Episode 38: Debutante Of Her Season
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?
Suffering a tennis injury, Doris Duke must watch her own debutante ball from the sidelines. Her escort older heir to two fortunes Jimmy Cromwell keeps her company, while her mother Nanaline looks for potential marital alliances.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Publish Date: August 19, 2021
Length: 19:55
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: The Eyes Of The World by Louis Levy, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 2 Music: Let’s Fall In Love For The Last Time by Mantovani, Albums The Great British Dance Bands & Tea Dance 2
Section 3 Music: There Isn’t Any Limit To My Love by Ambrose, Album It’s Got To Be Love
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 038 – Debutante Of Her Season
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.
00:27
Story Recap
As the Great Depression builds, many still insist on living the good life as before. This year, Tennis Week in Newport comes with Doris Duke’s debut, only her injured knee might cause her a bit of problems on her big night.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:45
Debutante Of Her Season
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
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?
01:04
[Music – The Eyes Of The World by Louis Levy, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:20
Returning to the scene of her accident, teenage heiress Doris Duke hobbles up to the Casino in Newport, Rhode Island to watch the tennis finals before her debutante ball the next night. Reduced back to her pre-swan awkwardness, Doris has a tightly bandaged knee and a strained ligament.
During the matches, she claps for the prowess and athleticism of the competitors. Wishing she was still in the game. Sitting next to her is the chubby budding fashionista and another teen heiress Barbara Hutton. One would think they would be chatting away in excitement over the details of tomorrow’s big event. Instead they are silent, both overwhelmed about all that lies before them.
When someone moves over Doris to grab a seat, they bump her knee sending Doris into a spiral of pain.
Don’t worry a little crippling is in no way going to get in the way of the Debutante of Her Season and her much anticipated ball.
02:12
Back over at the Duke cottage Rough Point, preparations are well underway for the soiree. A large tent is erected as electrical lights are strung around designated areas. The servants work diligently to make sure everything is perfect. Flowers keep arriving en masse and being dispersed throughout the estate. The young studly gardener scopes out the party details – this is a world he’s never seen before.
Debutante balls are very large scale events. Prior to the Wall Street Crash, 1,500 guests would attend the average high society event. The ever socially ambitious Nanaline Duke is naturally wanting a proper debut to secure a big marital alliance to pawn off Doris, but Nanaline can also be miserly as she still schemes to rid Doris of her more than ample fortune and give it to Walker, Nanaline’s older son and Doris’s half-brother.
03:03
The financial hard times allow Nanaline to play demure and reserved. Doris’s fortune has stayed well intact while others have apparently faltered. They will host 600 guests and have a “simple” event at home.
Simple – yeah right.
Most of the time, Doris is content to let her mother determine all the details. But Doris’s passion for music and botany will of course play a part.
Outside the English Gothic mansion, the blue and bronze color scheme dominates throughout from electric lights outside to the floral decorations.
Dinner is for 40 guests before the rest arrive for dancing.
Ferns and pink and white lilies cover the large fireplace in the hall. The same lilies are in the background in the bower where Doris stands with her mother Nanaline and escort the heir to two fortunes Jimmy Cromwell. Nanaline’s gives a harsh glare at the fidgety Doris.
03:53
Standing as she greets the multitude of guests before her, Doris shifts in discomfort as her strained ligament throbs underneath her gown. In the reverse of her glorious Buckingham Palace presentation and far more interactive, she now must curtsey, shake hands, and kiss person after person. 600 in total attendance. A very torturous and agonizing endeavor. When she bowed at court, she was one of 400 that day (800 over 2 days), and there no physical contact permitted while the bored royals remained seated. No such accommodations for the Debutante of The Season in polite Society.
04:28
After over an hour of standing on her bad leg, Doris is forced to retire to her room to recuperate. A little past midnight, she descends back down the staircase to join the guests enjoying a meal of scrambled eggs.
