The Story of Adela H.

To much of Broadway, she is Adela the angel, the flamboyant, chestnut-haired Spanish beauty who helped bring a struggling little show called Hair to the Great White Way--and thence to the whole world--by investing $57,000 in it in 1967. That strategic infusion, claims Adela LaFora Holzer, earned her $2 million. It also earned her a heap of fame among show biz folk and set her on the road to becoming a big-time theatrical producer. Actors, agents, composers, publishers--and, of course, psychiatrists--loved to mix with Adela and her third husband, Peter Holzer, who at one time or another has owned shipping and freight-forwarding companies. Everything about Adela, who claims to be 43, reeks of wealth: her multicarat jewels, her Halston gowns, her Manhattan town house (the taxes alone are $14,-000), her country home in New Jersey, complete with pool, sauna, gym and tennis court. So when Adela started jabbering to her friends about ingenious ways of making money, they listened.

And talk she did. In her galloping, heavily accented English, she liked to say: "Banks tell me I am a top business person. They say to me, you have such a mind. The bankers can't even follow." Adela spun sugarplum stories of wonderful "deals" through which she could help people multiply their money by buying land in Spain and selling it for huge markups, or by shipping Japanese cars to Indonesia, or by getting into the import-export trade. And a lot of folks, credulous and captivated, begged to get in on the action.

Off-Broadway. Lately the authorities also have become fascinated by Holzer's off-Broadway affairs. New York Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz is investigating. Last week the Wall Street Journal splashed the story of her business affairs on Page One, reporting that Holzer talked friends into putting about $10 million into foreign ventures, many of which are hard to track down. (Holzer says the total is closer to $2.5 million.)

Some of the investors did nicely indeed; New York Book Publisher Norman Monash, who plans to bring out Adela's heavily edited autobiography, says she helped him turn $50,000 into $190,000 in 13 months, though there is now a little problem about retrieving funds (from a recent real estate deal) that are blocked in Spain. But others have done much less well, and quite a few are afraid that they will never see their money again.

A research librarian heard about Holzer's wizardry through a friend and invested $2,500 in what she understood was a "cement deal." The first $600 in profits was to have been mailed to her more than a year ago; so far she has not seen a cent. Guillermo Seco, a Manhattan physician, made a $35,000 investment through Holzer, who, he claims, sent him glowing earnings reports of the venture. But when it came time to collect his profits, he could not. He sued and won a court judgment of $181,018. Holzer declines to discuss details of precisely how her businesses work. But for Seco's complaint she has little regard: "With $35,000 invested, he already was getting back $180,000 in three years!"

A psychiatrist claims that she and her husband invested in a land deal with Holzer and made a "fantastic" profit --but were charmed right out of it. Says she of Holzer: "Adela gave us a check for $100,000. Then she started to cry about how people were harassing her, and her life was in danger, and she was desperately in need of money. So my husband, who is also a psychiatrist, endorsed the check and gave it right back to her."

Holzer, says the wife, sank that money into two land ventures in Spain, for which she raised a reported $1.9 million from more than 50 investors in the New York area. The psychiatrist became suspicious when she did not receive payment checks on schedule. Three weeks ago, she flew to Spain where, she says, she discovered that Holzer's businessman father had bought a small piece of land in his daughter's name for $50,000 or $60,000--nowhere near what was supposedly invested.

For her part, Holzer concedes that there have been problems. She contends that, for example, she has had trouble getting money out of Indonesia because of political turmoil there. As she told TIME Correspondent Mary Cronin: "I know many people have not received profits from last year. But most people have made three or four times their money. They have become very greedy. One day I will write a book about greed."

Holzer vigorously denies accusations that she might have put part of the money into her Broadway productions. Her theatrical ventures have been largely a case of Hair today, gone tomorrow. Since that hit, she has produced or invested heavily in more than a dozen shows, of which only two, Sherlock Holmes and Sleuth, made money. She and other backers lost lavishly on her big productions--for example, $800,000 on Dude and $500,000 on Brainchild. So where has she got the money to cover her losses? She claims that business acumen has pulled her through.

Undaunted, Holzer was talking last week of producing a new musical, Merton of the Movies, and a play, Dirty Jokes. Protesting her lack of guile, Adela says: "I always help people, and I am getting always in problems for helping. But you see. In six weeks, it all be straightened out. Now I have good lawyers."

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