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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elina and this is [Music] morid It's morbid it's morbid in the new
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year 2024 it's upon us some of them probably have come out in the new year but it hasn't been the new year and we
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never know when episodes come out no you know this we know this we all know it we
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all know I think this one comes out in like two weeks from now is my assumption so you know what you guys are well into
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the new year and I hope it's going great tell us how it's going yeah our new our
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last year ended just just perfectly for the what the year was a crescendo of [ __ ] but you know literally
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2024 is going to be great it's going to be so much better everybody's walking into
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2024 I think everyone's walking into it in their villain era which is like I like that I like that I've seen a lot of
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people that I love and respect doing this so I'm like I'm glad we're all just walking in hand in hand here I like that
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do you know something about me I don't think I am going to have a villain era I don't think you are either but I don't
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think you should I don't think want to so like it makes sense I think I'm just walking into like maybe like how about a
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hot girl era I like that I feel like you've been in your hot girl era I want to continue my hot girl era like better
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and like I need to get more steps in yeah so I can really be amongst these hot girls there you go I just need to
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start moving again well that's that's okay we're we're a little we're a little bit sedentary little sedentary L we did
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buy walking pads but they're still over there oops right under my couch right now well I rang in the New Year watching
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uh Married at First Married at First Night Australia and might I say American Married at First Sight take a couple
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[ __ ] notes wow Married at First Sight Australia Drew and I binged almost the entire season yesterday damn it is so
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good you if you have Hulu you can watch it I don't know what else it's on but the drums well I mean Australia I love
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Australia I love Australian people our Australian listeners have always been lovely as [ __ ] and they say the best
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things have you ever heard I'm not trying to [ __ ] spiders no but I agree with that sentiment or they say like I'm
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not going to [ __ ] SP how to respond to that Siri doesn't know how to respond to
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that she said I like I don't understand I also am not going to [ __ ] spiders it
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means like I'm not trying to mess around I'm not trying to [ __ ] spiders that's
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what they say like I'm not going to [ __ ] spiders they're like I'm not here to [ __ ] spiders oh I'm can I Australian
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listeners is it okay if I use that yeah cuz that's fun I will give you credit lindle who is my favorite on this season
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I'm watching season 10 of Married at First Sight she said that during her wedding vows and I was like that's a
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queen right there wow that's a queen that's just that's an elite person really it's so good and they have you've
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have you ever seen like the Married at First Sight like American version I think yeah I've seen like um that that
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one that one episode that everyone's seen or that one season that everyone's seen yes I think is that I don't know if
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that's season one or not it's one of the very early ones Jamie and Doug right yeah um well this one they like they do
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like dinner parties and they get them all together and then they have a commitment ceremony every single week
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where like everybody [ __ ] gets [ __ ] aired like out in front of everybody you
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have to like recommit or not you have to recommit you have to stay or leave and if one person right stay in the couple
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and the other person wres leave you have to stay another week to work on your marriage as long as you're both as long
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as they're like are you like are you going to do it this person's like I'd like to leave and you're like too bad I
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know when I first saw that I was like [ __ ] but damn it's wild yeah and there's
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a cheating scandal oh my God it's reality TV [ __ ] on everything it's just it's
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so good I just went to Disney On Ice this weekend so that's different it's different that's different For You
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especially was that triggering it was a little bit but I will tell you the girls
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faces oh yeah cutest thing I've ever seen like it was by far the best part of the weekend I also think that's just
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like as soon as you become a parent you just do that yeah like Disney on parent Disney on Ice yeah absolutely everyone I
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know or follow on Instagram that is a parent has been to Disney On Ice in the past two weeks kids love it and they do
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a great job with it so I can't wait to go it's it's wonderful I mean I love ice skaters I think ice skaters are like
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really like I just love watching them oh yeah that was always my favorite part of
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the Olympics me too right so that was fun so it was a nice wholesome moment in an otherwise uh stressful end of the
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year yeah my God but very wholesome at the end of the year it just keeps flashing through my brain I got food
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poisoning so we'll just leave it at that yeah but um it's you know fun fun fun for fun fun fun but
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2024 we're all here it's going to be great let's all just like you know I think just like everybody's resolution
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should be uh just don't be an [ __ ] and worry about yourself and stop worrying about everybody
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else like mine is there you go see mine is just like worry about the the ones who matter don't worry about
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the ones who don't hell yeah you're not on brother you know just take care of your own I'm into it that's what I'm
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saying I think we'd all be happy I think that's a theme of this story is take care of your own but they that was not
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their resolution no I no this is just a very TR tragic sad story but it has high
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society and you know I'm a sucker for that so I mean I love listening to your stories about High Society I am a Great
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Gatsby fan like I do love just like like sitting sitting and watching the just on a quick note of
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high society have you watched saltburn yet no but I've heard many many things about it you have to be in the right
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head space to watch that movie let me tell you and you know what you will you have to be in the right head space and
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you will never be in the right head space all at the same time okay it's also very long it's a commitment but
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yeah I don't know when I'm going to be ready for that but cinematically it's beautiful I've heard great things I've
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heard interesting things but oh my God yeah I who knows maybe I'll have time for that at some point it's coconuts
