Episode 62: World's Unluckiest Man
Despite what outsiders might think, family fortunes are not guaranteed. One heir finds himself bankrupt, divorced, disowned, and potentially
disinherited.
Five generations of wealth doesn’t prevent Neil Vanderbilt from filing bankruptcy among other troubles in 1931. Several of his problems can go
back to 1926 and repeat again in 1931.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Extra Notes / Call to Action:
Share, like, subscribe
Publish Date: July 07, 2022
Length: 22:22
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Top Hat, White Tie and Tails by Carroll Gibbons & Boy Friends, Album Sophistication – Songs of the Thirties
Section 2 Music: These Foolish Things by Benny Carter, Album Perfect Blues
Section 3 Music: One In A Million by Brian Lawrance, Album The Great British Dance Bands
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 062 – World’s Unluckiest Man
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.
00:30
Story Recap
Both debutante Barbara Hutton and tennis sensation Frank Shields make an impression on the Queen. But scandal still looms on the horizon for newlywed Huntington Hartford.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:45
World’s Unluckiest Man
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
01:05
[Music – Top Hat, White Tie and Tails by Carroll Gibbons & Boy Friends, Album Sophistication – Songs of the Thirties]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:27
What happens when a newspaper man becomes the headline? How does a reporter handle being the center of the story, of several stories?
Such is the case in 1931 when several otherwise unrelated sensational stories have one person in common. A person many would expect to be a topic of news, just not in these kind of news stories.
Known publicly as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. He is actually Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, son of Neily Vanderbilt also known as the III or General and Society queen Grace Wilson Vanderbilt and grandson of Alice Vanderbilt.
02:04
1931 is not the banner year Neil Vanderbilt had hoped.
In January, an international incident is sparked when rumors allege Italian Premier Il Duce Benito Mussolini made a hit run leaving a dead little girl on the road back in 1926. The witness Neil recounts the story over dinner back in November 1930. However when Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marines repeats the story during a speech in Philadelphia, an international scandal erupts, and a naval investigation hunts down the source of the rumor.
General Butler hands in his command to his subordinate then heads to court martialed confinement at Quantico awaiting his trial. In response to the story, Mussolini denies having ever met Neil Vanderbilt, but Neil insists on the truth of their meeting and offers proof of two cablegrams and the copyrighted interview in the newspapers.
The U.S. government swiftly offers an apology to Il Duce. Butler too apologizes ending his court martial with little reprimand.
03:05
Close so close, if that had remained Neil’s only public scandal in 1931. Alas more trouble is in store.
In May 1931, limping with a cane after injuring his foot the week before on a staircase, Neil finds himself in a Los Angeles courthouse pleading bankruptcy. He is being sued by former employee Edward Ralph for the unpaid $11k settlement involving another 1926 article where Neil claimed his now defunct newspaper was full of honeycombed spies and handicapped by his employees in Ladies Home Journal. Neil’s other forms of income are declared inconsistent and unreliable and even the $250 earned as judge at a beauty contest is already spent.
In court, Neil admits he only has two bank accounts, one with $50 and the other $20, and $50 in cash on his person. The total of $120 amounts today in 2022 about $2,300, and in the middle of the Great Depression this is still considered a fairly large and comfortable sum by the many struggling. One newspaper sourly notes that is boasting for the truly broke.
Neil is also questioned by the judge in regards to his blue Packard, referred in his articles as the Blue Elephant. The Blue Elephant his trusty sidekick on his adventures across the country documenting life. Neil claims the car is not his property but his wife’s.
04:34
Ah yes, the wife, she is a whole other matter.
Currently, Neil lives in Reno, Nevada, a place he has favored since his first divorce in 1927. After that experience, he wrote a novel titled Reno, though not critically acclaimed got enough attention and a film picture deal. He has returned to the location to work on the adaptation and hopefully similar ventures. His other novels Palm Beach and Park Avenue haven’t sparked as much interest.
