Episode 121: Kissless
Young love burns bright and impulsively as an heiress runs off to marry her prince, only to regret it days later.
#BarbaraHutton, #PrinceRospigliosi, #PrinceCaravita, #Americandollarprincess, #elopement, #rebound, #unconsumated, #annulment, #kidnappingthreat
August 1933, Janet Snowden finally meets her very own Prince Caravita and rushes into marriage. When days later she has a sudden change of heart, their story is all over the press, and her life gets into danger.
Other people and subjects include: Barbara Hutton, Prince Alexis Mdivani, Louise Van Alen, Doris Duke, Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, Evalyn Walsh McLean, Huntington Hartford, Frank Shields, Prince Girolamo “Jerome” Rospigliosi, Marian Snowden, Mrs. Marian Adair Snowden Davidson – Mrs. Walter Davidson, Commander Walter Davidson, Janet Snowden, Prince Don Francesco di Sirignano Caravita of Naples, Prince John de Braganza of Portugal , Princess Anita Stewart de Braganza (Miguel de Braganza), Alva Vanderbilt, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duke of Marlborough, William Vanderbilt, Oliver Belmont, Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill, Boniface “Boni” de Castellane, Anna Gould, Marquis of Talleyrand-Perigord – Duke of Sagan, Friederick Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Mrs. Edith Crockett, Supreme Justice George Taylor, Jr., Hugh Herbert, Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Will Rogers, Al Jolson, 1927 The Jazz Singer, blackface, American dollar princess, Great Depression, Prohibition, the Gilded Age, dispossessed royalty, elopement, minor, annulment, romantic friendship, kidnapping threat, ocean liner Rex, Manhattan, Newport, Rhode Island, Westchester, Florence, Italy, Savoy Plaza Hotel, Allerton House for Women, champagne party, speakeasy, history from female perspective, seeking male side of story, euphemisms, virginal, unconsummated, impotency, gay or bearded marriage, bride, starlet, star, alienation of affection, rebound relationship, heartbreak, scandal, modern dating dilemmas, return to dating, dating on the rebound, Jennifer Lopez, Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, Anna Bey…
Archival Music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Extra Notes / Call to Action:
Anna Bey Official YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@AnnaBeyOfficial
I Chased Society’s Idea of “Success” & Lost Who I Am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacGU5ofwlo
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Publish Date: November 21, 2024
Length: 21:30
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Sweet Sixteen And Never Been Kissed by Blue Mountaineers, Albums The Great Dance Bands & Play Hits of the 30s
Section 2 Music: Let’s Do It by Arthur Rosebery & His Kit-Cat Dance Band, Album Fascinating
Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s
Section 3 Music: Ain’t She Sweet by Piccadilly Revels Band, Album Charleston – Great Stars Of the 20s
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 121 – Kissless
Outline
Elopement
Annulment
00:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast by Nicki Woodard. Based on historical research, this is a deep exploration into what happened to a set of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes when the Great Depression hits.
Each episode has three primary sections. Section 1 is a narrative story. Section 2 goes deeper into the historical facts. Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.
Story Recap
Jakey Astor turns 21 and gains a fortune, while Doris Duke flirts with new potential mates.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:43
Kissless
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
Young love burns bright and impulsively as an heiress runs off to marry her prince, only to regret it days later.
01:02
[Music – Sweet Sixteen And Never Been Kissed by Blue Mountaineers, Albums The Great Dance Bands & Play Hits of the 30s]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:19
Young and impetuous love is bold and swift. They say marry in haste and repent in leisure, but maybe it should be marry at leisure and repent in haste.
The widely celebrated marriage and grand wedding of a slimming down rising fashionista heiress Barbara Hutton and her no longer impoverished Russian Prince Alexis Mdivani has emboldened a rush of romantic fantasies of happily ever afters. A beacon of light amidst the worldwide ongoing Great Depression. Thousands flocked just to catch a glimpse, and the overly excited crowd turned into a mob.
02:02
The decades long tradition for American heiresses marrying less flush European nobility began during America’s Gilded Age and still appeals in the current dire circumstances. However more caution and criticism are rising over the American dollar princesses.
But young ladies women raised on fairy tales always love the idea of becoming a princess. A fantasy that supersedes and still fuels the trend. Barbara’s public glamorous life has lit a match in those wanting a royal romance of their own. Ohh, if they only knew her real truth.
