As another year begins, many lives are in flux amidst the changes occurring. Will their choices lead to better outcomes or more trouble ahead? Elsa Maxwell throws another fabulous costume party before returning to Europe. Cobina Wright reconsiders her options for financial recovery. Louise Van Alen and Prince Alexis Mdivani’s wedding announcement upsets her family, and Lady Ribblesdale offers some consolation. Other people and subjects include: Cobina Wright, Bill Wright, Jimmy Cromwell, Irene Hutton, Evalyn Walsh McLean, Birdie Vanderbilt, Grace Wilson Vanderbilt, Vincent Astor, Helen Astor, Prince Serge Obolensky, Ava Alice Astor, Henry Van Alen, Sam Van Alen, Daisy Van Alen, Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Prince Serge Mdivani, Mary McCormic, Prince David Mdivani, Mae Murray, Princess Roussie Mdivani Sert, Josep Maria Sert, Princess Nina Mdivani, Charles Huberich, Zakariah Mdivani, Czar Nicholas II Romanov, Joseph Stalin, costume party, American dollar princesses, fascination with royal & noble titles, Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet states, and siblings dating friends. Archival Music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
As another year begins, many lives are in flux amidst the changes occurring. Will their choices lead to better outcomes or more trouble ahead?
Elsa Maxwell throws another fabulous costume party before returning to Europe. Cobina Wright reconsiders her options for financial recovery. Louise Van Alen and Prince Alexis Mdivani’s wedding announcement upsets her family, and Lady Ribblesdale offers some consolation.
Other people and subjects include: Cobina Wright, Bill Wright, Jimmy Cromwell, Irene Hutton, Evalyn Walsh McLean, Birdie Vanderbilt, Grace Wilson Vanderbilt, Vincent Astor, Helen Astor, Prince Serge Obolensky, Ava Alice Astor, Henry Van Alen, Sam Van Alen, Daisy Van Alen, Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Prince Serge Mdivani, Mary McCormic, Prince David Mdivani, Mae Murray, Princess Roussie Mdivani Sert, Josep Maria Sert, Princess Nina Mdivani, Charles Huberich, Zakariah Mdivani, Czar Nicholas II Romanov, Joseph Stalin, costume party, American dollar princesses, fascination with royal & noble titles, Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet states, and siblings dating friends.
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Archival Music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight? by Jack Hylton, Album Charleston – Great Stars Of the 20s
Section 2 Music: Ooh! That Kiss! by Carroll Gibbons, Album Elegance 2
Section 3 Music: It’s Got To Be Love by Roy Fox & His Orchestra with Mary Lee, 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 048 – Revelations & Resolutions
Series Tag
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
Barbara Hutton has her big debutante ball that leads toward disaster. Secret lovers Prince Alexis Mdivani and Louise Van Alen announce their engagement.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:44
Revelations & Resolutions
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
As another year begins, many lives are in flux amidst the changes occurring. Will their choices lead to better outcomes or more trouble ahead?
01:01
[Music – I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight? by Jack Hylton, Album Charleston – Great Stars Of the 20s]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:19
The holidays and debutante season have passed, and a whole new year has begun. Many contemplate their New Year’s resolutions while the economic recovery has not truly begun but is hopefully still on the horizon. Nevertheless, several revelations will change their course trajectories.
Supreme hostess and opera singer Cobina Wright gets situated into her new quarters. The Crash has wiped out their fortune. Her husband William May Wright, aka Bill, is a brilliant stockbroker born with a silverspoon on his mother side, affiliated with Newport bluebloods and European royalty.
01:56
Cobina overlooks as her servants pack up her Sutton Place apartment as they prepare to move over to 57th Street. The move of course is an attempt to downsize their expenses as money has yet to improve over the last year. Bill has not been able to recover business wise as the stock market still hasn’t made any gains. The recent bank failures add even more anxiety to the already dark situation.
The packing and unpacking bring reminders of past times good and bad. Recently, Cobina and Bill attended the popular roly-poly and other celebrity hostess Elsa Maxwell’s costume party at the Ritz-Carlton’s Crystal Room shortly before Barbara Hutton’s ball. The big affair was reminiscent of Cobina’s own party success, as it looks like another year will go by without her Circus Ball, her annual tribute to her loving husband. Last year was the first in nearly a decade, they did not throw it.
02:46
Elsa’s party had the “Come As Your Opposite” theme with honored guest Cole Porter. People were announced by their costumes and not their actual names. Party guests came as a bell boy, a nun, an equestrian with a paper mache horse, a ballet dancer on a live donkey, and the more likely today culturally and ethnically inappropriate attires as a maharajah, an “Indian” Native American maiden, and a mulatto dandy.