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bananas but I said High Society so I thought of that but anyway sorry let's go back to the story Society my story
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today much like saltburn is highly tragic but other than that it doesn't really have any correlation we're going
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to be talking about an and Billy Woodward today and if you know anything about Truman capot and um that new show
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that new Ryan Murphy show Feud that's coming out then you will you will probably know about this a little bit
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cuz that's what it is right Feud is it a new season because it's like an anthology like American Horror Story
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where it's a new Feud every season okay um and this this new one which I thought
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was a very interesting concept and I'm excited for it um is Feud with Truman capot women that right he ended up feing
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with so this this lady was like never friends with him at all but he ended up doing her so dirty o like real bad but
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before all of that came we got to go back to the beginning so Anne Woodward uh we're going to focus on her and Billy
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Woodward but we'll start with an um to say that Anne Woodward came from humble beginnings would be the profoundest of
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understatements oh boy she was born angelene Lucille crowl on December 12th 1915 and PX Pittsburgh Kansas her early
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life was um a very far cry from New York High Society like the farthest possible
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the farthest cry yes her father Jesse Claude crra he was an occasional farmer and Railway driver who spent more of his
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time looking for money than he did actually trying to earn it he was just looking for quick easy money yeah but
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her mom Ethel KRA couldn't have been any different from her husband she was an incredibly hard worker and she had a
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very stubborn personality not only did she take care of her and Jesse's two small children she took care of his
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parents and really for all intents and purposes took care of him too oh Ethel Ethel had a lot on her shoulders yeah
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and at the time she was also taking correspondence courses in teaching wow um through the state manual training
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normal school look at this badass she just doing it all yeah now eth and Jesse's marriage in 1913 had gotten off
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to kind of a rocky start they were married at an age and this is going to blow your mind where School teachers
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were expected to be single women so Ethel had to keep her marriage to Jesse a secret for years so as not to affect
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their income so I feel like you can't win no cuz you're either single in a spinster
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or you're married and shunned anyways because you're not supposed to be married isn't that strange that like if
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you were a school teacher you weren't supposed to be married that's incredibly dumb yeah 1913 man don't get that but
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despite her work ethic and commitment to providing for others Ethel KW believed that Kansas was just a desert and she
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wanted way more for her children than what they were going to have working the family's already struggling Farm I love
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AEL I do too and she didn't know it at the time unfortunately but her near obsession with self-improvement and
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disdain for poverty would have a considerable influence specifically on her daughter an ah now unfortunately
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tragedy struck the family in 1918 when 5-year-old Jesse Jr died in the middle of the night he choked to death on his
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own fluids is what they said oh my God but today most likely we would assume that he probably had pneumonia and
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didn't have like the proper treatment at the time that's horrific but the death of her child caused Ethel to turn away
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from her family first emotionally and then physically she was just distraught after losing a child and she just had
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this unrelenting guilt that she thought the her child's death was her fault in some way yeah I mean I can understand
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like it absolutely wasn't but no I can understand why she thought that and she convinced herself that if she had the
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money to take her son to a hospital his death could have been prevented that's so sad it is and that line of thinking
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eventually grew into the belief that the whole thing could have been avoided if she was able to get out of Kansas and
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had never married a poor farmer so she the guilt she put on herself she had so much guilt and then she because of that
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guilt she just started resenting everything and everybody around her of course and despite friends and family
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urging her to you know think of her husband think of her daughter think of what you do still have and they
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desperately need you she was like I can't do this and that's when she enrolled in the normal school and moved
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several hours away to pursue her education oh wow she just needed to get away from it all damn and maybe it was
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like the best thing for her at that point because I don't know that she was going to be great at home I think she
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needed to take that break but at the same time it's like you kind of can't you know it's a tough one it's a catch
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22 either way now the extreme poverty and emotional tumult of the early days or the early years uh sadly didn't
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improve much as Anne Grew Older by the time she was 10 her parents relationship had just completely deteriorated to the
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point that Jesse finally did ask Ethel for a divorce which back then was huge like nobody got dived back then but at
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that point there had been so many Affairs and emotional betrayals that respectability didn't matter much and
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eth was like yeah sign me up like I'm good like bye so she packed up her daughter and their few belongings and
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moved back to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Kansas uh in the years that followed Ethel met and married another man whom
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she also divorced not long after and she and Anne relocated again this time to Kansas City where Ethel actually opened
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her own taxi business that grew to employ sever several drivers and a ton of company owned cars damn so she's
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taken hit after hit but she's she's still chugging along getting back up the move to Kansas City got them out of the
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crushing Poverty of Kansas farm life but it did little to improve Ann or Ethel's
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lives like emotionally Ethel was away working day and night to comfort or to support
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herself and her daughter so Ann found an escape in the movie houses and film magazines of the day all presenting this
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Glamorous Life in Hollywood Hollywood Hollywood that now she was just determined to find for herself she
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wanted to be on the big screen she wanted to get out of Kansas she wants to be a star she wanted to be a star see
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name and lights yes now that determination to find her way out of poverty was only strengthened then by
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the hardships and just terrible time that she saw her mother go through every single day yeah as a single woman and a