02:39
A young idealistic heiress 19 year old Janet Snowden seems to have caught the fever. Not only does she admire Barbara, but her sister Marian Snowden married Italian Prince Girolamo “Jerome” Rospigliosi. He too is the progeny of an American dollar princess marriage. Not so ironically, Jerome had been an ardent pursuer of Barbara a couple years back, and upon her refusal he immediately turned around and eloped with the young Marian in a small village church outside Rome. When the couple tried to arrive in the United States, Marian’s mother did all she could to block the prince and annul the marriage – Marian had been underage, technically a minor, unable to give consent in the United States. Despite the protests and court cases, Prince Jerome and Marian have remained happily married, with her mother eventually relenting to the match.
03:33
Now, Prince Jerome introduces his sister-in-law Janet to his friend, the dashing brown eyed 25 year old Italian Prince Don Francesco di Sirignano Caravita of Naples, an Italian sportsman, racer, and descendant from a centuries old Italian royal family and son of his Princely father’s second marriage to the former family governess. Prince Jerome introduces Janet to Prince Caravita aboard the Italian ocean liner Rex, when the latter arrives in America.
The foursome spent a night on the town, with the instant couple dancing over a dozen dances either at a champagne party or a speakeasy – mind you Prohibition is still enforce though waning. Within an hour, Prince Caravita proposes to Janet, and she accepts.
04:19
Thursday, August 17th, 1933, Manhattan
The next day Janet phones her mother in Newport. As the excitable heiress attempts to deliver the news, Mrs. Davidson replies, “Don’t tell me it is that whipper-snapper Italian Princeling that has just landed.”
Mrs. Davidson has made every attempt to get both her daughters accepted into society. Years back during the 1931 Newport summer, she held their debutante ball only to receive 6 acceptances out of the 70 invitations the day before – a colossal snub, thus immediately canceling the next evening’s plans and hosts the debut at a later date and location. Mrs. Davidson has made a little more headway since then, only to have her impulsive daughters rebelling against her well-laid plans for better marital matches.
05:15
Nervous that their mother would try the same tactics to prevent a marriage like had happened with Marian and Prince Rospigliosi, Janet makes an impulsive decision.
Less than 24 hours after meeting, the pretty and vivacious Janet elopes with Prince Caravita. Marian and Prince Jerome join the couple at the Municipal Building, pulling off the secret wedding while the bride’s mother remains unaware in Newport.
Quickly and by the next day, the press grabs onto the story. Publicly, Janet claims to have known her Prince for 5 years having met and had a small rather chaste romantic friendship while she attended school in Florence, Italy.
They spend their first two nights at Princess Marian and Prince Jerome’s Manhattan apartment. By the third day, the newlyweds headed to Westchester, and by the fourth night they checked into the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. By the fifth night, Janet flees to the Allerton House for Women, where no man passes beyond the mezzanine.
06:14
Monday, August 21st, 1933
Janet announces her intention to annul her marriage.
Even Marian is surprised by her younger sister’s sudden change of heart.
Janet claims her quick marriage was entered in fraud. Prince Caravita claims he has plenty of money and castles in Italy and promises her a monthly allowance of $300 (in 2024 that’s about $7,276). After their nuptials, he confesses that he lives on allowance governed by his own mother.
06:47
Furthermore, Janet claims that his kisses left her feeling cold and that as a lover he simply wasn’t there. She insists that they had not consummated their marriage within their brief period together. The newspapers grab a hold of the kissless tidbit and ask if the lover is a flop?
Hurt and a bit ego bruised, Prince Caravita suspects Janet is on the rebound and in love with another Prince John de Braganza, a pretender to the throne of Portugal and son of the popular widow and former American dollar Princess Anita Stewart de Braganza, who still makes her way around Newport and other elite spots.
07:29
Thursday, August 25th, 1933
Janet quickly heads to her mother Mrs. Walter Sherman Davidson in Poland Springs, Maine. Together they will work to get the marriage annulled.
There, a letter arrives to the hotel and is delivered to stepfather Commander Walter Sherman Davidson. The letter threatens to kidnap Janet and take her to Italy to reconcile with her husband. Immediately, the sheriff is notified, and protection is provided.
The letter is believed to be associated with a New York gang. It is written in good English and contains one odd phrase – “thus spake Zarathustra,” hence referencing the title of a work by Nietsche.
Janet seems unconcerned with the threat, while her parents are more cautious.
08:20
Saturday, August 26th, 1933
Janet and her parents head back to Manhattan. Janet’s guardian Mrs. Edith Crockett accompanies her and will file the suit for annulment to be heard in Westchester and Manhattan courts for future review by New York Supreme Court Justice George Taylor, Jr.
