Edna Chadwell, former brothel madam, dies

HOUSTON -- The last madam of the famous Texas brothel that inspired the movie and Broadway show "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" has died in Phoenix. She was 84.

Edna Milton Chadwell, the last owner of the Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange, Texas, died Feb. 25. She had been in the hospital since a car accident in October, a nephew, Robert Kleffman, said.

Chadwell began working at the Chicken Ranch in 1952, Kleffman said. Within three years, she had become the manager. In 1962, she bought the establishment and ran it until Texas' governor ordered police to shut it down after a 1973 TV story.

A short time later Chadwell moved to Arizona, where she got married and remained until she died.

Chadwell didn't often talk about the brothel, Kleffman said. She wasn't ashamed, he said, but didn't want the notoriety. "She was a hard-nosed lady. She was very straightforward, didn't put up with no monkey business, no nonsense," Kleffman said.

Chadwell dreamed of ghostwriting a book about the Chicken Ranch, he said, but was determined to wait until everyone involved had died. She never did write the book -- something she wanted to do partly to set the record straight.

"The only thing in the movie that was correct was that there was a whorehouse," Kleffman said his aunt would often say.

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