The supper tent is banked with oak foliage and ferns. Large white lattice serves as walls with yellow and blue gladioli. Elsewhere blue flower boxes are filled with yellow and bronzed gladioli. Pink roses, blue hibiscus and lilies of the valley are in the dining room. Doris’s favorite flower orchids are everywhere.
Somewhere there might be a circus tent with animals in the bushes giving a safari feel.
05:05
Now every ball must have a band, and Doris will have 3 for her big night. Being a longtime devoted music aficionado, Doris is very selective. The Royal Hungarian Orchestra plays in the big tent, while two other orchestras the jazzier Meyer Davis and the flamboyant Vincent Lopez play in the open outdoor areas designated for dancing under the stars.
Doris hobbles across the massive estate. Embarrassed and self-conscious. She won’t be able to dance much if at all this evening. She remembers her childhood of leg braces and corrective shoes. Has the swan become a pumpkin so quickly?
Somewhere Barbara Hutton is off dancing with the Van Alen brothers or their cousin the proud young heir Jakey Astor. Doris remains alone on her big night.
05:52
Over to the side watching her guests have so much fun, Doris tries to lose herself in the music. Occasionally, she spots a guest here and there slip some food under the table or into a purse. Odd behavior since the entertainment and provisions will go on throughout the night.
From a far, Evalyn Walsh McLean with the Hope Diamond around her neck dances with Jimmy Cromwell when she spots tonight’s wounded star on the edge sitting alone. The timing is perfect as Evalyn motions. The handsome much older Jimmy brings Doris a refreshment. Graciously serving as her escort, he is determined not to leave her side.
06:29
Nanaline scans the crowd. Debutante balls are meant as announcements of a girl’s marital eligibility. Yet hardly any eligible males pay much attention to these events. Knowing full well the troubles they would get in if they seemed associated with any particular young lady. Instead the parties especially during Prohibition are mainly opportunities for young males to get drunk on the free illegal booze and champagne.
Nanaline is pleased with Jimmy’s attentions. He could be worth a $100 million too, that is if his stepfather Ned Stotesbury’s fortune didn’t take too big a hit. Jimmy’s mother Eva Stotesbury is very good at integrating lesser people into Society, and Nanaline would not want to offend her. Besides Doris has so little discretion in people, she is likely to match up with the wrong person, and Jimmy is a prize amongst the right set.
07:19
As the event goes late into the night, Jimmy stays close to Doris’s side. She is nervous – their interaction over a year ago in Bar Harbor still lingers in her mind. How could such a sophisticated man ever see anything more in her? She sees Nanaline in the distance lurking about and watching them. The element of danger peeks Doris’s curiosity. Jimmy seems considerate and worldly. Could this Adonis really be drawn to her? He plays silly games with her to amuse the time, helping remove the sadness of her failed night.
Maybe, just maybe they could have another kiss.
The sun peaks over the horizon. In a final celebration of a beautiful night, one orchestra leads a long line of dancing partygoers across the lawn, under the Cliff Walk’s bridge, and down to the sea.
Did her big moment end before it even began?
08:19
[Music – Let’s Fall In Love For The Last Time by Mantovani, Albums The Great British Dance Bands & Tea Dance 2]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
08:34
World War I Post-war critics deemed Newport, the Gilded Age playground of the elite of the elite, as moribund and dull. The Roaring Twenties expanded both the wealth and geography of many people, leading to the rise of other competing summer playgrounds like Palm Beach, Bar Harbor, and Southampton. Still Newport was the reigning elite’s must go to spot, and in 1930 it was not ready to completely yield to the despair and misfortunes after the Crash.
There were at least 20 parties given in Newport for every single one given in Southampton. Three major dances plus plenty of dinners and luncheons. Other yearly activities continued on the agenda including polo, the horse show, and flower show.
09:16
But Tennis Week is the hub of activity in the latter part of August. While in September, the yacht races will be the rage. Vincent Astor has already left aboard his yacht Nourmahal with plans to return in time for the America’s Cup in the upcoming weeks.
Doris Duke’s debut on Saturday August 23rd was the third largest activity in Newport for the 1930 summer season. What were the two bigger events?
