The Old Money Heirs Who Never Worked a Day and Spent Their Way Into RUIN

The Old Money Heirs Who Never Worked a Day and Spent Their Way Into RUIN Officially, they were the luckiest people in America. Four heirs, born into fortunes built on railroads, asbestos, newspapers and groceries, who never had to punch a clock or answer to a boss. But almost every one of those stories ended in a courtroom, a hospital ward or an empty account. A Vanderbilt dodged a district attorney's subpoena so he wouldn't miss a horse show. An asbestos heir married thirteen times, once for seven hours and forty-five minutes. A Washington heiress paid a hundred thousand dollars to a con man who swore he could return the Lindbergh baby. The A and P heir put thirty million dollars into an island and walked away with one. And a great American newspaper was sold off its own front steps while its owner turned up in a hospital in Montreal. On the steps that morning, a woman in black wore a blue diamond of about forty-five carats. Years later, it traveled to Washington in plain brown paper. It starts at a brownstone on East Forty-Fourth Street. Chapters: 00:00 — The auction on E Street 03:10 — ACT I — THE GAMBLER 07:06 — ACT II — THE BRIDEGROOM 11:05 — ACT III — THE DIAMOND 17:26 — ACT IV — THE ISLAND 21:40 — ACT V — THE AFTERMATH Source Material Visual material used in this production is obtained from publicly accessible archives, including Wikimedia Commons and Flickr Commons. Copyright & Fair Use Notice This channel incorporates copyrighted material under the principles of Fair Use as recognized by U.S. law. Under Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act, certain uses of copyrighted works such as for analysis, commentary, educational purposes, research, and reporting are permitted without prior authorization from the copyright holder. Sources Time, Sport — Reginald Vanderbilt (1925) — https://time.com/archive/6654295/spor... Time, Milestones, Sep. 6, 1943 (Tommy Manville) — https://time.com/archive/6605315/mile... Bill Hogan, Losing It, Washingtonian (1982) — https://www.billhogan.com/1982/02/los... Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Hope Diamond Wrapper — https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/np... In re Johns-Manville Corp., 41 B.R. 926 (S.D.N.Y. 1984) — https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/... #documentary #history #oldmoney #heirs