He married Mary Weir shortly after his first divorce. Only, now like his first marriage, his second marriage implodes during an economic downturn, Neil finds more trouble brewing when he catches another Reno divorce resident and celebrity New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno kissing his wife Mary after escorting her home from a party. Neil had left the party separately in hopes of interviewing another Reno divorce resident boxer Jack Dempsey. Upon spotting the attempted kiss, Neil flies into a rage and chases, or more truthfully limps down the street on his still injured foot, brandishing a gun at Arno. Not getting too far, Neil gives up and returns home where he realizes his gun is unloaded.
05:48
Neil continually announces the ordeal to the newspapers and files for divorce. Insulted Mary countersues, and Arno too repeatedly rebuffs the untoward adulterous accusations. Neil and Arno will clash again and get into a fistfight at the Reno train station as Arno flees east on July 3rd. By July 5th, 1931, Neil threatens he too will head east to confront Arno again.
Oh, yes, plenty of headlines fly about during the otherwise rather dull 1931 summer. One article even calls Neil the “World’s Unluckiest Man.”
Neil’s parents must obviously be not so proud.
06:29
[Music – These Foolish Things by Benny Carter, Album Perfect Blues]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
06:42
It might seem unfathomable to the starving public that a millionaire’s son, another millionaire’s grandson, still another millionaire’s great grandson, and even the first family millionaire’s great great grandson – may not be a millionaire himself after so many generations of family wealth.
07:05
Ahh, the Vanderbilts… A story of rise and fall of fortune if there ever was one.
The Vanderbilts rose to financial and social power in the mid to late 19th Century. “The Commodore” the original Cornelius Vanderbilt built the fortune from shipping and railroads. His eldest son also Cornelius Vanderbilt referred as “Corneel” had long been considered a disgrace, prone to epileptic seizures, poor judgement, slight rebelliousness, and committed to an insane asylum for taking out loans against his father the Commodore, and even after all that developed a gambling problem and used his charm and name to borrow more money. When the Commodore died, Corneel received a small pittance (interest from $200k back then or $5.5 million today in 2022). Corneel would later commit suicide.
08:01
The 9 daughters also received small sums, while the remaining 95% of the Commodore’s estate went to his other surviving son William Vanderbilt, which valued around estimates between $70 or 100 million in 1877 or in 2022 $1.95 to $2.8 billion.
The Commodore’s grandsons through William married more affluent and prominent social ladies most importantly Alva Vanderbilt who toppled Caroline Astor in the game of exclusion and inclusion giving the Vanderbilts their social prominence. The fortune is vast, but the descendants are many. A fortune endlessly divided and rarely refortified can dissipate rather quickly.
08:45
Grandson Cornelius Vanderbilt II was the last to truly add more to the fortune but his death in 1899 led to a lingering crisis. He and his wife Alice Vanderbilt (covered in several prior episodes) had 7 children, with 4 sons. Their eldest son William “Bill” Vanderbilt predeceased his father while still a student at Yale in 1892. His fiancée Grace Wilson then became involved with second son “Neily” Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and they married against the Vanderbilt wishes in 1896. Promptly, the father wrote Neily out of the will leaving him a very small pittance and everything to third son Alfred Vanderbilt. Graciously, Alfred gave a little more to his older brother believed to be about $7 million.
09:35
Funded by Grace’s father Richard Wilson who was labeled as Southern Civil War profiteer, Grace and Neily have a comfortable life. Grace and her siblings were known as the “Marrying Wilsons” only they did come with money unlike the Mdivanis. Grace’s brother Marshall Orme Wilson married Caroline Astor’s daughter Carrie Astor (mother & daughter both featured in HBO’s recent Gilded Age). Carrie would also be via her brother John Jacob Astor IV the aunt to his children Vincent Astor, Ava Alice Astor, and “Jakey” John Jacob Astor VI.
10:08
Grace was raised in Europe with many high social and royal connections. When Kaiser Wilhelm’s brother Prince Henry visits the United States in 1902, he is a guest of Grace, thus establishes her dominance into the social scene for which she spends her remaining life reveling in lavish hostess duties to her husband’s dismay.
10:27
Both children son “Neil” Cornelius Vanderbilt IV who is referred as Junior in the press and daughter Grace will spend many of their early years in Europe mingling with royals and nobility. Neil’s education is a hodge podge of various experiments between private tutoring, private schools, and international boarding schools, including St. Petersburg, Russia. Neil remarks about met the young Czarevitch Alexei Romanov in school and not having much affinity between them. Neil later attends St. Paul’s, the same school as Huntington Hartford.