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female business owner Ethel was subject to all kinds of misogyny and harassment and most of which came from her male
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employees her employees her employees because they resented having to work for a woman too [ __ ] bad didn't have any
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reservations about showing it that's absurd it's like cool you're fired you're tiny bye now by the time she
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reached her 21st birthday Angie crra had reinvented herself as an crra aspiring model and movie star oo no longer
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content with the impoverished life in Kansas City that she was living she took uh a move and decided to go to Denver to
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stay with her aunt and cousin and while she lived in Denver she actually managed to secure a few jobs
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modeling for cataloges before she eventually returned to Kansas City now more Restless than ever cuz she had a
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small taste of what she had been dreaming of she wasn't content to just dream of wealth and fame anymore she was
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like I got to make this happen yeah so she finally made the decision at this point to move to New York City just a
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few months later the New York City the big city the Big Apple and she figured you know I did make some connections in
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Denver Maybe those will pay off once I get to New York and Ethel obviously hated to see her daughter go but at the
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same time this was what she wanted for Anne to get out of Kansas and to experience big things and have the life
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that Ethel didn't get to have so she talked to Anne before she left and told her never talk to strange men never look
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at them past daylight in the street I mean that's good good advice sound advice and with that advice dispense she
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gave an I love this because I just picture it's like a movie thing she gave an this bag of $5 bills that totaled out
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to about $400 oh my go in one of the cars from the taxi company and she watched as Ann drove out of Kansas so
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she just handed her daughter this bag of cash that she'd been saving yep and one
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of her tax that's that's some mom [ __ ] right just like that's some mom [ __ ] Ethel here you go take care of yourself
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take this big bag of cashing my God I love that I know so when she arrived in New York in August
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of 1937 and was 22 years old now unemployed and homeless she literally had nowhere to go at this point but she
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had that drive that her mother had instilled in her and it was only intensified Now by her fear of having to
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go back to Kansas being like yeah I didn't make it yeah so she found a cheap mo hotel room using some of the money
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that Ethel had given her and the next day I love this too this story is awesome she went straight to the powers
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agency which was a modeling agency on Park AV she hadn't she didn't make like any contacts there like a famous
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modeling agency it is yeah nobody was expecting her at the agency she didn't have like an appointment or anything
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like that she was walking for her and the secretary was like okay like why don't you take a seat until somebody's
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you know available to speak with you but by 6:30 that night everyone had left for
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the day and Ann was like asked she was asked to leave so she sat there the whole day and no one was like coming out
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to talk to her but she was committed so she returned the next day and the next day and the next day and same thing she
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arrived right when they opened take a seat someone will be able to talk to you like when they can no one and then
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finally on the fourth day of sitting and waiting John Powers agreed to see Anne John Powers
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like he didn't refuse to hire her but he did tell her that she would need a nose
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job in order to succeed with his agency he was like the rest of you is fine but your nose is a little off oh what an
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awful World truly truly but you know what Ann said bet and borrowed some money from a friend and paid $500 for
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her nose job which also like great friend she just loan you 500 bucks for a nose job now she figured she'd be able
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to pay the money back to her friend when she saved up uh some of her earnings from a new job that she got at the sax
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Fifth Avenue hat counter the Hat counter so that was like her little side hustle
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or I guess modeling was her side hustle and that was her main was good job she never really did manage to get the big
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glamorous modeling jobs that she hoped for but she did manage to find success at the powers agency as one of the more
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popular models for soaps toothpaste and like home and beauty products kind of thing yeah between the money she made
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from her modeling job and her job at sack she was able to move into her own small apartment on East 50th Street
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which she wallpapered quote with menus from Chic nightclubs and restaurants such as El Morocco 21 and the stor club
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that is so cool sounding isn't that I just like you're making it in the big city you're going to these nightclubs
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and you're like you know what I have an idea just a DI y Queen like and it just sounds so like it sounds so like
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Bohemian and cool you know doesn't it does it also reminds me of like when we would uh put like abom bags on our walls
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and be like this is fashion this is the height of luxury we really thought no we all
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thought we really did during the day and she modeled of course she worked the counter at saxs and she took acting and
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dance classes damn she is hustling hustling and she had to we love to see it and then at night she dined at the
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City's most popular restaurants and night club she did and it was all paid for by the powers agency and it was
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because she was one of their more popular models in the space that she was so they wanted to promote her more and
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more so she got to go to these fancy places her hard work finally paid off in November of 1938 when she landed a role
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as a chorus girl in a new musical Review called set to music set to music set to
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music the Broadway show and then subsequent national tour put an in contact with some of the idols that she
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worshiped as a teenager in her room back in Kansas but she still wanted more E's
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daughter baby I was just going to say that's the Ethel she wanted more recognition more Fame more wealth more
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everything she was she was tenacious yeah but unfortunately just as she was really coming into her own things back
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in Kansas took a turn oh no one morning Ethel woke up with a really bad sore throat and over the course of the next
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few weeks it worsened into a a cough and eventually respiratory problems that landed her in the hospital eventually
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Anne paid to have her mother transferred to a hospital in St Louis St Louis I don't know where she would have access
