Episode 04: Wonderful Things
Wealth can be both a blessing and a curse. It allows many to wander far and wide, and one soul has been wandering for an eternity.
The discovery of a lifetime almost didn’t happen, but when Howard Carter found King Tut’s tomb everything changed. Curses and mummies came with fame and fortune. Come see how the fortune behind the discovery also connects to our stories of heirs and heiresses, the Titanic and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Universal’s Mummy Franchise and Downton Abbey.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Publish Date: May 28, 2020
Length: 19:51
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Nightfall by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Nightfall – Sophisticated Jazz Classics
Section 2 Music: – I Double Dare You by Jack Harris & His Orchestra, Albums More Sophistication & Hits of the 30s
Section 3 Music: Top Hat, White Tie and Tails by Carroll Gibbons & Boy Friends, Album Sophistication – Songs of the Thirties
End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
AS THE MONEY BURNS
Podcast by Nicki Woodard
Episode 004 – Wonderful Things
00:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
AS THE MONEY BURNS is a deep exploration into the lives of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes and what happens when the Great Depression hits.
Each episode has three sections. Section 1 is a narrative story told with some creative license. Section 2 goes into the historical facts behind the scenario and analysis of sources. Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
00:29
Title
Wonderful Things
[Music fade out]
Episode Tag
00:31
Wealth can be both a blessing and a curse. It allows many to wander far and wide, and one soul has been wandering for an eternity.
00:40
[Music – Nightfall by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Nightfall – Sophisticated Jazz Classics]
Section 1 – Story
[Music fade out]
00:48
Date: November 26-27, 1922
Out in the bright desert light, gathers a small party – two middle aged British gentlemen and two young debutantes one British and the other American, and the expedition’s assistant.
It’s a day of nervous anticipation and excitement. Will they find riches or merely dirt?
In 3 days, they will officially open the tomb with the supervision of Egypt’s Department of Antiquities, but the waiting and the desire is far too great for these longtime Egyptian aficionados.
01:21
They go down the 16 steps carved into the bedrock. Above the first doorway is a seal with a distinct cartouche. Recently cleared of debris, the long narrow corridor descends into darkness.
It’s rather dark and solitary. The sound of their footsteps drowned out by the beating of their hearts. They reach another sealed doorway. The men inspect with caution.
The excavation has halted here while going through the proper approval channels.
At the top of the door, a small hole was punctured and resealed – remnant of long past intrusion. The leader opens it. A gush of hot air nearly blows out his candle. To be safe, he waves his candle to check for gases then peaks inside.
02:07
Behind him, his financial backer gasps, “Can you see anything?”
The leader’s eyes adjust as he waves the candlelight. “Yes, wonderful things.”
They carefully remove the previously broken and shoddily patched seals on the door. Making sure they cover up their own “unauthorized” intrusion later.
The risk is worth it. Unknowingly, they have entered the antechamber – a magnificent find in of itself. The last occupants were tomb raiders unable to haul most of the loot away and quickly abandoned 3 millennia ago, frozen in time and undisturbed until now.
02:51
The assistant Arthur runs in a cable providing a crude form of electricity illuminating gilded couches, thrones, and shrines. Already there’s more in this one small room than found at most entire sites.
They can hardly absorb all the riches when they notice the next doorway guarded by the two life-sized golden statues. The curiosities of the first chamber and the potential behind the next. Should they wait for the Egyptian official before proceeding forward? It’s almost too much to take in all at once. They opt not to break another seal until with authorities.
Like kids in a candy store, they can hardly decide what to look at, touch, or see before getting distracted with what’s next. In all the commotion, a smaller statue is knocked over and reveals a hidden hole in the wall, also from the earlier robbery.
The party murmurs amongst themselves shall they dare go in?
03:48
Beyond this hole, their decades long quest will finally be realized. Either disappointment or glory awaits them. Suspecting the latter, they forget the previous reservations as the rush of discovery compels them further.
The leader pulls back the statue breathing heavily. Through this hole, they can crawl in without disturbing the necessary decorum for the “official” event.
