Episode 37: Out of Bounds
Summer is in full swing in Newport, though the Crash has definitely taken its toll on this year’s colonists. Many wait in anticipation as the unlikely debutante of her season prepares to come out during none other than tennis week.
After bowing at Buckingham Palace, Doris Duke becomes THE Debutante of Her Season, while her friend Barbara Hutton also a debutante this season remains on the sidelines. During Newport’s Tennis Week, Doris is center of attention as her party is a few days away but then something happens that might change her new found popularity.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Publish Date: August 05, 2021
Length: 20:58
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: I Feel Like A Feather In The Breeze by Carroll Gibbons, Album The Age of Style – Hits from the 30s
Section 2 Music: Hesitation Blues by Nat Gonella & His New Georgians, Album Perfect Blues
Section 3 Music: Hep! Hep! Jumpin’ Jive by Nat Gonella & His New Georgians, Album Dance Crazy
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 037 – Out of Bounds
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.
00:28
Story Recap
Teen heiresses Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke have been waiting for their debutante balls. Now after all the preparations, the time has finally come. Will all their hopes and dreams finally come true?
00:43
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
Out of Bounds
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
00:51
Summer is in full swing in Newport, though the Crash has definitely taken its toll on this year’s colonists. Many wait in anticipation as the unlikely debutante of her season prepares to come out during none other than tennis week.
01:06
[Music – I Feel Like A Feather In The Breeze by Carroll Gibbons, Album The Age of Style – Hits from the 30s]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:17
There she is strutting about among this season’s Colonists. Whom are we speaking?
She’s the Debutante of Her Season.
Glamorous
Exciting
Beautiful
All the girls want to be her friend.
All the guys will ask her to dance.
That’s right.
There’s one for every season.
Louise Van Alen was last year’s It Girl.
And this year’s?
Is none other than drumroll, please…..
Doris Duke
01:48
Wait… What? Doris Duke? That awkward girl from last summer, who flashed everyone in her white unlined bathing suit at Bailey’s Beach. The tall girl who wears her petite mother’s hand me down clothes that are several inches too short and ill-fitted.
How did she become the number one debutante of her season? Simply, she did what so few Americans debutantes get to do – in spring she bowed at Buckingham Palace in front of Great Britain’s King George V and Queen Mary. She may have even danced with the handsome Prince of Wales David.
02:22
No other debutante can match that success. Well, okay, there were like 9 other single American ladies and a few married that did it this year too. A total of 17 Americans event among the 800 international females presented over the two day event.
But the Richest Girl in the World plus Buckingham Palace equals Debutante of Her Season.
So how is Doris handling all this new found popularity?
Quite well, it seems. She’s featured continuously in the papers. Photographs included.
They talk about her fashion APPROVED, her whereabouts SO HAPPENING, her studies at the Sorbonne SOPHISTICATED, Buckingham OF COURSE, her fortune ALWAYS, and her upcoming party – at Rough Point Newport, Rhode Island on August 23rd is a CAN’T MISS.
03:14
Doris makes the social rounds. Bar Harbor for sailing, Southampton for tennis, Saratoga for the horse races. And back down to Newport for polo and tennis.
Early in August, at Southampton, Mrs. Rufus Patterson holds a luncheon for Doris. The two became better acquainted in London during the palace fervor. Doris favors the more lively and less restrictive existence of Southampton, but her ambitious mother Nanaline insists they return to Newport for the formal debut party. It has become fashionable since the Wall Street Crash to have more demure suburban or away parties to not be so crass and flashy in these darker times.
03:52
Thus Newport is perfect. That glimmering jewel where the elite have summered since post Civil War era. Though famed party thrower Elsa Maxwell refers to it as “the city of the living dead.”
The Crash wiped out fortunes, but those still standing here seem immune. But are they really? Definitely, there are those missing. Whispers abound.
Dowager widow Alice Vanderbilt is not at Breakers this season, but she has only been opening the cottage every other season over the last few years. And this will not be the year since she appeared in 1929.
