Episode 52: Believe It or Not
Many are talented and can do some
pretty amazing things, but there is one trick that only a very few can do,
Believe It or Not.
Plenty of manly activities fill
the Palm Beach schedule amidst baseball, boxing, and burglaries. At the bat and base, Jimmy Cromwell and Phil Plant
play for a charity police fundraiser.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Publish Date: March 03, 2022
Length: 22:27
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Swingin’ The Blues by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Perfect Blues
Section 2 Music: Swinging at Maida by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Jazz Age!
Section 3 Music: I Feel Like A Feather In The Breeze by Carroll Gibbons, Album The Age of Style – Hits from the 30s
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 052 – Believe It or Not
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
Debutantes Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke join the 1931 winter Society activities in Palm Beach where heirs Jimmy Cromwell and Phil Plant mingle. As one romance blooms, Society mavens hope to arrange another.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:46
Believe It or Not
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
Many are talented and can do some pretty amazing things, but there is one trick that only a very few can do, Believe It or Not.
01:00
[Music – Swingin’ The Blues by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Perfect Blues]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:17
The 1931 Winter in Palm Beach season comes with plenty of fashion, both touches of ermine and sophistication with white and occasional polka dotted sporty and playful outfits to flitter about. Charity events also fill the schedule.
While most hotspots can be in the realm of female dominions like in Newport with endless rounds of teas, luncheons, balls, and dances, Palm Beach has moments of raw masculinity and power on display.
Activities might include yachts and polo as well as pugilism. Only a week earlier, former footballer Frank Dolan made two special catches this season – a 7 foot 8 inch sailfish and not a day or two later a society burglar. The Palm Beach and Miami police had their hands full with recovering stolen jewels from multiple recent break-ins in the area.
02:04
All just in time for today, Saturday, February 28th, 1931 —
When an ongoing 21 year old society baseball game is held as a fundraiser for the Palm Beach police pension. The two teams are divided by the primary home locations New York and Philadelphia of Palm Beach’s winter society residents. Mr. Fuller initiated the strife decades ago worried that the colony’s sissies were too addicted to teas and dancing. Every year, Fuller pages for He-Men willing to abandon backgammon and ping pong in hopes of gathering 18 men to play a man’s game of baseball.
At the baseball field of the Poinciana Hotel, two motley crews roll themselves in wheelchairs out on to the field. An ambulance awaits on the street in case any injuries due to sudden realizations of previously unknown muscles occur.
The New York City recruits dress smartly in police uniforms.
While the Philadelphia set have more eclectic and colorful uniforms as knights of the street. Last year they dressed as convicts and this year as hoboes and tramps.
Refreshments include elite staples like caviar and coconut cake. Nearly 1500 gather to watch the day’s activity. It’s a place to see and be seen.
03:16
As the game begins, recent birthday boy 83 yr old Ed (*Ned) Stotesbury walks out to the pitcher’s mound and throws the first pitch igniting the game.
Dangerous playboy millionheir Phil Plant plays second baseman for the New York coppers. As a batter, he hits far and wide, scoring two doubles and with them nabbing the home plates.
Heir to two fortunes and Stotesbury’s stepson Jimmy Cromwell covers right field and tries to gain the Philadelphia hoboes with two doubles at the bat. His former brother-in-law and auto heir Horace Dodge, Jr. pitches for Philly.
03:48
Missing from the scene is polo star – the impoverished former royal Russian Prince Alexis Mdivani, who has returned to Paris for business before his spring wedding in Newport. He leaves behind his ever popular fiancée, former It Girl debutante Louise Van Alen, who still makes the papers for her smart fashion ensembles. They did a quick tour for their engagement announcement before separating again.
Louise attends all the right events and parties often crossing paths with teen heiresses and now debutantes in their own rights tall and awkward Doris Duke and chubby budding fashionista Barbara Hutton. Barbara dreads every time she is reminded of the pending marriage, but today she can focus on the handsome and dashing Phil Plant. Her actual beau at the moment. Yes, Barbara has her very own budding romance.
04:35
The game has several dramatics beyond the uniforms. Large swan dives into home plate, and good fielding exhibitions in several plays.
On hand, the ladies take up collections for the police retirement fund. Assisting in the efforts, the popular Titian redheaded Elizabeth “Betty” Kent (who some might remember from her Buckingham Palace bow with Doris Duke and ongoing date of Louise’s brother Sam Van Alen) and teen heiress Barbara Hutton along with her relatives and heiresses themselves Aunt Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton and cousin Sophia Hutton. Today’s collection adds up to $1,000, fairly short from the previous year’s $4,000. Hmmm, could things be getting tighter financially for the spectators and participants?