With one last look at each party member, they nod to go ahead. Petite Evelyn is the first to crawl in, followed by the expedition’s leader, then her more sickly father. They are followed by her American friend and raven-haired beauty Ava.
The small opening takes them directly into the inner chamber. The four dust themselves off and stand up waving their candles and lanterns.
04:36
Inside, the stale air is stifling hot and dusty. They adjust in both eyesight and breathing.
When awe overtakes them…
As the flicker of candlelight bounces around them, soon they are engulfed in the brilliance of an untold amount of glittering gold – strange animals, statues, wall paintings from floor to ceiling…
05:00
Archeologist Howard Carter smiles at his financial backer George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Lady Evelyn Herbert hugs her father, who is speechless.
Meanwhile the young American Ava Astor wanders over to the wall paintings, waving her light over a passage from the Book of the Dead.
05:18
[Sound effects – Eerie Short Twinkle – Eerie Orchestra Bells – Eerie Short Twinkle]
She feels someone watching her.
She turns around and spots a young raven-haired female who looks like her wearing a necklace of golden rams heads. The royal female reaches out her hand and steps forward only to be pulled back by a mummy returning her to the afterlife.
05:36
[Sound effects fades out]
As the apparition dissipates, the necklace remains.
Enchanted Ava caresses each individual rams head then carefully wraps the necklace around her neck. A burning sensation infuses her body and takes over.
Her trance is interrupted when Arthur Callender crawls in and joins the party. The others are all too occupied to notice anything but the splendor before them, especially the large sarcophagus of quartzite and rose granite.
06:05
And it is splendid without a doubt. They finally found it.
It’s the discovery of a lifetime – of many lifetimes.
Here they are in the inner chamber of King Tutankhamun, also popularly known as King Tut.
In just a few days, the rest of the world will learn about their amazing discovery. But until then, they’ll sneak in a couple more times to explore.
Who would blame them?
But wait, isn’t there a curse to worry about?
06:38
[Music – I Double Dare You by Jack Harris & His Orchestra, Albums More Sophistication & Hits of the 30s]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music fade out]
06:51
An Egyptian proverb states: To speak the name of the dead is to make him live again.
The discovery of King Tut’s tomb was without a doubt a defining moment of the Roaring Twenties. The excitement found its way into art and culture in a big way.
However the discovery itself almost didn’t happen.
In the Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter had been searching for the elusive find since 1907, only stopping for World War I. Now, he was under pressure to get results as he had received strict notice that this would be his final season funded by Lord Carnarvon.
07:26
On November 4, 1922, a young water boy tripped over a stone that would lead to one of the greatest archeological discoveries ever made. The stone and spilled water led to a set of steps leading down to a doorway.
The team of archeologists explored a little further but halted before opening. Howard Carter telegrammed Lord Carnarvon – “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations.” Lord Carnarvon with his daughter Evelyn were fast on a ship leaving England.
Carnarvon and Carter were only two of many hoping for financial success through discovery, but the recent British deal with Egypt meant that Egypt would own the findings. They had hoped to be grandfathered into the previous deal. They weren’t. This new deal was an effort to curtail the perpetual pillaging of ancient antiquities into foreign markets. Case in point – after the Napoleonic invasion, the Nineteenth Century saw a flush of mummy unwrapping parties, which is as gruesome as it sounds and a horrible desecration.
08:36
This new find of a very minor pharaoh with its unprecedented abundance of artifacts stunned and excited the masses and their imaginations all over again. A whole new wave of Egyptomania spread along with another prevalent but less tangible Egyptian commodity – curses.
Then the curse became real. Only a few months after the entering the tomb, Lord Carnarvon died on April 5, 1923. The cause of death was from a mosquito bite on the face that got infected when nicked by shaving.