The Goelets, the Astors, other Vanderbilts, and the Van Alens definitely remain ensconced on their Society thrones. The third largest event planned for this summer season will be none other than Doris’s debut. Many have come all the way here just to attend, including Hope Diamond owner Evalyn Walsh McLean and New York psychiatrist Dr. Richard Hoffman.
04:46
Arriving at the Newport Tennis Casino, Doris is photographed being escorted by a handsome young man. Is he a paramour or security guard? Rumors link her to heir to two fortunes and recently divorced Jimmy Cromwell as well as the younger Sailing Baruch. Doris’s Newport neighbor Huntington Hartford is amiss, but that is due to an academic scandal not involving loss of fortune. Otherwise, it is so unlike his mother Henrietta to not be at such a grand event.
Henrietta is eyeing Doris as a match for Huntington, while Evalyn Walsh McLean and Eva Stotesbury have definite intentions for Doris with Eva’s son Jimmy.
05:23
There’s a pep in Doris’s step. She definitely revels in the attention. When she enters the casino, she unknowingly breezes past her friend the chubby budding fashionista Barbara Hutton, who will also be making her own debut later in the year.
All the commotion surrounding this year’s It Girl, definitely catches Barbara’s attention, but she is still quite surprised when she finally sees Doris in person.
In the locker room, previously snobbish girls are actually talking with Doris. It’s mundane chatter, but nonetheless it is acknowledgement. Barbara is still quite overlooked. When Doris emerges to play her next match in tennis whites, she bumps into Barbara. They exchange a cordial hello before the pseudo entourage whisks Doris out to the courts.
06:06
In the stands, Barbara watches the match along with the Van Alen brothers Henry and Sam and their sister previous It Girl Louise Van Alen. Barbara and Louise are still tense over the somewhat missing Prince Alexis Mdivani, off playing polo elsewhere but forever in their hearts and minds. Mid match, teen tennis sensation Frank Shields joins them in the stands in between his own competitive sets. He waves over to major tennis pro and Wimbledon champion Bill Tilden who watches the match next to Jimmy.
They all watch as Doris shows off her remarkable tennis skills. Is this the same awkward girl who always seems to muck things up? Everything about Doris is different. She practically glows.
Winning the match, Doris is celebrated yet again.
06:50
Barbara feels pushed into the shadows. She should be happy for her friend, right? But what is this awful growing sensation in her belly? Could she actually be jealous and envious of Doris Duke?
Barbara wrestles with these uncomfortable feelings. This is a good sign. If Doris becomes popular, that means Barbara will too. Barbara’s time will come eventually.
Late in the evening in her private room, Doris pulls out a scrapbook and pastes a few articles about her. She smiles over the words describing her transformation. She’s only a couple days away from her debut, and it is all coming together like a fairy tale come true. She has even secured as her escort the handsome blond Adonis – Jimmy Cromwell. Former ugly duckling with a sophisticated and worldly older man.
She is going to be the belle of the ball, even better the belle of the season.
07:48
Next day, in the glaring sunlight, Doris is ready for the competition. She’s a winner now after all. She slams the spinning ball into a mean great serve over the net. The game is in play. She rushes about the court. Her long lean 5’8” frame allows her to reach complex shots just in time. Returning shots, she hits a forehand then backhand. A fast and speedy ballet. Maybe she should become a professional tennis player.
Her crowd of admirers cheer. She has fans of a sort and from actual members of the elite. She concentrates on the game. She’s a competitor. Fierce, focused, nothing seems out of bounds for where she can go and what she can do next. She’s not on the outside anymore. There are no more limits.
08:37
Concentrate.
Now it’s time for game point, the ball flies into play. Swish, Pop, Plunk… Doris scrambles over the grassy court. When her ankle wobbles, she pushes forward then stumbles.
Oh no, everything reduces to slow motion.
She can’t fall like this.
She fights to stand up, but her leg is shaky.
Her lower calf goes right when her thigh goes left.
She pushes to stand but hears a pop and her knee buckles.
Doris crumples onto the ground on top of the white border line missing the shot. Unable to break her fall, her chin bounces off the grassy court.
Frank and the Van Alen brothers rush to her aid. She turns over. Tears stream down her ice blue eyes. She grabs her leg and knee.