Barbara can’t help but to blush every time Phil throws her a glance. He is taking great strides to clean up his bad boy reputation for the idealistic and romantic Barbara. Today she is free from her father Franklyn Hutton’s disapproving eyes while under the supervision of Aunt Marjorie.
Final game score Coppers beat Hoboes 7 to 1.
05:39
A few days earlier on Wednesday February 25th, the 6th annual Kiwanis Club has its fundraiser to help provide medical and dental services for children. The evening has a boxing fight demonstration between the Italian powerhouse Primo Carnera versus Young Stribling. After which master of ceremonies Broadway star Phil Baker host the festivities. This is one of several boxing exhibitions in which Primo participates before his March 5th Madison Square Garden fight against Jim Maloney.
For the children’s fundraiser and society events with Plant nearby, Barbara is within proximity of Aunt Jessie Woolworth Donahue and Uncle James Donahue, a sweet gentler man with a slight effeminate and dandyish manner. Barbara will also participate as dancer for an even different charity event. More costume balls and dances fill the schedule as the winter season had a late start and will have a late end. The Everglades, Colony Club, Embassy Club, and the Orange Grove host plenty of events until then.
At sea, yachting activities include radio magnate and Betty’s father Atwater Kent hosting a Saturday, March 1st luncheon for the popular guest Walter Damrosch.
06:48
The game and these other activities all make the newspapers, but there is another feat that makes it into Ripley’s regular syndicated column on March 4th & 5th.
A seemingly simple parlor trick, a deck of cards is inspected, cut, and shuffled then slid across a table. A slick backed hair stockbroker picks up the deck and flips it in his hands. He flashes a million dollar smile.
With ease in his barehands, he tears the deck in half. He takes one half then calmly rips it again. He pushes up his sleeve as his wrist flicks his watch. He takes the one fourth then with a firm grip twists until the deck splits into eights.
The man featured is William May Wright, aka Bill as in supreme hostess and opera star Cobina’s husband. Bill notes he has succeeded at this trick since the very first time he tried it. He owes it not to strength but powers of concentration and focus.
Now if only he could use that focus and concentration to rebuild his lost fortune. His biggest trick is hiding his misfortune with such diversions.
Then again that latter trick might be the biggest game being played in Palm Beach this winter season.
08:04
[Music – Swinging at Maida by Benny Carter & His Orchestra, Album Jazz Age!]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
08:18
In some ways 1931 is like every other year, but there are little hints of bigger changes in the outside world.
In preparation for most episodes, I do a heavy dive into period papers sussing out little facts and details. Sometimes I chuckle over the items and references. A few times now, I have run across the term “he-man” during this era. Ahhh yes, the ever present battle and need to appear manly and even insulting.
08:45
In due course, I ran across the original syndication of the Ripley’s column, which began on December 19, 1918 as Champs and Chumps noting sports feats then expanded to all sorts of unusual facts changing the name to Believe It or Not by October 1919. The column would reach peak popularity in May 1932. On April 14, 1930, Ripley On Radio would broadcast 15 – 30 minutes episodes on NBC, CBS, and the Mutual Broadcasting System. Sponsors would include Pall Mall Cigarettes and General Foods, yes, the company founded and ran by Marjorie Merriweather Post and her then husband EF Hutton. From 1930 – 1932, two dozen Ripley short films were also produced. In 1948, the radio show would be converted to television. Please check the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @asthemoneyburns for the 1931 cartoon with William May Wright.
09:41
As mentioned previously in Episode 30: Spring Blossoms, Palm Beach, Florida has a different atmosphere than the other elite hot spots. One factor involves more of the manly pursuits, displays, and sports.
In the prior year 1930, several activities featured boxing as the current rage. EF Hutton set up his own stable of sponsored athletes with accommodations and training facilities. This would be another one of his semi-charity pursuits in what he saw as helping more disadvantaged young men get a chance to develop and use a talent to elevate their lives. In the end, EF would only take a small percentage of any wins to reimburse costs.
10:18
The heir to two fortunes Jimmy Cromwell and his stepfather and Philadelphia’s biggest taxpayer Ed (*Ned) Stotesbury are prominent in the Palm Beach sports scene. In one big 1930 charity event, Jimmy faced off against light heavyweight champion the Phantom of Philly Tommy Loughran. Loughran delayed the start of the fight until Jimmy removed the horseshoe obviously tied on the outside of his glove. Jimmy was outmatched by a few inches and several pounds. Tommy clocked Jimmy pretty hard within the first round then held back so that the rounds might last longer. A collegiate and navy amateur boxer Jimmy landed a few punches and showed off his swift right hooks, before being declared the winner at the end of the second round. Jimmy did graciously note he wouldn’t have lasted if a few heavier punches had landed. Sports journalists attribute the friendly game to the presence of Jimmy’s mother Eva Stotesbury in the audience, and the fact it was for charity and not a title fight.