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to a specialist but it did little good according to the doctors Ethel had quote developed a rare lung disease that was
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common in cattle oh and sadly they didn't have much hope that her condition was going to improve if anything she was
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just going to slowly get worse and what a like what a dise that is common in cattle that's
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awful and probably because of all her work on the phone I was G to say yeah so Ann called her mother regularly to check
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in wondering if she should leave the show and go be by her side but each time Ethel insisted nope you do not leave the
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show you finish it out she's just Mom till the end she's like you're going to get something better than I did exactly
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and like don't mess it up for me that's some true mom [ __ ] like don't worry about me I'm fine you I want you to
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succeed and do what you want to do but you feel bad for Anne to be in that position cuz that's your mom of course
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you want imagine like you would feel so selfish being away from her but then she's telling you no like you got to do
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what you got impossible choice to make it is but she did finish it out and when this uh tour of set to music came to an
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end an caught a ride from New York to uh Missouri to be by her mother's side by September of 1940 she was covering all
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of Ethel's medical bills and hospital bills and she was spending almost all of her time by her mom's side to make up I
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think for the time that she was away a mother daughter Duo right now I know like I'm loving it but the sad thing was
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because she was spending all this time by eth side all the progress she had made in New York and all the connections
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that she had were slowly slipping away oh jeez and now she was faced with a decision to stay in Kansas with her mom
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or return to New York and Ann was like I can't stay in Kansas like this is not what I want for myself made too much
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progress I've made too much progress this isn't what my mom wants for me so she borrowed money from a friend again
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and she had eth transferred to a special unit at the New York Hospital oh my goodness and also these friends I know
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damn which makes you think like obviously an had to be like somewhat of a good person yeah at least she
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definitely had to you said at least at this point at least at this point I maybe she was the whole way through I
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don't know who knows but again like you said having friends like that does tell you who you are as a person how people
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see you right so in the short amount of time that she'd been away unfortunately like I said things in New York had
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changed for the medical bills had taken a serious Financial toll which forced her to give
00:21:32
up her Penthouse apartment on East 50th Street and mooved to a studio apartment on East 56th Street man oh man and most
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of the personal and professional connections that she had made during her time and set to music had either moved
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on to other Productions or gone out to Hollywood to try Hollywood to try their luck in the film industry which is what
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she really wanted to do by the end of 1940 and she still hadn't found any steady work and her expenses mostly due
00:22:00
to paying Ethel's medical bills were threatening to send her back to Kansas if she didn't find something reliable
00:22:05
soon I smell a little desperation here well as luck would have it in December of 1942 Anne heard that the Monte Carlo
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the Monte Carlo Monte Carlo a small exclusive nightclub just a few blocks from her apartment so convenient they
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were looking for chorus girls and dancers hell yeah don't we know Ann is a Dancer she is the work would be
00:22:26
obviously a step down from the glamour Broadway stage and the tour that she had just been on in the past but it was
00:22:31
steady work and the evening hours meant that she would have her days free to spend with e that's ideal so through
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tenacity and the few connections that she did have left in the city an managed to land the job as a dancing girl at the
00:22:43
Monte Carlo which would pay her $50 a week look at her back then that's pretty good income also I love that like her
00:22:49
having to leave to take care of her ailing mother was like yeah sorry you're just going to lose your connections like
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no one was willing to be like yeah she's just taking care of her like dying mother MH like it's humans need to get
00:23:02
better humans need to get better and it's we all need to get better that's such a that's so industry you know what
00:23:08
I mean it's just so cold it's like all right you do have to realize people are humans but people don't give a [ __ ] nope
00:23:14
now working at the Monte Carlo was a far cry from the dreams of stardom that an had for herself but as one of the uh
00:23:20
Premier nightclubs in New York it did I was going to say that was like the nightclub it was and of course because
00:23:26
it was it attracted a good amount of stars from stage and screen oh yeah so she was still within that Circle even
00:23:32
though she wasn't quite one of them kind of just hanging on the fringes a little
00:23:35
bit but you're were almost in there that's the perfect way to describe it now it was during one of these uh late
00:23:40
night Floor shows that Ann caught the eye of a man called William Woodward senior he was a wealthy banker and
00:23:47
racehorse Enthusiast I recognize that last name racehorses just keep making an appearance inace they do you love a
00:23:54
racehorse yeah I do you're living in a place of racehorse I really do except I don't I don't like I don't actually I
00:24:01
don't [ __ ] with that but we'll talk about it but yeah I feel like it's just part of high society oh 100% especially
00:24:06
back then when everybody's just like smoking cigars racing horses oh yeah of course I love you're just holding a
00:24:12
giant Bagel right now and you're talking with your hands so you're like smoking cigars just like wagging your bagels
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eating bagels that was great you know fancy High Society stuff it's an asiago bagel oh aago that's high
00:24:28
society right there it is high society so an an knew just who Mr Woodward was Mr Woodward Mr Woodward because she had
00:24:36
read about him in the society Pages which bring back the society Pages [ __ ] I want to read them
00:24:43
William he kept coming back at least several times to see an perform she really caught his eye and one night he
00:24:49
asked her hey baby you want to see one of my horses run come down to the racetrack with me is
00:24:56
that you know you want to see my race horse yes I would think probably I think it that's
00:25:03
deeply upsetting when you put it that way it's deeply upsetting either way to be honest but it's really upsetting the
00:25:09
other way it's very upsetting when you uh really think hard about it yeah so don't but you're probably doing it now
00:25:16
just romance romance romance uh and of course knew that Woodward was married oh but so were a lot of the men
00:25:24
who bought her drinks and sent her jewelry so she should not be asking her to come see his [ __ ] racehorse if you
00:25:30
are married sir not in a euphemistic way not in in the real way not in a physical
00:25:35
way oh come on no keep your race horse to yourself that's right you keep it in its thing track what is it the stall
00:25:42
keep it in it stable there you go stall I think you were correct okay I don't know anyway with yours but the thing was
00:25:50
a lot of the men who you know made advances on an or got her nice things they were married so she didn't see
00:25:55
anything wrong with just going to the track to have a date and I think there's something wrong I think there is
00:26:00
something wrong definitely when she was like let me have those nice things oh man so one afternoon in March 1941 Anne
00:26:08
was visiting with her mother in her room at a New York Hospital to celebrate Ethel's 45th birthday uh which she's was
00:26:15
only 45 yeah only 45 at this point she had lived such a life that even I at this point I was like she's not like 70