True to form Bill the blueblood stockbroker came as an artist while the concert coloratura soprano Cobina impersonated a clergyman with a prayer book and flask. Famed dancer Adele Astaire, the sister-partner to Fred Astaire, was an angel while the Ziegfeld Follies star Fannie Brice as a lady. Doris Duke admirer, the Heir with a Spare Jimmy Cromwell dressed as the famous Mayflower and Plymouth female colonist “Priscilla Mullins Alden” to accompany his friend Larry Doyle as Priscilla’s husband John Alden. In their colonial party included, Barbara Hutton’s stepmother Irene Hutton as a Mayflower lass and likely Priscilla’s sister.
03:48
Vincent Astor and his sister Ava Alice Astor’s mother Lady Ribblesdale came as Charlie Chaplin. Vincent’s wife Helen had a look so elaborate no one could recognize her and won the third costume prize as a wicked vamp. Helen wore a long black velvet gown, carried a long black cigarette holder, covered her blonde tresses in a black wig, and even her makeup was black and white. She looked perfectly like someone from Venice or Lido. Elsa herself was dressed as President Herbert Hoover. But the most sensational costume was made by the rare appearance at a fancy dress party Evalyn Walsh McLean making a grand entrance in a coiffure with a blonde wig and amongst her many jewels – the Hope Diamond.
04:32
The party was such a success that Mrs. Virginia Graham Fair “Birdie” Vanderbilt has vowed to throw her own party to try and out top it. A very tall order since Elsa has knack for providing entertainment to all desirable types from celebrities to European nobility on both sides of the pond. An invite from Elsa is far more treasured than one from Society Queen Grace Vanderbilt.
More importantly, Elsa is very good at making a living on her roving party circuit, hosting parties funded by others. Maybe Cobina should take lessons. Elsa never out stays her welcome and quickly after that last party headed out on an ocean liner back to France with her companion Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt Belmont.
05:14
Others like Cobina are in the process of moving but more for travel than a permanent residential move.
Over the last few years, Lady Ribblesdale has returned to the stateside to spend more time with her son Vincent Astor and occasionally his sister Ava Astor Obolensky when the bohemian beauty favors the family’s US estates. Lady Ribblesdale was a grand beauty known as Ava Willing Lowle in her day, when she was married to their father John Jacob Astor IV. Their long separation and then divorce became a scandal after he remarried a much younger woman and died on the Titanic. Lady Ribblesdale long an arbiter of fashion moved to London and entrenched herself well in royal circles and marrying British nobility. She was always very cutting but now a little softer in old age. She is still a beauty having preserved herself well.
The trunks are being packed as Lady Ribblesdale will cross the Atlantic soon. She consults briefly with her former in-laws the Van Alens as they brace themselves for the oncoming attention from a recent announcement.
06:12
Popular It Girl Louise Van Alen revels in her pending nuptials to the impoverished Russian Prince Alexis Mdivani. Lady Ribblesdale knows Louise’s mother and another society queen Daisy Van Alen’s concerns. Lady Ribblesdale’s daughter Ava is married to Russian Prince Serge Obolensky also impoverished as a result of the Russian Revolution. Ava’s mother was not pleased at first with the match, but Serge’s charms eventually won her over.
Already the newspapers announce Prince Alexis’s voyage back to New York from Paris as the new couple go through the proper engagement rituals before their spring wedding. No proper society mother would ever be thrilled at their daughter marrying someone less financially well off, despite the girl’s own personal fortune. The press coverage creates a scandalous bind when Daisy and her sons would rather have the engagement end.
07:02
However Prince Alexis is anticipated to arrive on Tuesday January 12th, 1931. One would think this old family friend would be enthusiastically received, but much tension fills the Van Alen home in the blatant violation of friendship.
Last year, it was uncovered that Louise and Prince Alexis were having a secret affair. The revelation confirmed by love letters of the longtime seduction. Alexis has long been friends of Louise’s brothers Henry and Sam Van Alen since their school days at Eton as well as roommates at Cambridge and later London. Alexis had long lived off the Van Alen family’s dimes. He seemed so comfortable with what was theirs was his that he even took their most prized possession – their sister Louise.
07:46
Louise held her ground against her family’s objections in resolve to marry her Prince, and Alexis further forced the official engagement by pre-emptively releasing the announcement from Paris before further interference could occur.
Maybe it would seem natural for the young couple to come together, but there is the matter of Alexis’s other siblings that may cause more doubt, suspicion, and scandal.
Elsewhere Prince Alexis’s brothers are surely salivating. Louise will easily be worth $20 million when she receives her full inheritance in parts over the years. Not only are the Mdivanis impoverished and essentially countryless former nobility, but the brothers have been in the papers more recently for less noble reasons.
