07:08

[Music – Ain’t She Sweet by Piccadilly Revels Band, Album Charleston – Great Stars Of the 20s]

Section 2 – History & Historiography

[Music Fade Out]

07:21

Ever in pursuit of the facts within these winding stories, I’m never quite sure what I will come across.  The Broadway playboy and millionaire heir Phil Plant is barely mentioned within two of Barbara Hutton’s 4 biographies and only two brief references within Doris Duke’s 4 biographies though once as in connection to Barbara Hutton and the other his stepfather’s Fifth Avenue mansion as a Duke neighbor.  I first ran across his name in the Elsa Maxwell expose series on Barbara for Cosmopolitan circa 1938-1939. 

07:56

Thus I really needed to do some digging.  Who exactly is this mysterious beau?  Well, I found quite a bit of shocking revelations and added him to my mental list.  A different newspaper 1938 article series by Adela Rogers St. Johns finally gave a timeline of their courtship.  In a 1946 Time magazine article covering the marriages of his first wife, film actress Constance Bennett, Phil Plant is referred to as the “millionheir” as in heir H-E-I-R.  I couldn’t resist that moniker.

In my more recent research, I found still more articles linking him romantically to Doris Duke.  Ahh, so much to work with, and that’s not even revealing the shocking parts.

08:40

Oy to revisit him now in the timeline, once again I scour for more information and details and ran across an article for his most famous accident back in 1920.  The article discusses the rise of a new form of lawsuit – personal injury.  It mentions the costs of these earlier lawsuits and speculates what will happen in Plant’s case since he has so much money.

09:04

Born in 1901, Philip Morgan Manwaring’s parents divorced when he was 12.  His father came from a family of hotelier proprietors.  His young mother Sarah Mae “Maisie” Caldwell 31 then turned around two months later in 1914 and married 62 year old stepfather Morton F. Plant, railroad and steamship magnate.  The elder Plant formally adopted Phil and upon death in 1918 left him $15 million. 

09:30

In her widowhood, Maisie was considered one of the wealthiest women of her time, and she once traded her Fifth Avenue mansion to Cartier for a string of perfectly matched pearls.  Maise marries Colonel William Hayward in 1919.  Hayward’s son is theatrical agent & producer Leland Hayward who is responsible for the Rogers & Hammerstein’s musicals South Pacific and The Sound of Music. His roster of clients includes: Fred Astaire, Jimmy Stewart, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Ernest Hemingway,… and among clients he dated are Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn.  Leland’s daughter is actress Brooke Hayward.

10:06

The Broadway playboy millionheir Phil Plant had been consistently making the papers since he was 19.  Returning from the Harvard Yale football game in November 1920, he swerves to miss two oncoming automobiles, jumps a divide, and crashes his vehicle into a tree near Hunter’s Bridge in Pelham Bay.  Inside with him are 4 other prep school classmates and one Miss Helene Jessmer (Helen Jesmer), then known as the Greenwich Follies girl.  Two escape uninjured, Phil has a fractured leg and facial lacerations, one classmate has a fractured nose and a lacerated right eye, and another suffers contusions. 

10:39

But 19 year old Helene would get the worst having gone through the windshield, fractures to the base of her skull, part of her scalp torn off, and the loss of most of her teeth and sight in one eye.  She would spend over a year in the hospital with multiple surgeries.  It was noted that Colonel and Mrs. Hayward would visit her, but Phil soon found himself unavailable. Helene claims Phil had wanted to marry her until she was no longer beautiful.  I will post her before and after photos on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 

11:09

One 1920 article appears in at least four newspapers including the San Francisco Examiner, Oregon Daily Journal, Philadelphia Enquirer, and Butte Miner, it is titled “Why It’s Cheaper to Kill a Pretty Girl than to Disfigure Her,” it details the potential costs of the new personal injury lawsuits, which were only the beginning of this all now far too familiar lawsuit.  Death would pay out at a maximum of $5000, versus $55,000 for hand or $40,000 for a leg injury.  This case would be considered a far potentially larger settlement due to Plant’s estimated wealth.  In 1924, Helene would sue for her disfigurement for the sum of $500,000 but settled for $100,000. 

11:56

In January 1925, Phil was set to marry New York society debutante Miss Judith Smith, but just days before the wedding he eloped with childhood friend and actress Constance Bennett in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Their marriage would last until 1929, when Constance divorced him in Paris.  She also hid the fact she was pregnant by him to prevent a custody battle.  In the divorce, Constance would get a 1 million settlement, and Phil would return to New York and his café society lifestyle.

12:23

Now one might think Phil Plant would settle down in his ways.  Ahhh, but what would be the fun in that…  Nope, late in the night in June 1930, Phil collided his yacht Lolita into Otis Chatfield Taylor’s yacht Chadwan III in middle of Long Island Sound sending his companion film star actress Claire Windsor into the sea.  The crash immediately sank the yacht, and ten were left adrift until rescue.  One of his yacht sailors drowned and that led to another undisclosed lawsuit, and Claire narrowly escaped a similar fate when a spotlight located her for rescue.  Claire unsuccessfully tried to hide under the pseudonym “Mrs. Smith,” but everyone recognized her.  She would sue Plant as well.  Phil would pay $25,000 in damage to Taylor’s cook for injury and another $1000 to John Ellsworth Hively, captain of Taylor’s craft.

13:13

Less dangerous except maybe to the arteries, Patio Lamaze is an al fresco dining restaurant built in 1927.  Founder George Lamaze is from Rheims, France, who immigrated to the U.S. at the age 6, all round athlete including football at Brown University, wine boy at Café Martin, manager of the Folies Bergere, served in World War I, then returned to a long elite career in the culinary services.  Lamaze excels in French sauces and has invented several dishes bearing his name – Eggs Lamaze, Souffle Lamaze, Flaming Brochettes of Chicken Liver Lamaze, and many more…  He is a master of cold dishes often involving beds of crushed ice.  The Patio Lamaze is a seasonal restaurant which closes when Lamaze moves on to the next location… New York, Chicago, Hollywood, Saratoga, wherever the elite travel and gather.

14:03

Lamaze’s first wife Nancy Reading is the daughter of Baltimore millionaire Michael Reading.  George and Nancy married in 1913 despite her parents’ protests but later patched things up.  Nancy was worth $500,000 back then.  Upon their separation in 1916, George paid her $60 a week, then cut her off and Nancy became a cashier at the Waldorf.  The couple reunited within the year, but four years later in 1921 divorce proceedings began.  Nancy’s father would again take care of her.

Lamaze too will be romantically linked to several Broadway beauties.

More intertwining tales of money, Broadway, and danger mixed inside the glamorous world of wealth and privilege.  Only don’t be fooled, nothing lasts forever, especially when it involves large sums of money.