00:26:23
something I thought she was 70 45 damn yeah in the week holy [ __ ] exactly that just blew my mind same it blew mind
00:26:34
too but in the weeks leading up to the visit Ethel's condition had gotten worse and on that afternoon Ethel didn't even
00:26:40
really recognize an it seemed and after a brief visit Ethel's doctor suggested to Anne that maybe she should go and
00:26:47
come back when her mom was feeling a little better so Ann was like okay and she made her way home and climbing up
00:26:53
the stairs to her apartment she heard the phone ringing and she ran to answer it before the caller hang up or hung up
00:26:58
and it was a nurse from the New York Hospital calling to tell her that Ethel had died peacefully 10 minutes earlier
00:27:05
after she had left right after she had left like she probably died while an was on her way home oh which like I
00:27:13
understand why that doctor thought that she was she should rest nobody could ever know but it's like [ __ ] and it's
00:27:19
also that that's why it's like don't even tell people to go home and rest because you just don't know yeah that's
00:27:25
the thing so on March 20th an boarded a train back to Kansas for her mother's funeral the drab landscape and Poverty
00:27:32
of her hometown felt it always felt suffocating to an but this time specifically it was just overwhelmingly
00:27:39
suffocating oh sure and it wasn't that she didn't love her family her aunts and her cousins and everything but being in
00:27:45
their presence reminded her of where she had come from and where she desperately
00:27:48
didn't want to return o this really is like a movie it is I know or like some kind of like minseries honestly and it
00:27:55
will be oh there you go but she ended up spending a total of 48 hours in Kansas she went to the funeral
00:28:02
she gave her mother's eulogy visited with family and friends the whole deal but then she got the hell out of there
00:28:07
and before leaving she asked her cousin Paul to keep an eye on Ethel's grave for
00:28:11
her make sure it was like neat and tidy all the time she was 45 damn I know and Paul said well won't you be coming back
00:28:18
an like are you coming back and she said I'll be back soon but that afternoon she
00:28:22
boarded a train for New York and she never ever came back to Kansas yeah I could have told you that there was
00:28:29
nothing in Kansas for an after that and what a terrible last memory to have marrying your mom exactly like you
00:28:35
already pretty much hated this place so much and then that's what you have to go
00:28:39
back for and her mom believed in her yeah and like supported her and like really was just like a cheerleader you
00:28:47
exactly really sad and she should have had many many years of that oh my God I know her mom should have been able to
00:28:53
see her success you know but back in New York and resumed her routine of performing at the Monte Carlo in the
00:28:59
evenings and auditioning during the day and eventually she landed a recurring role as a nurse on an afternoon radio
00:29:05
called Joyce Jordan girl intern I love that girl intern girl intern not boy intern girl intern and that led to other
00:29:14
uh roles on other radio programs like Lincoln Highway radio programs I love it you just tune in to the radio you just
00:29:20
gather around the radio folks turn that up Pop I can't hear so in oval team ohal
00:29:26
te that's adorable adorable adorable now in time Ann's relationship with uh William Woodward senior there Grew From
00:29:34
This harmless Crush to something more serious which he's married an yeah an he's a he's a married High Society man
00:29:42
so yeah this is Scandal the fact that this exactly you are you were on the right track the fact that this was
00:29:47
getting a little more hot and heavy threatened a serious Scandal to the wealthy family if anyone were to find
00:29:53
out and it was one thing for a man of Woodward's status to you know have an occasion delance with a show girl I love
00:29:59
that that that was just I love that it's like that [ __ ] happens you of of course
00:30:04
guys are going to [ __ ] show Girls when they're married have your quiet little affair with a show girl don't actually
00:30:08
give a [ __ ] about some don't be in public with it it's like we stop that's the that's the thing but an ongoing
00:30:16
secret romance it was something else entirely and it would not have been tolerated by New York's High Society
00:30:21
High Society she's a wild [ __ ] but uh it also definitely wouldn't have been tolerated by Woodward's wife Elsie yeah
00:30:30
no I'm with with Elsie here I also wouldn't tolerate that retweet but not wanting this is where [ __ ] is going to
00:30:37
get you're not even going to be able to stay on track with this at this point because it gets wildly [ __ ] in here uh
00:30:43
oh okay I'm here I'm strapped in oh I'm glad hold on to your butt so not wanting
00:30:48
to give up his relationship with an but knowing that the two couldn't carry on as they had been Woodward senior devised
00:30:54
a wild ass plan where an would make the acquaintance of and start a relationship
00:31:00
with his son Billy I'm sorry what why you might ask I I didn't I don't even want to what one
00:31:08
might ask why well this would allow an and Woodward senior to go on spending time together under the guise of a
00:31:15
strictly platonic relationship between a father and his son's girlfriend this is so [ __ ] up what
00:31:22
world is that going to work [ __ ] you two are having an affair and because you want to keep having an affair you
00:31:29
have her date your son you're going to bring your son now you're going to [ __ ]
00:31:32
your son's girlfriend that's [ __ ] that's even weirder my guy like just have the straight up Affair that's
00:31:39
honestly i' much in the society papers that's going to look better exactly you [ __ ] your son's girlfriend but they
00:31:46
figur or he figured I should say that it wouldn't get into the society papers that he was [ __ ] his son's girlfriend
00:31:53
cuz that would be behind closed doors because now she'd she'd have an excuse to be in his home I think was the course
00:31:59
that's the thought process CU it's like oh she can be around we can still see each other oh yeah so just [ __ ] up your
00:32:04
son's life so that you can get your rocks off that's good that's the thing cuz I'm like are you going to let your
00:32:09
son in on this or is he just going to be allowed to potentially be heartbroken well you just wait my dear oh boy you
00:32:17
just wait oh boy for [ __ ] some reason or another I don't know which one an agreed oh which like I don't know I've
00:32:25
never had an affair with the high societ never checked that off myo card but I could I could imagine that if I did and
00:32:33
he suggested you know like my wife and everything so just hang out with my son I'd be like are you are you a looney too
00:32:41
like I have you lost it completely I understand that there's a power Dynamic here that is totally much imbalanced
00:32:47
totally come on man but I'm like keep dancing at the b car single Society man dear God there's plenty of rich older
00:32:55
guys that I'm sure condem that are not going to ask you to date their sons I mean she's beautiful yeah gorgeous she's
00:33:02
tenacious she's you know she's like a hard worker she's got all she's checking all the boxes yeah so it's like honey
00:33:08
you can find someone better you don't need this one you don't need this one that's already taken taken and is now
00:33:15
wanting to you to date his son like that's just messed up on a whole slew of level that's when you go you know what
00:33:22
this has been fun this has been a great time I don't want to get you into trouble I definitely don't want to get
00:33:27
your son wrapped up in this so I'm going to keep dancing and meet some other cool
00:33:31
see my regards see you later yeah honestly yeah man when an agreed it set into motion a chain of events that would
00:33:38
forever alter the lives of literally every single person involved in this family I can imagine all of them yeah I
00:33:45
didn't think this was going to go smooth no it doesn't but it it goes way different than I think you would imagine
00:33:52
probably cuz I'm not even wrapping my brain around it because I was like oh this is going to end and like knock down
00:33:57
drag out fight not really no I mean it ends horribly but in a different way yeah so in March of 1942 while Billy was
00:34:04
home for a visit during uh his break from Harvard Billy being from Harvard Woodward's son so Billy will be the
00:34:10
young Woodward yes he uh he is William Jor but we ref to him as Billy and I think I'm pretty sure they did too that
00:34:17
makes sense so he was he was on a break from Harvard and his father asked him do
00:34:21
you have a regular girl which meant like are you dating someone you got a regular
00:34:25
girl normal like like are you dating someone like consistently not are you dating someone normal someone regular
00:34:32
his son was like no pop I don't and Billy Woodward's extremely limited experience with women was of particular
00:34:40
concern to his father mostly because it had become the source of rumors amongst his peers and I think that was a whole
00:34:46
other I think Woodward senior thought he was killing two birds with one stone here yeah he was taking away that whole
00:34:53
the rumor mill there and also getting his cake too exactly and it's like what again I ask I'm
00:34:59