08:27
Alas, older brothers Serge Mdivani and David Mdivani have married millionaires but only barely millionaires. Serge is married to Pola Negri, the Polish legendary silverscreen actress and widow of Rudolph Valentino. Pola did not fare well in the Crash, and her measly million dollar fortune has all but disappeared. She is desperately trying to divorce Serge and having a hell of a time back in Paris, meanwhile Serge has moved on to opera singer Mary McCormic. David’s wife is another silverscreen siren Mae Murray, otherwise known as “the Girl with the Bee Stung Lips.” They have a son, Koran. Mae is struggling after following David’s advice to break her MGM contract, and studio head Louis B. Mayer has had her blacklisted ever since.
09:10
Serge Mdivani and David Mdivani are oilmen, claiming to be more interested in business than the arts like their wives. Sister Nina is married to American lawyer & Stanford professor Charles Huberich, now based in London, who handles the siblings’ divorces and pre-marital contracts. Sister Roussie is an artist and sculptress in her own right and married to famous Spanish painter Josep Maria Sert, whose ex-wife Misia still lives with them in an unusual arrangement.
Yes, the Mdivanis are a colorful and sordid clan. However Prince Alexis has every intention of keeping his brothers especially their Hollywood wives away from his future blueblooded in-laws.
09:52
[Music – Ooh! That Kiss! by Carroll Gibbons, Album Elegance 2]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
10:10
There is no doubt that ocean travel had a drastic change on the international development of the world. As at Elsa Maxwell’s party, the costumes referencing the Mayflower voyage and Plymouth colony marks just how far transportation has come.
Throughout the 1930s, the ocean liner was the primary means of travel. Though Charles Lindbergh made his famous transatlantic flight on May 20th - 21st , 1927, it would take several more years before air travel would become more prominent. Instead large and rather state of the art ships were built for comfort and speed. One could cross the Atlantic in 5 – 7 days on the best of the lines. As travel becomes safer and more affordable in cost and time, the more mingling among international elites occurs.
10:53
That proximity and interaction helped fuel somehow beyond reason that persistent fairytale idea that one can become a princess, countess, or lady. With the abundance of wealth now in the former colonies, it seemed money could fulfill any wish and solve almost any obstacle to that goal.
Since the Gilded Age, there was a trend known as the American Dollar Princess. That is when the daughter of a wealthy American family, and most likely new money, would then marry European nobility, particularly those in financial troubles. Ironically, this seems like a forewarning to any wealthy or dynastic family about money and heirship. It doesn’t last forever, and those big structures and lifestyles are costly long after the money stops.
11:38
Decades have passed since that notion first took place. With the ravages of World War I obliterating many imperial and noble lines, Europe was full of impoverished and now landless royals, and plenty of fakes as well. Many floated about during the Roaring Twenties. All the rage.
So what happens if an American Dollar Princess marries aristocracy with nothing but a title? That’s not really how it is supposed to work. They were supposed to get the landed estates as well. Of course, their parents would be miffed. Even more with the Great Depression, Americans didn’t like their dollars going overseas to these pompous unrelatable lifestyles. Would these girls become like Marie Antionette to their fellow Americans dismissing their troubles with “let them eat cake / brioche” attitudes?
12:23
How did these impoverished former royals and nobles exist during the Great Depression? Well, one former aristocratic family of five siblings married so well that the whole group was referred as the Marrying Mdivanis. The five siblings spread out, with each establishing their own domains. Two of the brothers moved to the US and smartly staked their claims with wealthy wives before the world’s troubles began. The youngest Alexis Mdivani has yet to join the family business of marrying well but will soon outshine them all.
Louise Van Alen had spent part of her life living abroad due to her grandfather’s protesting Prohibition laws, and Prince Alexis Mdivani has been part of her family circle since her childhood. Of course, she would become attached to him and also would have normalized the knowledge and habit of financially supporting him.
13:09
Maybe she should check a little more across the continent to California. Where his older brothers Serge Mdivani and David Mdivani are fighting with their Hollywood wives. Silent film actress and Rudolph Valentino’s widow Pola Negri is desperately trying to get rid of her Prince. Despite multiple attempts, divorcing Serge is becoming quite complicated, and her million dollars are long gone after the Crash. Pola Negri makes multiple attempts to divorce Serge in the U.S. and in France. Before the divorce is even final, Serge is already linked in the press to opera singer Mary McCormick from Arkansas, whose finances have remained more intact. David’s own wife the blonde actress Mae Murray also struggles with her husband’s financial irresponsibility. Each independently famous wife enjoyed adding “princess” to their already recognizable names.
