Hazel Davidson spent decades breaking hearts and wallets as Knoxville's glamorous madame and self-proclaimed playgirl.
There are many stories about Davidson, and she told plenty of them herself. As a longtime central feature of city gossip, it's sometimes difficult to parse which are true. The fact that she was spirited, known for her quips and quick wit, only complicated that. When a Knoxville News Sentinel reporter interviewed her in 1986, he noted at one point it was difficult to tell if she was joking.
But we do know she loomed large, both in personality and in action. She claimed to have met Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Marilyn Monroe − and to have dated Joe DiMaggio, too. The great love of her life, however, was
her poodle Peppy, who was known to have his nails painted to match Davidson's signature blue.
One rumor said she brought Peppy to church one Sunday, and he enthusiastically greeted many men in attendance, having met them previously under less, ahem, faithful circumstances.
Davidson's ascent (or maybe descent) to madame
From a young age, Davidson had aspirations. She loved to look at magazines about Hollywood, browsing pages of movie stars and the goings-on of the rich and famous. She never wanted to act, though. She just wanted the lifestyle.
Davidson went to Rush Strong High School in Strawberry Plains and married for the first time (out of six total) in 1942 when she was just 18. She started drinking by 19 and was quick to identify as an alcoholic, but never a hooker. "I am a woman of the world," she told the News Sentinel's Barbara Aston-Wash in 1978. "I never charged for favors. I just went with men. ... I didn't ask them for funds or expensive presents. They gave them to me because they wanted to."
The response to that 1978 article was caustic. Readers canceled their subscriptions. One horrified woman wrote to the editor about her "utter disgust" with the piece, and many expressed concern over the "young girls of an impressionable age" who might be inspired by Davidson's luxurious way of living.
Davidson attended Carson-Newman College, where she studied the Bible ("the Lord and I are not strangers," she said in 1978), then McAdams Finishing School, where she studied modeling. She went on to rub elbows in Italy, New York and Miami.
She sometimes told a story about how she was set on the course to madame-hood. It was during a spring break vacation with her friend Betty in New Orleans, according to a 1986 article. Betty's boyfriend left $20 behind on his way out from the room. When Davidson called to tell him, he said it was "for the good time." That was Davidson's inspiration: "I said, 'Oh my, we've got it now. You can get paid for it.' I told Betty, 'I'll be the manager; you do the work. There'll be no more giving it free."
That day, Davidson also told the News Sentinel, "Some housewives might not think so, but I saved a lot of their marriages."
Legal battles and failing health put an end to playgirl glamour
Despite the furs and the fame, Davidson didn't see her life as all glitter and gold. She told Aston-Wash in 1978 she had no regrets, and even said she felt she'd done "more good than harm" in life, but in the same interview she offered a glimpse into the darkness beneath the manicured surface. "I've never been happy," she said. "Not as a child. Not when I grew up. Not now. Not ever."
Given the legal issues with her line of work, it's no surprise Davidson faced numerous run-ins with the law − although one 1986 editorial headlined "It's about time!" questioned why it had taken so long for her to face charges, given her activities were far from secret. That year, she spent six days in jail for contempt of court for drinking in the courtroom the year before.
She then served six months on a misdemeanor conviction for aiding and abetting prostitution and operating a brothel, and was released in December 1987. She was at that point facing a felony charge of promoting prostitution involving minors, and was waiting on a hearing that would determine if she was competent to stand trial. In 1989, those charges were retired because of her poor health. At the time, she was living in a nursing home. When Davison died in 1999, the service was invitation-only.
Hayden Dunbar Evans is the storyteller reporter. Email: hayden.dunbar@knoxnews.com. Instagram: @knoxstoryteller.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Hazel Davidson ran Knoxville brothels as notorious, glamorous madame