11:01
When Uncle Alfred dies aboard the Lusitania, the fortune then passes not to any of his three sons who only get a joint $1 million but to youngest brother “Reggie” Reginald Vanderbilt.
Father Neily insists the family tradition of going to Yale, but when America joins World War I son Neil skips Yale and enlists in the Army without an officer’s commission as his family had hoped. While Neil serves as a driver delivering dispatches, his father Neily Vanderbilt gets promoted to Brigadier General. Neily would go by the title General for the rest of his life.
11:34
After the war, Neil returns still refusing to go to Yale and then joins the ghastly profession of journalism. He has his own ambitions to make a fortune and maybe even be the next William Randolph Hearst. Such a notion couldn’t be more distasteful and horrific to the proper Vanderbilts.
Sister Grace and Neil are repeatedly told by their parents not to expect an inheritance, and each sibling is disowned at one time or another. Neil remarks heavily on life under his mother’s frivolous interests. In fact, he hates the whole Society game. Still he gives his mother Grace the greatest pleasure to use her entertaining skills. A compromise between the two worlds.
On April 29, 1920, his first wedding to New York socialite Rachel Littleton is the biggest wedding in over 10 years in Society with over 5,000 guests attending. His mother Grace Wilson Vanderbilt went all out for her new daughter-in-law. A repeat event denied to their mother when sister Grace elopes in 1927 with Neil’s help.
12:41
With his minimal trust fund in the early 1920s, Neil ventures into the newspaper business owning and running several newspapers and tabloids, including the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald, and the Miami Tab among others. But within 2.5 years he has to close them down, especially competing against William Randolph Hearst.
13:05
Ahh but fortunes change in the blink of an eye.
A gambler and alcoholic Uncle Reggie marries young Gloria Morgan, the identical twin sister to Thelma Morgan Furness, the current married mistress to the Prince of Wales. Reggie and Gloria have one child Gloria Vanderbilt before he dies in 1925. The fairly depleted but still significant fortune then goes back to the remaining surviving brother Neily.
The influx of cash further invigorates Grace to play lavish hostess. Grace never understands the value of money nor the need for restraint. Supposedly, Neily also offers to lend Neil money to help with the flailing newspaper venture.
13:49
By 1926, Neil loses his company, has to break his trust to pay off creditors, as the money promised by his father never came through. Already invested $2 million of his own money, Neil then later pays off his over $6 million in losses. Furthermore, Neil is having issues with his wife Rachel, and she stays with his parents, and they side with her against Neil.
His more “bohemian” lifestyle causes issues with his parents, who hate the press vehemently and certainly do not want their son working for one. As an assignment reporter, Neil persists and even gets a chance to interview both Kaiser Wilhelm and Benito Mussolini in 1926. During that interview Neil claims Mussolini struck down a child with a car and shrugs it off as, “What’s one life in the affairs of the state?” The revelation later causes an international crisis in January 1931.
14:49
As Neil’s first marriage ends in 1927, Neil takes a job as a managing editor at Hearst’s the Daily Mirror. His time in Reno waiting for his divorce inspires his novel Reno, detailing all the explicit goings on at the divorce capitol where in the corridor known as the divorce alley there is a high percentage of soon to be eligible young semi-wealthy women.
In July 1928, Neil marries his second wife Mary Weir, fresh off her own divorce. In September 1930, Neil interviews his cousin Harold Vanderbilt and Sir Thomas Lipton during their battle over the America’s Cup. In the 1930s, he will use his familiarity and connections to interview Al Capone, Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, and many more…
15:37
For 1931 the other more prominent headline featuring Neil is his altercation with famed New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno. Arno developed his own slanted slapdash style with witty banter much like “an overheard remark” as described by Robert Benchley. Arno’s highly popular Whoops Sisters establish his signature. He is highly credited for aiding in distinguishing the New Yorker from its competitors and one of its first mad geniuses. He loves making fun of the elites, café society, and sexual innuendo. Arno creates cartoons from 1925 to 1968 including 99 covers. He is popular with the ladies but in 1927 marries another New Yorker journalist Lois Long who writes under the pen name Lipstick covering the flapper lifestyle, reviewing all the popular clubs especially speakeasies, and is considered America’s first fashion critic – with artistic merit, independence, intelligence, humor, and literary style. Together they have a daughter.
