Tom Godfrey

p. 10

Hall of fame for Canada's hookers

Some may call it Canadiana.

Others, well, just a piece of history.

A list of Canada's "legendary whores" has been posted as a hall of fame on the Internet by CSIS — that's the Commercial Sex Information Service.

Heading the list of six is Penny Hoar: "Yes, that's my real name," said the onetime candidate for the Rhinoceros Party. T.O.-born Hoar, 46, who described herself as a "cross-dressing dominatrix," died in 1997.

Also featured is Elizabeth "Contessa" Spedding, 80, who CSIS claims is probably "Canada's oldest whore," having worked as a madam into her 70s.

She was "undoubtedly the country's most famous madam," her biography said. "She achieved a certain notoriety in Toronto in the late 1970s."

'Personal Favours'

Spedding began her career at 17 in Regina, with modelling gigs that led to doing "personal favours," said prostitute and Ryerson professor Gerald Hannon.

"She was poised, aristocratic and ambitious," Hannon wrote. She "was proud of her profession and taught her girls to take the same pride in their work."

Spedding bragged of a tryst with a former president of Mexico and turned down a fling with a U.S. president.

Others making the list were transsexual hooker Grayce "Candace" Baxter, 28. "Dom (dominatrix) was her favourite," his biography said. "She loved both men and women."

Then there's male hooker Danny Cockerline, 35; slain prostitute Pamela George, 28; and Fiona Stewart, 34, who was allegedly raped by police.

The site is www.walnet.org/csis/news/index.html
[Actually, it's www.walnet.org/csis/people/.]