09:08
Rumors of a curse came from several potential sources. First and foremost reporter Arthur Weigall commented at the ceremony back in February that he only gave Carnarvon 6 weeks to live – this was more from spite after being blocked from earlier access due to the Lord’s exclusive deal with J.J. Astor of the Times (London). Two weeks before Carnarvon’s death, romance novelist Marie Corelli claimed to quote prophetically from an obscure ancient book that “the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.” Even literary genius behind Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle implied Carnarvon’s death to have been caused by ‘elementals’ guarding the tomb. Other rumors imply Carter himself might have employed the myth of the curse as a way to ward off people sneaking in and stealing from the site or even possibly as publicity stunt to garner even more attention.
No matter, the idea took a stronghold. When an autopsy was performed on King Tut, they discovered a lesion on Tut’s face. Alas despite speculations, they were unable to identify if that matched the location of the now already buried Carnarvon’s fatal one.
10:19
The curse was said to kill off those who first entered the tomb. And in a slate of events, that seemed very likely – potential victims included Prince Ali Kamel Fahm Bey of Egypt shot by his wife in 1923, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid who supposedly X-rayed the mummy died mysteriously in 1924; the governor-general of the Sudan Sir Lee Stack was assassinated in Cairo in 1924; Arthur Mace of Carter’s excavation team, possibly died of arsenic poisoning in 1928; Carter’s secretary Richard Bethell was supposedly smothered in his hotel bed in 1929; and Bethell’s father committed suicide in 1930.
However most of the entrants lived at least 15-20 years later and had more ordinary causes of death. Overall 26 people were present at the official opening, and only 6 had died within 10 years. From the 22 at the opening of the sarcophagus, only 2 had passed, and for the 10 present at the mummy unwrapping in 1925, all were alive in 1934. Arthur Callender passed away in 1936. Howard Carter himself died of lymphoma in 1939. Evelyn lived until 1980, and her friend Ava had a relatively shorter life but still survived until 1956.
11:41
The latter 2 debutantes are of particular note. More blessed than cursed, the It Girl debutante of 1920 Evelyn married a British Earl later in 1923 and lived a charming life and was popular in horse racing circles with her husband.
Her friend Ava was not as fortunate. Ava was born in 1902 as Ava Alice Muriel Astor, she went by Alice (I’m using Ava as I have many Alice’s, and her mother Ava really won’t appear too much in our story). Ava is the older half sister of our recurring heir Jakey Astor, and a cousin to our It Girl debutante Louise Astor Van Alen as well as the J.J. Astor from the Times. All the Astors descended from the fur trader and Freemason John Jacob Astor, America’s first self-made multi-millionaire and whose descendants dominated both American and British High Societies.
12:34
Despite all the rumors about mummy curses, it seems the real cursed fortune lay with Ava’s family. A decade before the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, tragedy already struck in one of the most famous maritime disasters of the 20th Century – the Titanic.
Ava and Jakey along with their oldest brother Vincent lost their father John Jacob Astor IV. Returning with his second wife from their honeymoon to Egypt and Europe in 1912, he was the richest man to die on the Titanic. We will visit more of this tale, the will, and fortune later. Trust me there needs to be a few episodes to unpack it all. But for now, I shall note Ava received a relatively decent sum for an Astor female.
13:17
She was one of the first heiresses that enamored me when I began developing this story. For our heiresses, Ava is the shining example of what life could be when they come into their own fortunes. Adventure, travel, luxury, and married to handsome and charming Prince Serge Obolensky. She is also a cautionary tale. Ava was a restless spirit forever haunted. Her brothers faired not much better at all. In fact, their fortunes and lives all seemed cursed up until the end.
13:45
After her parents’ divorce in 1909, she grew up in Britain thus befriending the Carnarvon family. While I cannot locate her name so far in the records of those on specific King Tut events, her own biographies including her former husband’s reiterate the claim she was the 4th person to enter the tomb and always wore a special rams headed necklace discovered there. King Tut is always a part of her story, but she is not a part of his. Maybe she was there at the very beginning, maybe she wasn’t, maybe at a later trip. She was certainly more than connected to those involved, and it had been a personal defining experience of her life. She was also very into mysticism, and it was well known she believed herself to be a reincarnated Egyptian princess or priestess.