16:43
Ironically, Arno too has issues with his own namesake father, a New York Supreme Court judge. Arno drops out of Yale after one year and pursues the arts against his father’s wishes. Later in 1924, his father has another child a daughter in his second marriage who along with her mother inherit the bulk of his estate in 1933, leaving Arno with a small sum of $20k out of the $750k estate (in 2022 that would be $450k out of $16.8 million). Arno is a scandal magnet himself and prone to dating plenty of the popular debutantes despite a sizeable age difference.
17:25
Another note in June 1931: Rogers Caldwell of Caldwell and Company is indicted for the misapplication of $1 million in funds relating to the fallout in Fall 1930 bank failures mentioned in Episode 45: The Butterfly Effect. Indicted along with Rogers, the former President James Brown and former Vice President Charles Jones both of the National Bank of Kentucky are charged for making false reports dating back to October 4th, 1929, merely weeks before the Crash. I found this update next to an article about Neil’s bankruptcy.
Alas there are no guarantees even with a substantially large family fortune. Our heirs and heiresses should beware that no fortune good or bad lasts forever.
18:10
[Music – One In A Million by Brian Lawrance, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
18:22
There comes one in every family. One who dreams bigger, tries harder, and challenges the norms especially within the family structure itself.
In poor or middle class families, this dreamer might be the one who breaks the generational curse of poverty. Wealthy families have definitely already benefited from one or more bold pioneers, but the builders are rarely replicated. The flush of cash leftover allows plenty of offspring who more often dwindle the family coiffeurs on frivolous pursuits.
Those born with the silverspoon have many dreams all within reach, or at least not limited by something as trivial as money.
19:01
Sometimes even more so in the already successful families that goal is even larger and more grand. To outdo a celebrity parent or industrial tycoon might be insurmountable. Occasionally there are tales of 2.0 or next as a better generation but there are far more that fall into oblivion.
Not every rich kid intends to waste their fortunes on hedonistic pursuits. Several are motivated to build more, better, larger, grander… Babyfaced richest boy Huntington Hartford has plans to build a greater fortune than the one he inherited. There are certainly plenty of examples around him of the pitfalls that might come before mixed with a few of more successful ones like Vincent Astor.
Huntington abhors his best friend Vincent’s younger half-brother Jakey Astor’s insistence on a life of luxury. Huntington himself has dreams of adventure, writing, and living off these means. Maybe he should take into consideration another Newport neighbor and heir Neil Vanderbilt. Pursuits and dreams can be costly.
20:04
However the majority causes of bankruptcy involve large medical bills, a bout of unemployment, or some other large financial disaster. Famous people who filed for bankruptcy include Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Milton Hershey, PT Barnum, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Larry King, Donald Trump, Dave Ramsey, Willie Nelson, MC Hammer, Mike Tyson, and the list goes on with more than a few entertainment, sports, and business celebrities.
20:36
I will admit now that during the implosion of my marriage I was forced to file bankruptcy. I struggled for years trying to get out of debt, while my husband kept piling it up then became unable to maintain employment. The madness behind a secret drug addiction that when finally surfaced, I had only one way out of the drowning, especially after realizing he had maxed out our joint credit card over $20k and had the equivalent amount in his own secret debts – for a community property state that meant I was responsible for it all despite my small nearly minimum wage salary and would be unable to ever get out of it. I filed bankruptcy then divorced and pushed forward. Just another mark in the road of experience that parallels to several subjects within our story.
21:27
People love rags to riches stories, but it is just as likely riches to rags is just another part of the news cycle.
If you enjoy As The Money Burns, then please share, like, & subscribe.
Hook
21:42
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
Secret newlyweds arrive at their tropical destination. Will this be the beginning or the end of their clandestine union?
Until then…
Credits
22:01
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.
22:33
THE END.