The pain sears as Frank scoops her up and carries her off the field.
Barbara rushes behind them. How is it that Doris needs to be rescued again?
09:45
[Music – Hesitation Blues by Nat Gonella & His New Georgians, Album Perfect Blues]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
10:01
It might seem odd to realize that people can go about like life is normal during times of extreme crisis. Large multi-month and multi-year events like the Great Depression have always been presented as a big insurmountable obstacle. An unending nonstop duration of hard times.
And it was hard and long lasting for sure. But it took a while to get into what we know better as the Great Depression. The inciting incident the Wall Street Crash occurred on October 29th, 1929. And that was the day that the 1920s high flying fairly unregulated stock market came to a screeching halt. A panic led to a rush in selling socks, and the whole system came tumbling down.
10:43
Definitely, there was an immediate impact for a large group of people. Similar things like that had happened before. Dips in markets were generally followed by fast recoveries. However the entirety of the Great Depression was far more complex.
In that first year which was mainly 1930, people had hope that a recovery was just around the corner and well on its way. People wanted and expected a return to normal. Of course, the normal they wanted was an extreme high, and now they are in the midst of a long extreme down.
11:15
The delayed effect was surmounting as fall of 1930 approaches. It would be the later bank failures that would really spur the more desperate measures and life changes we’ve come to associate with the period. From 1930 through 1933, over 9,000 banks would fail plunging everyone deeper into the Great Depression. See Episode 26 Contagion for more details.
We want to think disaster happens predictably and at the same time suddenly. Instead it can come as a slow trickle building then exploding as an avalanche or tidal wave. Little things adding up, tiny cracks beneath the surface long before. But could they be stopped, averted, or like the many headed hydra in Greek mythology – is killing one only to be replaced with another or worse even more. A fatalistic, inevitable eventuality…
12:04
The summer of 1930 held on to the last vestige of hope. Though the rich decided to be a little more demure in their activities. Even the super rich weren’t sure they were completely safe, several had fallen, while others hide their losses praying for a recovery. Others flourished like American financier Bernard “Sailing” Baruch. By 1910, he amassed his fortune on the Stock Exchange but by 1927 realized the tide was turning. He wisely divested and changed his financial strategy then encouraged humorist Will Rogers to do the same. When they met shortly after the October 29th Crash, Rogers remarked to his old friend and advisor, “You saved my life.” Bernard’s son also nicknamed Sailing Junior would be linked to Doris Duke as a potential match.
12:52
In contrast without much chance of an immediate reversal in fortunes, the poor and middle class needing escapism began to pay more attention to the rich. The idea of an easy life was an irresistible mirage.
There were rumors of formerly wealthy girls selling their furs inside hotel lobbies or becoming department store salesclerks. This likely did happen, but I haven’t located any within the elite of the elites. Most likely those females would come from the upper middle class or lower tiered wealthy. The ones on the fragile border of both lifestyles, and where most of the boundaries get crossed.
13:26
The uber elite, the 1% within the 1%. They can lose their fortunes too, but it can take a lot longer time for their problems to surface in public. Wealth can hide and distract many things.
And therefore the rising popularity for two unlikely debutantes Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton. Presented like entertaining proof that fairy tales can come true. The American dream of wealth and prosperity to continue regardless of other circumstances. Already their names and faces appear first in society columns and women’s sections. Tiny mentions of fashion, whereabouts, and activities. Their debutante balls putting them on the forefront of people’s minds.
14:08
Elsewhere in adjoining columns or other newspaper sections, there are tidbits about the dangling economy. By early August, bank failures are beginning to be reported in the middle west and Florida. Within the first 10 months of 1930, 744 banks will fail. The tip of a very large avalanche yet to come.
Why does it take so long? Merely, there is a delay in the process. Small term defaults lead to larger defaults, and up and up it goes until the whole system crashes. Take the current pandemic moratorium on rents. It was a temporary stop measure that is now almost 18 months long. The tenant loses work and can’t pay rent, the landlord goes into debt and can’t pay his loans, with loans unpaid then the lender has issues, their larger financial backer suffers losses.