In his defense, Prince Caravita claims there was no fraud on his part, he does love her and takes marriage seriously, and hints that it was not kissless. However he quips it is best not to argue with such a lovely lady.
Janet is hoping that lying on her marriage certificate claiming she was 23 and in fact not her actual 19 yrs of age will provide a reasonable defense.
Future hint: It doesn’t.
Some impulsive decisions can take far longer to correct. Such is the price of rushed love…
09:21
[Music – Let’s Do It by Arthur Rosebery & His Kit-Cat Dance Band, Album Fascinating Rhythm – Great Hits of the 20s]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
09:33
The idea of this podcast partially spun out of my own romantic frustrations. While trying to rebuild my life and career, I stumbled across an article discussing a summer at Newport just before the 1929 Stock Market Crash. As I dug further in, I found all sorts of tales of young heiresses falling in love and their disastrous love lives. Of course, I was hooked.
I had previously known a little about the American dollar princess phenomenon, but only in small parts. Mostly, the references of Winston Churchill’s mother and trendsetter Jennie Jerome and a handful of a few others. Mostly tales from America’s Gilded Age, and none that readily caught my fancy too much. Surprisingly because I do love royalty and fairy tales, so this would definitely be in my wheelhouse.
10:23
In fact, most of the American dollar princess stories are of course told from the female perspective and rarely do the males get much attention at all. A more precursory rating based on a happy or unhappy marriage, with only the most scandalous getting any true depth, such as French Count Boniface de Castellane who married railroad heiress Anna Gould, only to divorce and for her to turn around and marry his cousin *Marquis of Talleyrand – Perigord, the Duke of Sagan.
This trend is encouraged by females like Alva Vanderbilt Belmont who forced her beautiful and desirable daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt into the unhappy marriage with the Duke of Marlborough. It was Alva’s way to re-establish her own fallen place in Society after her sudden divorce from William Vanderbilt to then quickly remarry Jewish millionaire Oliver Belmont.
11:14
As I dug into the trajectory of our main heiresses Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, and Louise Van Alen, I was struck at the prevalence of this trend still happening.
Now most of these tales are told from the side of the females Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke. Those heiresses garnered enough public attention to get 4 and 5 biographies written about them respectively. The most recent Silver Swan on Doris Duke published in 2020. Among our male regulars, Huntington Hartford and Frank Shields each has one biography. As for some of our elder heiresses, Evalyn Walsh McLean wrote her autobiography, and Marjorie Merriweather Post has 2 biographies.
11:53
Even back in the Gilded Age, many complained that American industrial dollars would go overseas to be wasted on dilapidated foreign estates or gambled away by their husbands. The Great Depression did not lesson that sentiment, and yet so many heiresses still held onto to the fantasy notion of being a princess in real life. The overabundance of dispossessed royalty after World War I overflooded the market during the 1920s.
12:17
Only now in these later years, the princes, counts, and other nobles aren’t typically of such high note. In fact, I struggle to find much information on these lesser men except in relation to their wives even in the newspapers. Prince Caravita is a case in point, where he only pops up in relation to his brief marriage to Janet Snowden even decades later. I only found two independent articles about him one in 1953 regarding a horse show and another in his 80s and still considered a charming ladies man.
12:52
Typically, when a new person pops up, I will do a reverse search to find their obituary or grave marker to see the outline of their life. Birth, death, marriages, children, and if possible career or notable achievements. I actually found this elopement story when writing about Janet’s sister Marian Snowden’s marriage to Prince Rospigliosi earlier this year. However I am limited to research in English and thus mostly American sources. So for those living or dying abroad and especially in non-English countries, it is nearly impossible for me to locate and confirm similar information. I can only find the range of Prince Caravita’s life on a website on his royal family and lineage – he lived from 1908 to 1998. Only the smallest bits of information are given in the articles on Janet Snowden, likely because their marriage was so short-lived. I am sure he is covered more in his own native Italian press.
13:51
However this kissless case of course becomes a sensation for the American newspapers. Even after their divorce is eventually granted, Prince Caravita is mentioned whenever Janet causes another scandal. Ahhh yes, Janet is a bit impetuous throughout her life, but we will visit more of that later.
14:10
Her quickie marriage, her sister’s rapid elopement, and Barbara Hutton and Louise Van Alen’s marriage to Prince Alexis Mdivani will all become fodder in the press over the next few years.
One October 1934 San Francisco Examiner featurette has the bold and actual title “Needs A Spanking More Than A Husband.” The article details several rebellious lesser known semi-heiresses impulsively marrying a truck driver and another a wrestler and of course Janet and her prince. The article also mentions that both Barbara and Louise remain unspanked for their own rushed marriages to the exact same prince. Despite what we think of a more prudish semi-censorious era, they could be quite bawdy, naughty, and humorous with the more casual interest stories.