14:28
A cursed fate sealed twice. The Egyptian obsession with death leads to an obsession with life and reincarnation.
No wonder a newly developing art form takes inspiration from the themes of curses, mummies, and reincarnation. Hollywood and its growing cinema audience requires content, and reincarnating subjects and themes serves that need well.
14:50
Even pre-discovery, there was a 1918 silent film “Eyes of the Mummy Ma” directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring the screen siren Pola Negri as the titular reincarnated mummy. Despite being a very successful film star in several exotic roles, we today know of the dark Polish beauty more for her elaborate and overly dramatic performance at the funeral of her former lover – Rudolph Valentino. But that isn’t the only reason worth mentioning Pola, but that’s another storyline to resurrect later. If only our young heiresses had paid more attention to her fate.
15:25
After the King Tut discovery, the mummy motif and any associated curses were a hot commodity and by 1932 got its own series of creature features within the Universal Monster pantheon with Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr in the titular role.
I have warned you this is a very complicated tale I’m telling. Even the stories within the stories, there are larger interweaving connections. That silent film star Pola Negri, the literary genius Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and their personal fortunes will come up again.
The reincarnated themes and stories of cursed fortunes seem to run for all eternity.
16:03
[Music – Top Hat, White Tie and Tails by Carroll Gibbons & Boy Friends, Album Sophistication – Songs of the Thirties]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music fade out]
16:15
Alright, this is the episode I have been chomping at the bit to get out. With my spinning head, I’m trying really, really hard to focus and streamline, which is why I’m keeping episodes to small and consumable portions. So I don’t overload you with a tsunami of details nor burn myself out. And this episode is testing me in so many ways.
By now it’s more than obvious that Egypt, mummies, and King Tut capture the imagination. Years spent studying at the University of Chicago alongside Egyptology students and working on a History Channel documentary involving Egypt have led to other peripheral cultural insights. This episode was originally supposed to be about how the Art Deco style incorporates Egyptian elements. Those all can be discussed in a later episode because those fashion and art themes will recur.
What is more fun is how it connects to us all in what we can see, touch, or hear today. In writing this episode, the main recurring themes emerged as curses and reincarnation, and with that comes the many ways King Tut’s discovery and its participants live on.
17:16
King Tut exhibition continues to tour every decade or so, though the funerary mask stays safely in Egypt and protecting that heritage is vital. But on YouTube we can always treat ourselves to Steve Martin’s 1978 Saturday Night Live skit “King Tut song” or the 1986 musical hit “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles.
In 1999, Universal revitalized its Mummy franchise with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiss as leads. Weiss’s character Evelyn “Evie” Carnahan whose father is referenced as one of Egypt’s finest patrons and a famous explorer is of course an homage to Evelyn and her father Lord Carnarvon. The 2001 sequel Mummy Returns features the storyline of Evie being a reincarnated Egyptian princess – sounding awfully similar to Ava, though she unlikely serving as the inspiration for a long popular storyline on its own.
18:11
Even outside of Egyptian themed subject matter, the Carnarvon family have left another pop culture media legacy. Their stunning estate Highclere Castle served as the primary set for a popular British tv series and its more recent film reincarnation. More popularly known to fans as Downton Abbey.
Curses and reincarnation are popular themes, but the real dangers lie a little closer. Too bad, another Egyptian proverb seems to get ignored:
Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion.
One last note, let’s not forget there is a vital source of life within all of us. Please if possible when you feel safe and ready, consider donating your blood. Many blood donation drives were cancelled or on hold causing shortages. The Red Cross website can help you locate and schedule an appointment safely in your area.
Hook
19:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
We must leave the land of pyramids and return to our story where a pyramid scheme is already in play. It seems one enduring curse to a large fortune is a financial scam, and there are plenty of victims lining up.
Until then…
Credits
19:18
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written and produced by Nicki Woodard, based on historical research. Archival music has been provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, check out their website at www.pastperfect.com.
19:48
THE END