The problems don’t always trickle down. They can trickle up as well.
14:58
And then there is the façade of wealth. The immunity from small problems that wreck the poor and middle class. A flat tire, a rent payment, an overdue bill, an injury… Surely people living in million dollar homes have it all without those worries.
Thus the misery of the masses fuel the desire of a better life. They are sold the dream through advertising, news reports, and today social media. Experts claiming it’s all behind them. Things are back on the rise and improving. But is it really?
15:33
Are we behind the worst or is there more that might still come from this pandemic and the changes that have already occurred? What more is in store economically, socially, and biologically?
Can we learn the lessons needed in time to thwart another Great Depression? Or are we so far into it, there is no turning back. The inevitable.
15:54
[Music – Hep! Hep! Jumpin’ Jive by Nat Gonella & His New Georgians, Album Dance Crazy]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
16:13
The first form of celebrity in the expanding media world came during the time of the Great Depression with the wealthy. It wasn’t the silver screens of Hollywood but the gold in the bank that caught people’s attention and envy.
That envy comes with sharp edge. We want to buy into a dream. A goal of sorts to fixate on as we wade our way through problems to reach the paradise at the end.
What happens if that destination isn’t the utopia we so hoped it would be?
Why are we so invested in the lives of people far removed from us?
16:45
Case in point, several incidents recently involving sports and particularly female athletes. In an era, where there are issues in defining what is female and therefore allowed to participate in specific athletic competitions. The definition is widening.
Yet due to events within July 2021, we are instead now focusing on two female athletes in the news for different reasons. Withdrawal from their individual sports during their most important and title defining competitions.
Wimbledon and the Olympics.
17:15
The glory moments so many dream and will never come remotely close to competing in.
Enter Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles. Naomi has a Netflix documentary, and Simone has a television movie and plenty of documentaries. Last month, both withdrew from their major competitions citing mental health issues.
Unleashing the flood of more media attention and the public commenting on them. People who probably wouldn’t be paying attention now have an opinion. Speculations to the nature and timing of the athletes’ claims. Criticism and praise.
A barrage of perspectives from those outside the fishbowl life. Both young women have earned accolades in their sports. Already they have overcome tremendous odds. We have seemingly been given plenty if not more than enough information about them.
We think we know them. We think we understand. We think they owe us. We think we own them and their decisions. Do we?
18:13
I don’t really know Osaka’s story and only learned of her with this last Wimbledon. I play tennis occasionally but do not follow the sport. Biles is definitely someone more on my radar, being a mild to say the least former gymnast. I’m transfixed with tumbling feats, and hers are amazing.
Look at the celebrity surrounding them. Look at how people react and respond to what they do. There’s a vicarious thrill in their triumphs and a backlash in their failures.
Does our investment in them mandate they yield to our expectations and demands? Who gets to decide?
18:50
These same paradoxical situations will happen to our leading teen heiresses. Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke are about to become celebrities beyond their dreams and imagination. Only it is going to come with far more criticism since these girls only accomplishment so far came from inheritance. A windfall, not hard won skills. And they are unprepared to deal with the pressures and battles ahead of them.
With their debutante balls, the public will be granted vicarious access into a fantasy world of the young wealthy elite. Only the reality is far darker than the outside world could imagine.
Are these vicarious fantasies and dreams unreachable even to heiresses?
Speaking of defying expectations – have you check out the I’m Kind Of A Big Deal Podcast. Christophe Zajac-Denek discusses the lives and struggles of little people, those with the condition of dwarfism. Christophe surfs and plays the drums among many of his talents, including one appearance as a Twinkie with a cow on Jimmy Kimmel. Amongst his guests, he speaks with a silver medal Olympian, a fundraiser who works with Bill Gates, Bono, and Barack Obama, and how one little person confronted aggressors after racial and stature criticism appeared on social media. Check out I’m Kind of A Big Deal in your podcast directory.
Hook
20:08
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
The time has come for The Debutante of Her Season to make her grand entrance into Society. Will her long awaited night be all that she ever hoped and dreamed? Or are there other warning signs of looming disaster?
Until then…
Credits
20:27
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 Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
20:58
THE END.