09:39
First and most prominent event, the Goelets threw a party for 600 at Ochre Court on Sunday August 17th, 1930. That evening before that ball, Miss Julia Berwind held a dinner at the Elms in honor of Doris Duke. As for Ochre Court, it was the first event there in several years. The Vincent Lopez orchestra was a future inspiration for Liberace and one of three orchestras that played that night – and would later play for Doris. The Goelet ball was the prized event as this was the location where many socially prominent moves and ranks had been established over the years. Thus this ball was seen as the restoration of grandeur.
10:17
Now older heir Robert Goelet came fully into his fortune after his mother dowager Mary Wilson Goelet passed away the previous year in February 1929. That is also when Robert Goelet briefly debated repurchasing the former family yacht the Mayflower, no not from the Pilgrim colonists but a modern 19th century version built by his father sold by his mother. Ochre Court was the second largest mansion in Newport, behind the Breakers – a Vanderbilt mansion. It should be noted that his mother Mary Wilson is sister to Grace Wilson of the Marrying Wilsons, a clan of siblings who married prominently into Society. Grace married Cornelius Neily Vanderbilt III and thus her mother-in-law Alice Vanderbilt owns the Breakers (and Alice will later give the cottage to her youngest daughter).
11:05
The second biggest event was on Friday August 22nd, Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice host a dinner party for 600 to celebrate the engagement of their step-granddaughter Diana Dodge (not related to the auto fortune). Their Italian style villa Miramar was covered in yellow and orange gladioli and thousands of Japanese paper lanterns transforming the grounds into a fairyland. A northern terrace was temporarily erected for this special evening. Diana Dodge had her own debutante ball at Miramar only two years earlier and is now celebrating her pending marriage to Frederick Davies.
11:42
Dr. Rice was a surgeon and a Harvard geography professor known well for his explorations and expeditions into South America as well as a descendant of early settlers into the Massachusetts territory referred as a Boston Brahmin – a distinguished Bostonian elite. His wife Eleanor Widener began building Miramar with her first husband George Widener. Eleanor with her maid survived the Titanic voyage but lost her husband, son, and their valet. Their bodies were never identified. Eleanor would finish Miramar with her second husband and join him on expeditions into the Amazon including the 1920 trip when they were attacked by cannibals. The 1930 Newport party was thrown in honor of Eleanor’s surviving son George Widener’s stepdaughter.
12:25
Those other events and pedigrees far outstrip the more humble beginnings behind the Duke fortune.
Trying to sort out the competing activities takes a little time. The newspaper articles overlap in details, and the reporting sometimes might be days later and from remote location thus jumbling details. Thus incorrectly, one of Doris’s biographies indicated that the Goelet party happened on the same night thus stealing more priority guests while the younger crowd definitely attended her ball. Jakey Astor and Barbara Hutton of course were among the noted guests at Rough Point. Barbara will get plenty of press regarding her own debut at the end of the same year.
13:02
But for the real behind the scenes look, it would be another the future 1938 Debutante of the Season and Life cover model Brenda Frazier, who made the trademark dark hair – red lips – strapless dress THE deb look, and who will later reveal in the 1960s the real misery behind such a grand important event and the endless pressures that abound from it. Brenda would become known as the suicidal debutante after over 30 unsuccessful attempts. She was also close peer friends with Gloria Vanderbilt and Cobina Wright Jr who are all still children in 1930.
13:34
These opulent gatherings are also interlinked with the potential downfall of massive fortunes. The builders of great wealth in American history were also the ones to most forewarn about the pitfalls of a large inheritance.
Henry Ford’s observation – “Fortunes tend to self-destruction by destroying those who inherit them.” Ford hoped his own son Edsel would continue the growth like the Morgan and Rockefeller dynasties.
Andrew Carnegie said, “The almighty dollar, bequeathed to a child is an almighty curse. No man has the right to handicap his son with the burden of great wealth. He must face this question squarely: Will my fortune be safe with my boy or will my boy be safe with my fortune?” An interesting take, but what happens when the beneficiary is a daughter? Our story explores that conundrum thoroughly.