always going to ask this who the [ __ ] cares that much about somebody's romantic Life High Society that's it's
00:35:05
like his P his peers are all upset about his limited experience with women what the [ __ ] do you care what does it have
00:35:12
to do with you does that matter worry about your own goddamn lawn why are you worrying about his worry about your lawn
00:35:17
like damn they were all bored I think that's what it all comes down to and bored and gossipy yeah that's when
00:35:23
that's when [ __ ] pops off people are bored with nothing to do I love a good gossip but like don't be a [ __ ] about
00:35:29
it and it's like I don't care about things like that oh no I don't care about [ __ ] like this like can you
00:35:33
imagine worrying about like who some like that kind of Stu who somebody's dating or like or not dating or if they
00:35:38
haven't dated you're like why yeah that's stupid that's not my [ __ ] business like rumors should be fun worry
00:35:43
about Su shitty pie that she brought to the potluck last week that's the kind of
00:35:47
[ __ ] I want to talk about inconsequential [ __ ] right but the thing was Billy was a really handsome guy he
00:35:53
came like we know from a respectable wealthy family so as far as everybody saw it he shouldn't have any trouble
00:35:58
meeting women but it seemed to many around him that he just wasn't interested in them so that of course led
00:36:04
many to speculate whether or not he was gay which deeply troubled his parents because that's that's everybody's
00:36:10
problem in everyone's business of course total sense and the thing was like many
00:36:15
high society rumors speculation about Billy Woodward's sexuality actually persisted long after his death that's
00:36:21
sad it's unclear whether or not he was gay and it actually has no bearing on the story so we're going to move on cuz
00:36:26
who cares like everybody else should have but regardless of his orientation William Woodward senior suggested while
00:36:33
he was home for break Billy might look up an crowl ah you know you know he said I met her out at the Monte Carlo a few
00:36:39
months earlier and uh I don't know I think why don't you take her for a date she's cute yeah he's like you know what
00:36:44
I've been having an affair with her for a while so I can tell you she's she's awesome so yeah take her out uh to be
00:36:51
clear though this was less of a suggestion uh than a command yeah so Billy was like okay I will do that he's
00:36:57
like you will ask this girl out he's like all righty pop cool I don't know what my thing is with pop but it just
00:37:02
feels right you're my pop you're my pop so a few nights later Billy took Ann to a dinner at 21 which was a popular Speak
00:37:08
Easy turned restaurant on goodness love on wst on West 52nd Street uh Ann was on
00:37:16
a diet and Billy was quote unquote too nervous to eat guys it's dinner guys eat up but they still ordered an extravagant
00:37:24
meal and a bottle of champagne Billy was obviously uh completely unaware of an's
00:37:28
relationship with his father so he didn't know anything about this strategic setup oh my God this is so
00:37:34
[ __ ] but an was well aware of the plan for her to dat Billy and having to go through the motions kind of made her
00:37:39
impatient and short with Billy which I'm like honey it's not his fault Hees know
00:37:45
on this poor guy so a few glasses of champagne it luckily did help soften her attitude I guess luckily I don't even
00:37:50
know why I said that but eventually she started to find his shy in experience somewhat Charming Billy on the other
00:37:56
hand hand he didn't need any champagne in order to enjoy an's company he thought she was confident forward
00:38:02
exciting he she was nothing like the society girls that his parents had steered him toward in the past and he
00:38:07
was like damn like why did my dad set me up with you you're awesome yeah he's like [ __ ] this this is great so what
00:38:13
started as kind of a sham relationship orchestrated by William Woodward senior soon actually developed into something
00:38:19
real oh he did not see this coming I was just going to say well [ __ ] that wasn't
00:38:24
part of the plan and much to his chrin you imagine yeah Billy like we said was instantly taken with an he found her
00:38:30
beautiful he loved her assertive personality he thought she lived her life without reservation it was great
00:38:36
she for or and for an excuse me Billy was an entry into high society and the respectability and status that came with
00:38:43
it and at the same time she also was kind of Charmed by his affection and Devotion to her ah so one of they're
00:38:51
each getting things out of it one is a bit more self-centered than the other I'm going to go out on a lion say
00:38:56
they're getting different things out of it but you know but you know they like each other they do so the early days of
00:39:02
their romance were spent at New York's finest restaurants nightclubs theaters or with an just cooking meals for them
00:39:07
at Billy's apartment they were literally dating yeah like just like anybody else
00:39:12
would have straight up dating so the fantasy of Ann's extravagant and Care uh Carefree relationship with Billy
00:39:19
eventually collided with reality as you can imagine yeah and that happened in August of 1942 when Billy invited her to
00:39:25
the races Saratoga where she was to quote unquote meet his parents and extended family I think she had already
00:39:32
met one of his parents get weird yeah so when race day finally arrived Billy and
00:39:37
Anne drove the 150 miles to Saratoga Springs in his Packard stopping for breckfast along the way and stopping for
00:39:45
breakfast made them late to meet William and Elsie which instantly got the day off on the wrong foot you are not late
00:39:51
to Hot Society function abely not you can [ __ ] show girls but don't you dare be late exactly so things didn't get
00:39:58
much better when they finally made their way inside the clubhouse at the racetrack where they were surrounded by
00:40:04
some of the wealthiest people in the country Elsie Woodward shook Anne's hand politely but she was barely able to hide
00:40:11
her disapproval yeah I just feel for I'm like Elsie just having to shake her hand
00:40:17
yeah and she's she I was going to say I don't know if she knows or not or you can always get a Vibe I'm like knew
00:40:22
that's tough and she didn't she she felt like Ann seemed to disregard nearly every Convention of high society that
00:40:29
Elsie had been raised in so held dear to her heart yeah I was going to say so she
00:40:33
you know when you're raised in it you hold it pretty yeah high and William senior when he was greeting an was like
00:40:41
over the top and like very like oh hi so nice to meet you for the first time ever
00:40:46
oh my God never met you before in my life you're so great good to meet you dude so Elsie was like be cool don't be
00:40:55
all like uncool yeah to to to quote the count but so Elsie's like so y'all have met before yeah like you guys you guys
00:41:04
did a real good job and of course people had been talking yeah of course you're not going to get away with that stuff he
00:41:09
had a full-blown Affair so the way he was acting basically effectively confirmed Elsie's suspicions that they
00:41:15
had indeed met before this oh man years later she would tell her bridge bridge friends one look at an and I knew the
00:41:21
whole story oh boy so you don't want to [ __ ] with a lady like this to the Woodward family matriarch and was a gold
00:41:28
digging interloper who was trying to force her way into a world that one never welcomed her and two a world where
00:41:35
Elsie didn't think she belonged damn and that was exactly how she felt the moment
00:41:39
she met her that day in Saratoga Springs and it is precisely how she would treat
00:41:43
an until the day she died now here's the thing I understand she's got a Vibe here
00:41:48
and she's like I'm pretty sure you have met my husband before and there's something here so I would be like you're
00:41:54
an [ __ ] too in that sense y but the whole like you don't belong here because you were raised in poverty is stupid is
00:42:02
so dumb because also I know that an is trying to climb the ladder here clearly that was the way back then it was just
00:42:09
like people do it now like it's not changing but it's also like it's not like she hasn't worked her tail off to
00:42:15
get at least I mean she was paying her mother's medical bills up until the end like she was really working her ass off
00:42:21
absolutely and it's just such a weird way to look at things to be like because you were born into poverty you don't
00:42:27
deserve to make it anywhere else even though you worked harder than I did to land here but they look at it as like
00:42:33
you didn't work as hard as I did because you don't know all the interworkings of
00:42:37
this world it's just a bizarre line of thinking and it's one that still exists so it's just so weird just very
00:42:43
exclusive yeah it's just strange and bizarre but the thing was Elsie wasn't entirely wrong Ann's relationship with
00:42:51
both Woodward men yeah I mean that's where the the black mark comes from exactly and her relationship with senior
00:42:57
and Junior were a calculated attempt to climb that ladder into High Society so from Elsie's point of view she's like
00:43:04
not only did you try to use my husband but now you're using my son so like maybe stop infiltrating my family I can
00:43:10
see and I can see that frustration for sure it's a mess yeah but none of this mattered to Billy who absolutely reveled