13:57
Over the years, the brothers have been making headlines not only for their marital exploits and troubles but with other titillating situations that would certainly meet disapproval among the New York and Newport elite. In 1928, brother David was caught speeding in Santa Monica and listed his occupation as “husband” to the delight of several papers including the Boston Globe & San Francisco Examiner. On a cruise in November 1930, Serge gets in a drunken fight with a vaudeville actor while defending a beautiful lady’s honor after the actor swore in front of her. After the quick drunken brawl in the ship’s gymnasium, the two men quickly made up and became friends.
14:33
Sister Roussie is a sculptress and is even better at reshaping realities, living in an odd threesome with her famous husband Spanish painter Sert and his now ex-wife Misia. Sert’s skills will be seen throughout Palm Beach and later in 1931 at the Waldorf-Astoria. Eldest Nina might be the most normal with her lawyer husband Charles Huberich. Alexis himself readily acknowledges he has no interest in ever becoming a regular working stiff. He fully expects others to take care of him.
15:02
The Mdivani siblings are all deeply proud of their heritage and will defend any challenge against their titled claims. In 1927, Serge sued a publisher for claiming they were fakes. Serge paid a lawyer to trace the family lineage. Through that search, they were linked to Solomon Mdivani who was the first given the title prince by Czar Irakly II of Georgia in 1752 for extraordinary valor in battle.
As explained in Episode 15 Tales of Two Princes, the Mdivanis have a Persian name divan meaning “secretary” and are actually from the nation-state Georgia in the Caucasus mountain region bordering Russia, birthplace of Joseph Stalin, and a Soviet Republic state. Their father Zahkary Mdivani was a general in the Russian army and loyal to Czar Nicholas II Romanov. To avoid story confusion both with the American state of Georgia and the more international familiarity with Russian cultures and personalities plus their own father’s imperial allegiance and connections, I refer to the siblings and family as Russian.
16:00
Make no mistake, the Mdivanis were deeply patriotic to Georgia, its plight, and its refugees after the Bolshevik Revolution. They see Russia as a bitter enemy to Georgia. The claims against their titles are seen as Russian and now communist enemy attempts to bring disrepute on their family.
For a historical perspective, 1930 Russia & Georgia are now part the Soviet Union under Stalin. Stalin is undergoing his de-kulakisation policy, where those considered industrious and greedy by virtue of land ownership were guilty then sentenced to be killed or retrained at concentration camps. Many died in the death marches. By the way, kulaks were peasants who owned over 8 acres or more of land. Stalin biographer Dmitri Volkogonov refers to the policy as “the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his country.” Fans of Jordan Peterson will recognize the ramifications of this policy from his continual reference to Soviet history during this time.
Thus there is no way the Mdivanis have any intention of immediately returning to their homeland, especially when they can have a better lifestyle in America and Europe.
17:10
[Music – t’s Got To Be Love by Roy Fox & His Orchestra with Mary Lee, Album It’s Got To Be Love]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
17:31
Remember your crushes growing up. Quite naturally it might often be the friend of a sibling, especially an older sibling.
Louise Van Alen had spent part of her childhood and adolescence in close connection with Prince Alexis Mdivani. Despite rival Barbara Hutton’s insistence that Louise was using and not caring for Alexis, it is safe to say that likely Louise was very much enamored and in love with her brother’s best friend.
That is another triangle forming within this story. Siblings and friends. How involved or not involved can they be?
18:02
I know this has definitely been a theme within my life. I am the youngest of four. The distance with the two oldest made this triangulation for me unlikely but with the brother closest in age. It came up multiple times in both directions. The first was throughout junior high with my female best friend’s ongoing crush on my brother, and his complicated return of interest in her. He was conflicted due to the age gap and chose to date girls more age appropriate.
In reverse for the same reasons, my brother strictly forbade his friends from dating me. In fairness, he and his friends were 3 years older and at a time when that was a significant difference. He did not want me corrupted nor pressured sexually by the older guys. It didn’t help the group with the biggest crush on me was the one with the most delinquents involved. Seriously, my brother and that set of friends had plenty of ongoing police interaction at that time.
18:56
Still there were a few particular instances with different guys that caused plenty of issues within the group. And once or twice more heatedly with my brother. They all swore not to touch me, and they made sure no one else did too. The motto – if I can’t have you neither can he – reigned. I was told by each of them one time or other. The irony, I mostly didn’t want any of them, too much trouble and other family issues made me cautious of the exact thing from which my brother protecting me. I was happy to remain at peace through his interference.
Though I must admit, it made dating and attraction cues awfully confusing for me.
19:36
Adolescence and young adulthood are complicated times that map out how we learn to handle life correctly or incorrectly. Complications during that period can have long standing consequences.
Which is why I find these particular stories interesting, and I hope you do too.
Hook
19:56
[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 some seem to have plenty of food and money, the rising unemployment leaves many without. One wealthy couple sets up a place where the poor can get a hot meal.
Until then…
Credits
20:16
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.
20:45
THE END.