Cornelius Vanderbilt said, “Inherited wealth is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.” We’ve explored partially the trailing end of the Vanderbilt fortune in Episode 07 The Setting Sun and Episode 21 Rising Tides. Though another Vanderbilt will appear in our story soon enough.
As our story unfolds, these signature debutante balls will become the beginning of darker times for our young heiresses.
14:48
[Music – There Isn’t Any Limit To My Love by Ambrose, Album It’s Got To Be Love]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
15:04
When I started the journey of trying to tell these stories, I was struck so much by the life parallels between myself and them. At 17, I spent a summer studying in Rhode Island which led to 2 day trips to Newport and a sweet teen romance. The heady nostalgia of a past when so much potential laid before me.
As I dug into the life stories of various heirs and heiresses, their exorbitant fortunes paled in comparison to the similarities I so recognized in life. Failed loves, hopes, and dreams. How I have had to rebuild my life far too many times, and where they struggled and floundered. Always a parallel, always a connection.
Reading about Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton’s debutante balls were the epitome of dreams turning into nightmares.
15:48
And now for Doris, I can relate to another element. Her injured leg. I have known about her injury for a couple of years, but now it’s a connection.
I spent years trying to find a way to tell this intricate story. Hitting roadblock after roadblock but knowing far too well these stories were fascinating and relatable. I ended up in a crisis. I’m not very good at giving up, when needed I will pause, redirect, then always push forward. I did get stuck for nearly 2 years. Limbo, no direction, focus blurry.
16:21
Then several forces collided. A stall in progression with entertainment connections. A temporary work gig that became a drain and a trap – empty promises dragging on. And to top it all off, an injury. I tripped over a coworker’s dog. A cute tiny puppy, that then tried to snuff me out with his fluffy cuteness as a I tried to cry out for help. A popped tendon that pulled so hard that it fractured a bone chip out of the middle of my foot. The chip is still embedded in my foot tissue, as I didn’t get surgery as overall the injury was more a severe sprain.
Crutches, muscle loss, multiple physical therapy sessions which started as we went into lockdown, months and months of recovery, and even now I can feel a twinge and throb when I recently took a dance class with my dad a week ago. It was during the darkness and depression of my injury I finally realized I should make my passion project and stories into a podcast.
17:14
As kids, teens, young adults, and even as adults, we fantasize about experiences. Enjoying vicarious thrills and opportunities presented to us in stories. Only the polished perfected imagery rarely matches the reality.
And here we have, Doris Duke finally getting her moment – at the same time suffering from a pretty severe injury that thwarts enjoying that moment. I could barely walk for months much less stand endlessly. My foot now aches in phantom pains in memory and empathy.
And yet her big moment lacks the one thing money can never buy – a dance with her father. That one time hour long class I did with my dad, Doris would have envied me more for that, than I ever will in the reverse due to her bank account.
18:05
All the descriptions of the event were beautiful. Only even in all the various accounts, the one thing never really described or mentioned was how Doris felt about it in the moment or years later. How did she experience this monumental event of her life?
What we do know is the troubles that will soon follow her afterwards…
18:28
All this talk of places and events long past, can make one curious to see them again. That’s why it’s great to have New York Adventure Club webinars and Instagram accounts Mansions of the Gilded Age and The Gilded Age Society. Architect and historian Gary Lawrance regularly gives tours into these past worlds – Newport and the Woolworth mansions are recurring favorites. Check out Gary’s upcoming and recurring webinars at nyadventureclub.com and via his Instagram accounts @MansionsoftheGildedAge and @TheGildedAgeSociety for more information and a wonderful collection of photos, architectural designs, and historical details.
Hook
19:05
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
While plans are underway for another big and fantastic ball, one heiress is more focused on affairs of the heart and reuniting forbidden lovers. All the fun activity isn’t merely local, next up the beaches in France.
Until then…
Credits
19:27
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.
19:55
THE END.