15:04
The term “kissless” appears in 414 articles for 1933 and 533 articles in 1934. I should also note that the “kissless” reference has several connotations and is a seemingly popular euphemism for virginal, unconsummated, or loveless person or dynamic. A kissless bride or starlet – virginal, kissless bride or marriage – unconsummated union – possibly from impotency, maybe possibly a gay or bearded union,… Several articles on other divorces and annulments appear before and after Janet’s.
15:40
In more technical and professional situations, the kissless term can also refer to entertainment scenarios. Actor Hugh Herbert has a long standing 25 year career as the most kissless man in Hollywood until he finally stars in a Broadway play Faithless where Tallulah Bankhead chooses him over Robert Montgomery. Will Rogers claims he hates kissing scenes and prefers to remain kissless on screen. And lastly in 1934, Al Jolson finally gets his first onscreen kiss, long after his breakout role in 1927’s the Jazz Singer, the role for which he wore blackface though he himself is of Lithuanian origin.
Come on, you have to admit this podcast isn’t an ordinary history story. But at the same time, an amazing relatable and sometimes humorous glimpse into human nature.
No matter the era, young impulsive females will always seek love and find it, somewhat, forever more.
16:46
[Music – Ain’t She Sweet by Piccadilly Revels Band, Album Charleston – Great Stars Of the 20s]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
17:00
It can be pretty amazing the subjects and topics that can appear when looking at the past. So often we see history as a simple statement of facts mostly related to political, military, and occasionally technological, scientific, or career heights. Though at times, we can find more personal topics. Usually, topics that feel more like gossip but still relish and highlight ongoing circumstances.
Along with history, I have always been interested in psychology and human relations, especially when it relates to love both falling in and apart. The pain and joy and the consequences to all the above. Past topics of interest involve the alienation of affection, rebound, heartbreak, and the likes.
It’s amazing to see those same actual references and terms now back in the 1930s in what might feel like more current topics. But it was Prohibition that led to the dating culture and thus our more modern romantic dilemmas.
The search for love often brings heartbreak, even more so when that search is spurred by being on the rebound. It’s amazing what can happen.
18:08
I’ve long been interested in the rebound effect. When I returned to the dating scene after a 10 year absence, I met a few guys who definitely struggled when learning they were either the rebound or were trying to rebound themselves to recover from their own romantic rejections. The first guy I dated after my divorce had his own tailspin when he discovered his newly ex-wife’s very elongated blogs and Vines only to find out that he himself had been her rebound. Mind you those were written before they were married, she opined about the prior guy she dated and dumped her to marry his next female, thus the now ex-wife then turned around and quickly married my now ex. Then flakily later cheated and dumped him too. Irony, this was a British guy with an American girl, though neither was a royal nor heir / heiress. He had a spiraling freakout that led to our breakup – thankfully, it wasn’t a relationship that should have continued even without that factor.
19:14
Of course, our heavy celebrity media culture is ripe for covering rebound relationships especially if they come with quickie marriages and divorces. Jennifer Lopez has a string of both, Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears less than 55 hours marriage, and so on…
What always drew me and keeps me fascinated in these stories in this podcast are the elements of seduction and heartbreak. The curiosity of romance from another time period but also the accompanying deceit and scandal that persists.
When love and fortune mix, heartbreak often follows.
19:52
There are several YouTubers I occasionally follow from time to time as certain topics strike my fancy. One lovely lady is Anna Bey, whose channel was formerly the School of Affluence. She covers multiple topics of leveling up in life both in material wealth, social circles, and personal well-being. Recently, she has taken a bit of a turn to focus on a calmer and less glamorous life and downsizing away from the more frenetic highlife. She and her husband have relocated to a ranch life existence. If you have interest in more of her earlier lifestyle work or why she is going through recent changes, check out Anna Bey Official YouTube Channel.
Links in the notes and transcript.
I Chased Society’s Idea of “Success” & Lost Who I Am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacGU5ofwlo
https://www.youtube.com/@AnnaBeyOfficial
If you enjoy As The Money Burns, then please share, like, & subscribe.
Hook
20:42
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
Fiery passion not only infects the young but the old as well, including one heir’s mother caught up in another scandalous affair.
Until then…
Credits
21:00
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written, produced, and voiced 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.
Please come visit us at As The Money Burns via Goodpods, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook (now Meta), or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
21:30
THE END.