11:14
Former heavy weight champion Jack Dempsey had already retired from boxing. His reign lasted from 1919 to 1926, retiring in 1927. However he is still frequently mentioned in the press as his successors compete to replace his long reigning dominance.
The Italian Primo Carnera, also called the Ambling Alp, migrated to the US in 1930 and started making his rounds. He would reign as the heavyweight champion from 1933 to 1934. His February 1933 fight won against Ernie Schaaf, who later died from injuries compounded by ones previously inflicted by Max Baer (the father of Max Baer, Jr – Jethro in The Beverly Hillbillies). Primo would defend his title against Tommy Loughran only to lose it to Max Baer later.
12:00
While boxing is definitely a manly sport, there are several other masculine affirming events that occurred in the 1931 winter season.
On January 10th, 1931, C.A. Mott was traveling to the Miami air races when his small airplane faced an oil line engine problem and crashed into the ocean near Anna Dodge Dillman’s estate Playa Riente. Her son, Jimmy Cromwell’s former brother-in-law, and the Philly hoboes pitcher Horace Dodge, Jr. aided in the rescue with two golf course employees. The men made it to the plane, pulled out Mott, and later salvaged the craft when it landed on the beach a few yards away. Mott escaped uninjured.
12:37
Other news making events involved several burglaries and high society thefts.
In January 1931, burglars ransack Albert Einstein’s home in Caputh, Germany, but fortunately his precious manuscripts were not taken as they are safely kept in Berlin. At the time, Einstein and his wife are visiting Pasadena, California.
12:56
Winter 1931 saw a rash of society burglaries hitting the east coast from Newport, Rhode Island down past Palm Beach & Miami, Florida. On February 18th, former footballer and recent sailfish fisherman Frank Dolan, his wife, daughter, and daughter’s fiance are having dinner when they hear a noise upstairs. When Dolan checks, he catches the burglar in mid progress ransacking the bedroom. The burglar slams the door on Dolan’s face then holds the door with his foot. But not about to give up and using brute force, Dolan bursts in. The burglar throws a stool then a chair as Dolan ducks and advances. The burglar dives for the open window, but Dolan catches the burglar by his foot and pulls him back in. They wrestle out onto the balcony where Dolan and his future son-in-law sit on the burglar until Chief Weston and the police arrive. Dolan has captured John Todd, a 56 yr old career burglar who already had 3 prison stints and has hit multiple homes with possibly 7 in the Miami & Palm Beach areas alone.
13:57
Todd follows newspapers to track the society accounts and whereabouts to plan his crimes. Seeing the recent engagement announcement, Todd targets Dolan’s home. Police find at Todd’s apartment $10k worth of stolen goods in handbags, luggage, jewelry, and other reported missing articles. In cooperation, Todd takes police to several locations around Miami to retrieve jewelry and money he stashed in several palm trees including 3 strings of pearls, jade beads, and three gold hair pins amounting to about $2,000.
14:29
Of course, Todd isn’t the only society burglar. In Miami, suspect Laurence Shannon is detained in relation to $50k worth of jewels taken in a hold up of a diamond salesman in Chicago the previous December. Four pawn tickets tie Shannon to items including 2 diamond rings, a platinum bracelet, and a stick pin. A week after both thieves’ February arrests, a separate set of 3 robberies occur in Sea Breeze avenue homes. Over $10,000 is stolen and the screen of one downstairs window is cut, while the occupants had been out participating at the first wedding anniversary – birthday reception for the newly married George Lamaze, of the Lamaze Patio restaurant fame featured in Episode 51: Millionheir. It is also the new Mrs. Lamaze’s birthday.
For a quick relevant note for inflation, $2,000 in 1931 is roughly $34k today, $10k is $185k, and $50k would be $925k.
15:29
On July 4th in Newport, Rhode Island, a man dressed as butler is arrested trying to break into a Greek minister’s summer rental. The burglar gave the name Jack Evans but is later to be determined to be none other than John Todd, who is out on $2,500 bail and awaiting trial from the earlier robberies in Miami. Todd is also wanted for burglaries in New York and Massachusetts. In September, Todd receives 3 years sentence in Rhode Island then is sent back to Florida to face multiple burglary charges with proposed victims including the Palm Beach summer homes of Philadelphia’s Vincent Scullin, Broadway talent Sam Harris, and radio magnate & Betty’s father Atwater Kent.
