no fairy tale here, just a bleak portrait of what once really happened to a woman whose life as a streetwalker literally turned her into a monster.
