The incredible life of Stormy Summers - the audacious red light legend

Stormy Summers, the legendary madam who defied decades of efforts to evict her from her city brothel, has died days before her birthday.

Brothel owner turned political candidate Stormy Summers standing next to her car outside Parliament House in 2000.

Australia’s most famous madam, Stormy Summers, has died, three days short of her 78th birthday.

Stormy passed away at the Lyell McEwin Hospital on Sunday night after a short illness.

Close friend Martin Herren says it came as a huge shock.

“I spent three hours with her on Saturday night and she appeared to be on the mend,” he says.

“I’m heartbroken.”

An icon of our city, Stormy Summers will be remembered by many as a controversial brothel owner with close bikie and underworld links who audaciously ran for lord Mayor and parliament and had occasional run ins with police.

She was the colourful character who drove our streets in a black BMW she won at the casino, fitted out with the number plates STORMY.

And she was a cheeky want to be politician with the slogan “Put your tick in my box”.

She wanted “those bastards” to call her “The Honourable Stormy Summers” and in many ways she was.

Stormy Summers was kind-hearted, generous and courageous.

Gallery: Adelaide madam Stormy Summers’ colourful life in pictures

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She looked out for the underdog, particularly the homeless, even in the toughest times of her life. She understood people who were sad and lonely.

As a young news reporter, I had the privilege of getting to know her, and I loved it.

We first met back in 2006, a tumultuous time of her life when she was ordered out of her famous Waymouth St building, overlooking Light Square, because of unpaid rent.

She trusted me and regularly took me, and often a cameraman, into her penthouse for interviews, cups of tea and some wonderful conversations.

It was an impressive place. I recall a huge spiral staircase and glitzy chandelier, leather sofas, a swimming pool and enormous master bedroom. She was fastidious about cleanliness, and it was always immaculate.

Stormy loved cigarettes and Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch but gave them both away 10 years ago.

She was great fun with a wicked sense of humour. She’d meet a man in a crowded room and say “you look familiar to me”, deliberately within earshot of others.

She knew I was intrigued by the goings on in the brothel below her penthouse and one day took me down to show me how to pole dance. I displayed no natural talent but we laughed until we cried.

Stormy had high standards for the girls she employed. Their health and safety was paramount. She didn’t tolerate drug use and cared for them like her own children.

In the lead up to her eviction from her Light Square home, she refused to step outside in case the locks were changed, vowing she’d only leave if she was “carried out in a coffin.”

But after a three-month legal bid to overturn the eviction order, the police moved in and she had no choice.

I was going interstate that day, but she begged me to stay and be on the inside with a camera as it all unfolded.

It was tempting but a journalist should never become part of the story and it was fortuitous I wasn’t there.

Her partner, former bouncer Mark Garner, threw a fire extinguisher through a fourth-floor window before threatening to use a large knife on himself and police. He was arrested and charged, and received a good behaviour bond.

I heard it all because as the siege escalated and Star Group officers raced in, Stormy called me to update me. I knew I shouldn’t have been there and that she legally had to go, but I always felt like I let her down that day.

She loved that place and was heartbroken to leave.

Her penthouse parties were legendary. Her 2003 wedding to her third husband, Garner, on the lawns of Light Square below her property, didn’t disappoint either.

Former Gypsy Jokers president Steve Williams gave her away amid a guest list of sex workers, politicians, bikies and drag queens.

Peter Goers was a guest.

“It was one of the greatest events I’ve ever experienced in Adelaide,” he says.

“Light Square was closed off to the public. She wore an op-shop dress with Juliette sleeves, the blushing bride, all in white with a 3-metre train.”

He wrote at the time about the “fairytale wedding of the decade.”

Stormy Summers outside Stormy's on Waymouth Street in 2000. Picture: Rachel Harris

“Stormy was coy, demure and gorgeous, flashing a brilliant smile with diamonds in her teeth.”

Goers met Stormy when she was running for lord mayor in 2000, her mission – to legalise prostitution and set up shelters for homeless children.

“She did it really well,” he says.

“We could have done worse for lord mayor and indeed have.

“I found her always unfailingly generous and happy to see you. She was a great Adelaide character and someone I had great affection and respect for.

“I loved her and I am very sorry at her passing.”

Veteran journalist Samela Harris says Stormy was a woman ahead of her time.

“She was as game as Ned Kelly and she got a really bad time from the Adelaide establishment which has remained wowserish,” she says.

“It was very hard to be Stormy.”

One of the hardest times of Stormy’s life was losing her son Jason in 2000. It was an unbearable loss that she carried for the rest of her life and was still visiting his grave at Centennial Park up until a few days ago.

Stormy Summers emigrated to Australia from Holland in 1952. She was just a toddler.

Her family settled in Bathurst but Stormy left school at 16 and travelled to New Zealand where she began dancing.

She later worked in Sydney, stripping and dancing on Kings Cross.

In the 1960s she toured Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam, performing on stage with comedian Bob Hope for US troops.

Then came Stormy’s Review, her first strip club in Adelaide in the early ’70s.

Adelaide born actor Benedict Samuel has spent the last 12 months working with Stormy on a documentary about her life.

Stormy Summers waves from the roof her Waymouth Street brothel while preventing police from entering and enforcing an eviction order in 2006.

An undated Adelaide brothel owner Stormy Summers as a striptease artist.

“I just thought it was a story about a woman who came at the world in a completely different way to most people,” he says.

“She was ahead of her time when it came to sex workers’ rights.

“She cared for and helped so many people. Until the end of her life, she made an effort to help as many people as she possibly could, despite her own struggles.

“For someone who was often painted in a bad light, she didn’t go about shouting her good deeds, she was inspirational.”

Close friend Martin Herren was at the hospital moments after she passed away on Sunday night.

“It doesn’t feel real,” he says. “I can’t picture a time without her.”

“She had a heart as big as Texas, she was one of the most giving people you’d ever met.”

When the Grand Hotel refurbished in the early 2000s, Martin says Stormy bought all their blankets and then drove around the city parklands, giving them to the homeless.

Stormy’s marriage to Mark Garner didn’t last but up until last week, she was still his carer.

She was living in a housing trust home at Salisbury North and despite a life of many highs and lows, had found peace and happiness.

“She was so content,” Martin says.

“After the big fall when she lost the building, she got her pension and she carefully budgeted the rest.

“There was so little money but she was happy because there was no pressure, she knew she had a roof and an income.

“She used to say so many times how lucky she was.”

We are all the richer for having her.

Vale Stormy Summers, Adelaide will never forget you.