Later in September 1931, another Society Phantom Burglar will strike the home of Elisha Walker in Long Island and get away with $45k worth of gems including a $30k matched pearl necklace, two diamond pins, a diamond ring, and a diamond bracelet.
Crime waves and robberies increase as the Great Depression builds. But there are others who prefer a more luxurious and less prosecutable methods.
Plenty of hearts will be stolen and broken on the way to bigger fortunes.
16:45
[Music – I Feel Like A Feather In The Breeze by Carroll Gibbons, Album The Age of Style – Hits from the 30s]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
16:56
Part of the fun in these stories is making seemingly trivial connections into the modern day and potentially larger significance. Seriously, I barely pick at something and out comes another connection.
Maybe it’s related to a building or an inspiration for a character in modern film or television. The little invisible threads of life that prove we are all connected to each other one way or another. Already I’ve described the trail – Cobina Wright to her husband Bill to Ripley’s Believe It or Not onto General Foods & Marjorie Merriweather Post.
17:26
Now let’s have some more fun…
The term he-man was first used in 1758 meaning a strong virile man according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, and the term he-man was applied more commonly in 1832 in reference to U.S. pioneers as especially masculine fellows. In the 1930s, it is still a frequently used term. I remember first hearing it within Our Gang short films shot from 1922-1944, which became more popular with the incorporation of sound in 1929. The most iconic cast appear in 1936-1939 with the main characters Alfalfa and Spanky and the recurring element of the He-man Woman Haters Club. This is unrelated except maybe in concept to the modern connection to another popular character.
While the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toy and 1980s animated series developed independently from the earlier references, it was still a part of long line of comic strip and comic books related storylines that would enter into pop culture.
18:25
One popular character from the era of our story will have a long life and range through multiple incarnations over the years. The Buck Rogers character first appeared in August 1928 in the story Armageddon 2419 A.D. in the Amazing Stories collection, became his own comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in January 1929. Buck originally undergoes time travel via a cave sort of like Rip Van Winkle only to wake up far into the future by 492 years. The space elements are introduced in January 1930 sparking a whole other level of interest in the character as well as predictions with technology.
19:02
Buck Rogers was turned into serials for radio 1932 and film 1933-1934, with other adaptations for tv, film, and games up until the present day. Every couple of decades a new take appears, and another one always seems to be in development. Buck Rogers would also inspire other works like Flash Gordon. Both characters display the hyper masculinity as depicted in whichever era of their reincarnations. Another inspiring take is the Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoons with Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers.
19:33
Since publishing the last Episode 51: Millionheir which details dangerous Broadway playboy Phil Plant’s accident with former actress Helene Jessmer (Helen Jessmer), a new connection has been revealed. I published on various social media outlets before and after photos of the actress who sued for the loss of her beauty and therefore livelihood. On the As The Money Burns Facebook page, one gentleman pointed out that Helen is likely the mother of actress Julie Newmar. As I have mentioned in Section 2 multiple times, my perpetual dilemma over the complications and issues related to the spelling of names, when I had tried to find a little more information in the last episode I hit a quick dead end.
20:11
Now with the mention of Julie Newmar, I quickly discovered an alternate spelling though clearly similar (both first and last names dropped an extra letter), and I then looked up Helen under that different spelling. The new spelling had the same information and a few news articles involving the automobile crash, but what it really did was expand the woman’s timeline to her later life. Indeed, it is clear that Helen is the mother of the original Catwoman Julie Newmar, who also rose to fame due to both her beauty and dancing skills.
20:41
I would have loved to made the connection earlier. Though I am more thrilled about the audience engagement. How fun it is to announce the connection of the very first Catwoman from the original Batman and Robin 1960s tv series in a story still involving Phil Plant at a police fundraiser during a society burglar crime spree.
By the way, Julie Newmar also played Zarina the War Witch in a 2 episode arc for the space odyssey 1979 – 1981 Buck Rogers tv series, with the titled character portraying a 1980s manly man bringing his karate skills and football strategy into the future 5 centuries later.
These stories I am telling are based on truth, and many will lead to the darker elements of human nature. However we can still enjoy when they bring moments of brightness to our days.
Please join me again in two more weeks Same Bat Time Same Bat Channel, wherever you consume this podcast.
Hook
21:38
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
An unlucky filmmaker’s Viking voyage finds disaster at sea, while the luck of the Irish brings better news for a tennis star.
Until then…
Credits
21:54
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,Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
22:27
THE END.