00:43:16
in an's ability to get under his mother's skin he thought it was great that's some high society Rebellion right
00:43:21
there truly but regardless of how Billy felt about the impression an made on his
00:43:25
mother and herself was and would remain deeply self-conscious around her future mother-in-law yeah sure which um I might
00:43:32
feel self-conscious too if I had uh you know slept with her husband I can't I'm not even going to like yeah that's
00:43:38
[ __ ] up you you honestly should feel a little self-conscious if you sleep with
00:43:43
someone's husband definitely and then date their son and then date their son and have to be around them at family
00:43:48
dinners like yeah that's that's just like a wild I feel like that's pretty natural that's cray cray yeah now it
00:43:53
seems that no matter what she did though an always managed to transgress some unknown social Convention of the elite
00:43:58
she was she didn't get it she was too loud she dressed inappropriately according to them smoked in public and
00:44:05
worst of all as far as Elsie was concerned she was vulgar in her empowered sexuality I mean to me you look at that
00:44:13
part of it and you're like she sounds pretty cool I would with her like I would tell her to stop smoking but like
00:44:19
you know back then they didn't know so I'm like you know back then they were like that's the cure to everything you
00:44:23
seem pretty awesome other than the sleeping with the mar or we don't even know of sleeping but other than hanging
00:44:28
out with man yeah not great but other than that though all those things that like pissed Elsie off I'm like I know
00:44:35
that makes her kind of but nevertheless that race day was when an decided quote Billy was the main catch of their crowd
00:44:42
and she was determined that no matter what Elsie Woodward thought she would become a proper Society woman no matter
00:44:47
what it took damn it's like uhoh what an enemy to make yeah so as an and Billy's
00:44:54
relationship continued to develop into something serious LC Woodward hired a private detective to look into an's
00:45:00
background damn also a common theme among my story oh yes um now she didn't really learn much about Anne's past in
00:45:08
Kansas because Anne really hadn't revealed any clues to that but the detective nonetheless confirmed Elsie's
00:45:14
suspicions that Anne had a rich sexual history that was hardly befitting for a woman of class o but what made Elsie
00:45:21
truly irate was learning that Billy had given an a gold bracelet passed down from his grandmother o more than the
00:45:29
affairs with multiple men or her past as a show girl this gifted family heirloom
00:45:34
was the thing that caused Elsie to demand that her son stop seeing an immediately oh boy um of course that
00:45:41
Demand only made Billy want to see Ann way more that's a good way to get your kid to do something more is to forbid
00:45:47
exactly it just drove the two of them closer together his mother could yell and scream she could threaten
00:45:52
disinheritance all she want and she very much did oh damn but but Billy was undet
00:45:57
returned undeterred in his all-consuming passion for an nothing that Elsie said was going to change that damn so in
00:46:04
January of 1943 Anne arrived at Billy's apartment where rather than land Jing about in his pajamas like he usually
00:46:10
would be he was dressed in his Navy uniform the US had just entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor over a
00:46:16
year earlier and the fighting had been really intensifying ever since so it was going to require additional troops Billy
00:46:24
had graduated from Harvard few weeks earlier so now he was eligible for the draft and he had got emergency orders to
00:46:31
report for Gunnery school in Washington immediately so the idea of Billy leaving
00:46:36
to fight and possibly even die in the war made an of course completely despondent because they're like fully in
00:46:42
love at this point now what started as a scheme to gain entry into High Society had actually grown into something real
00:46:48
so the thought of losing him was something she couldn't bear and also something that seemed pretty likely
00:46:54
because of how bad this war was but this wasn't a modeling job or a wealthy Patron at the Monte Carlo it wasn't a
00:47:01
decision Anne could just overcome with sheer willpower and tenacity as she had done before as she had done before as
00:47:07
far as she was concerned though there was only one thing to be done she told Billy and this is a quote marry me now
00:47:13
or go away forever this sounds like a movie marry me now or go away forever like it's you
00:47:21
can just see somebody overacting that marry me now go away forever just like slamming the door just go that's wild
00:47:31
and also like so not romantic no you just giving him a straight up ultimatum marry me or go away forever that's it my
00:47:39
only option luckily Billy knew that Ann could be stubborn and um had a flare for
00:47:45
The Dramatics drama but he also sens that she did mean what she said so he told her I'm going to think about it
00:47:52
while I'm away and I'll let you know oh no no he hit her with a maybe he hit her
00:47:57
with a I'll think about it yeah wow that's rough marry me now I going forever I'll think about it let me think
00:48:05
about it woof so a few weeks after he left for Tacoma and called Billy at the base and
00:48:12
was like hey uh really sorry for that ultimatum I would actually just be happy to live with you whether we're married
00:48:19
or not wow she really took that down a notch she was like I think I might have [ __ ] up so I got upset yeah Billy
00:48:25
respond by asking whether and I was like a he was like is there someone in your family who I can ask for permission to
00:48:31
marry you and she's like so you're saying there a chance she's like so you're trying to marry my ass just
00:48:36
saying uh which like you might you might want to know that if you're getting to the point where you're going to marry
00:48:43
someone that's also the thing like is there someone in your family I should like uh do you have a family the [ __ ]
00:48:50
I'd like to ask one of them if I can marry you and it's like you haven't asked her this like you don't know if
00:48:54
she has a family you're get no discussion where you were like what's your family like like who's you know do
00:48:59
you get along with your parents what's going on like what's your name who's you guys talk about that's the thing so
00:49:05
terrified of Billy or anybody else especially in his Circle learning of her impoverished upbringing in Kansas sad oh
00:49:11
no oh no we you can't be born into poverty how dare you and lied and told Billy that her father was dead she told
00:49:18
him I'm an orphan just ask me woof so would that she wasn't she wasn't she had dad but I mean he was he was off
00:49:26
somewhere yeah I don't really know if he would have been able to track down yeah
00:49:30
so the announce they did get engaged and the announcement of Billy and an's engagement came as a shock to William
00:49:35
senior who initially assumed that there was some sort of emergency AKA pregnancy
00:49:41
oh he thought she was like oh [ __ ] he's like oh [ __ ] Elsie on the other hand was
00:49:45
outraged she told Billy and this was a quote it's a matter of money that's what she's really after this had been her
00:49:52
position all along although she wasn't entirely wrong Billy was now 21 years old and he was able to access his trust
00:49:59
fund at $4,000 a month which today would be like receiving $69,000 per month holy [ __ ] out of a
00:50:07
trust fund out of a trust F you're just like Ching ding ding damn so her threats
00:50:13
really carried little weight with Billy at that point because he has access to his own money yeah so he's like by I
00:50:17
mean not really his own money but I just going to say the money that was trust but she couldn't stop the wedding from
00:50:23
going forward but she could stop the rest of the family from attending oh no and Elsie did just that oh [ __ ] she was
00:50:31
like that's fine you want to get married we won't be there Elsie yeah which I Elsie's in her villain era right now
00:50:38
that's mean like I get I I get her her distrust of course I get that she she she sent she had an's number William
00:50:49
there kind of gave up the ghost there so nice to meet you oh my God it's so nice
00:50:55
to meet you you're lovely oh my wow I hope you guys stay together great to meet for the first time this is the
00:50:59
first time I've ever seen you I've never seen a woman before Elsie's the only woman I've ever seen I wow there's other
00:51:04
women on the planet like what I don't think what's your name again I understand that she's like uh pretty
00:51:11
sure you had something going with my husband and now you're just going to marry my son like I understand that yes
00:51:17
Vibe not being great yes I mean that is a level of petty that most strive to achieve I
00:51:26
think she thought she was going to stop it by by not going like fine then we're not going to go to your wedding I think
00:51:32
she thought Billy was gonna be like oh my God okay then like I can't do this if you're not going to be there but he was
00:51:36
like okay he was like okay don't cool he was like I don't really like you that much so and it sounds like regardless of
00:51:43
how this all started that an and Billy did love each other yeah like at this point I don't honestly I I don't know
00:51:51
this story which I'm sad to say I mean it's it's honestly just a matter of opinion like based on what we know just
00:51:57
seeing what we know at this point it at least seems like they are enjoying each other's company I mean like we said like
00:52:02
it would have been nice for them to know whether you know things about each other
00:52:06
like whether she had a family or not yeah that would have been good or maybe for him to know that conation she had
00:52:12
dated his father and this had all started as a lie you know that would have been nice to have that would have
00:52:16
been pretty good I don't know how I feel about this it's all very Reckless that's
00:52:19
the thing you think you feel one way and then you look at the facts and you're like [ __ ] cuz I just talk myself through
00:52:25
and then was like I don't know I have no idea how to feel this is reckless you w
00:52:29
you won't know how to feel even at the end yeah and I you know I get it Elsie yeah I get it but the week of March 8th
00:52:36
1943 Ann arrived in Tacoma Washington where Billy was stationed and where the wedding was to be held the wedding was
00:52:42
to be a small affair with just a few friends and Billy's father in attendance oh wow so William went oh of course he
00:52:48
did Anne bought her dress at a Seattle department store and on March 14th Anne crra married William Woodward Jor at a
00:52:56
Lutheran chap Chapel in Tacoma with a small reception that followed at the Tacoma Hotel wow it's a small Affair
00:53:03
small Affair after their wedding that's how this all started a small Affair small Affair after their wedding Ann and
00:53:09
Billy moved into a five-bedroom tutor style house overlooking Washington's I think it's Puget Sound which was
00:53:16
furnished with the finest furniture and luxuries that money could buy but what should have been a time of Celebration
00:53:22
and Elation was almost immediately under Ed by tension and conflict Elsie refused
00:53:29
to publish a marriage announcement in the New York Times the paper of record signaling to her Society friends exactly
00:53:36
how she felt about the marriage and to make matters worse a few days after the wedding an had casually mentioned that
00:53:42
she had seen one of William senior's horses Johnston run at the races before they had met oh the comment seemed
00:53:51
innocuous at the time but when Billy pressed Anne for details she was forced to explain that she knew his father
00:53:59
longer than he or virtually anyone else in the family had known for fact oh no you knew this was going to come forward
00:54:07
and swore to Billy that her relationship with his father had been totally innocent but you're lying and at the
00:54:14
same time he was still humiliated by this Revelation an immediately recognized her mistake and told her
00:54:19
grandmother I really am the luckiest girl in the world to have gotten such a truly wonderful husband now I feel like
00:54:25
it's up to me to make it work oh boy yeah this is messy so from the house in Washington and quickly got to work
00:54:31
making the self-improvements that she felt were necessary to be a proper Society woman she planned menus and
00:54:37
dinner parties she researched Antiques and facts about horse racing she studied etiquette books she just wanted to
00:54:44
remake herself into somebody that Elsie would welcome into the family oh boy I think that ship is sailed girl oh that
00:54:50
ship is on the opposite Coastline at this ship has turned into a spaceship and it's gone into orbit exactly far
00:54:58
humanly possible the problem however was that Anne was too much her mother's daughter to ever be considered a
00:55:04
property a proper Society woman that's so sad I know she could certainly learn to be refined poised and cultured but
00:55:11
all the qualities that had so attracted Billy to her her passion sexuality her bold personality were too ingrained in
00:55:18
her to be repressed in the way that was required for proper Society women you got to be boring as [ __ ] exactly think
00:55:25
he's up baby and she's like I can't do that I'm not boring and as a married woman those qualities now seemed less
00:55:32
attractive to Billy than they had in the past which like [ __ ] you yeah that's not
00:55:35
cool no you can't decide that you love those things and then you get married and you're embarrassed them you're like
00:55:39
now you need to stifle them all it's like as long as she I mean like you don't want her like cheating on you and
00:55:44
having Affairs like I understand that not you got to trust that you love each other and trust each other and she can
00:55:49
still be bold and and she's trying you know like she's she's trying to be what your World requires of her but he
00:55:57
resented the way that she carried herself at dinner parties and the quote spell she cast on his friends and her
00:56:03
dramatic deage what so he was like you have a sexy neckline and it makes me angry
00:56:09
yelling about her [ __ ] clavicle yeah I guess so I think she wore low cut dresses a lot that's it's like what the
00:56:16
[ __ ] you're just like come on it's like you liked that about her and now all of
00:56:20
a sudden she got to put her titties away she married she great boobs it's like she's leave me alone my titties ain't
00:56:25
going nowhere like I married you that's the thing like you're the one who gets the you get the whole deal you know it's
00:56:33
just a little little something just feels like it's a little judgy it is Jud it's a l Jud it's a little bait and
00:56:39
switch to like be like I love these things about you and then be like now stop all of them right because that's
00:56:44
the thing prior to getting married he found her assertiveness her Brazen sexuality a refreshing change from the
00:56:50
society girls that his mom was constantly pushing him towards she was fun she was exciting she spoke her mind
00:56:56
and at the time he found that all alluring but after the wedding those qualities seemed to be diminished by her
00:57:02
intense desire to fit in with the crowd of New York's Elite he was like no he felt that her quote eagerness for
00:57:08
self-improvement betrayed exasperating insecurities so in simple terms her desperation felt obvious and it was
00:57:15
embarrassing to Billy who now often made fun of her in public and behind closed doors for her attempts to gain
00:57:22
acceptance with his friends and family what the [ __ ] happened here that really
00:57:26
was like a bait and switch with him it's like I what I thought you were nice I think he was going through this
00:57:33
rebellious phase where he was like [ __ ] my family like this is great [ __ ] you
00:57:37
Mom yeah literally like you don't understand it's not not just a m and then it really was in a phase and mom
00:57:43
was like this girl's not for you and she knew that like this wasn't going to work
00:57:47
because you are who you are at the end of the day now he's flipping the switch and now he realizes like [ __ ] this
00:57:53
really isn't what I cuz he was raised to want a certain kind of girl and then he
00:57:58
was like no that's not what I want and then that's he went for something completely opposite and was like well I
00:58:04
want the girl that I was raised to have and it's like but no you can't have like
00:58:07
that but the thing was worse while Anne toned her personality to down to fit in she still had an incredible sex appeal
00:58:16
that was never lost on the other men in the room I mean that's not her fault which incited a jealousy in Billy that
00:58:21
hadn't shown itself prior to the marriage so [ __ ] is just getting toxic as [ __ ] I'm sorry that I'm hot and
00:58:29
you're not top that no I'm not saying Billy wasn't hot there no he's actually beautiful he's very handsome yeah he's
00:58:35
handsome she's beautiful yeah all everybody in this story is gorgeous yeah they're all just beautiful but it's
00:58:40
tragic as hell so to cope with the growing tension between them an and Billy started drinking more heavily
00:58:46
which is you know that's great that's a great solution always the best solution you know what I think everything's going
00:58:50
to be fine now yeah it's totally going to be fine uh he fre frequently criticized her for her drinking at home
00:58:56
and in front of their friends but when she and Billy weren't locked in some frustrating argument and spent most of
00:59:02
her TR her time trying to win over Elsie Woodward which was just impossible no while they were still living in
00:59:08
Washington the two women exchanged polite correspondents you know asking about the health of family members and
00:59:14
exchanging pleasantries that were really nothing more than transparent attempts to keep up appearances man imagine
00:59:20
watching those interactions at a party standing there with your dirty martini just sitting there watching talking to
00:59:25
your neighbor like these two girls [ __ ] hate each other hate each other love it well hate it cuz it's sad but
00:59:32
you know the drama of it all but the drama here so in hindsight the small struggles the personal digs and the
00:59:38
ongoing rejections led to an explosive conclusion uhoh but she really thought that she was somebody at this point
00:59:45
because of the money and the luxury but really her heart is broken yeah it's not
00:59:49
of substance and it's only going to get worse with this next uh incident that we're going to talk about so on
00:59:56
Thanksgiving morning 1943 Billy was temporarily in charge uh on the USS liscum Bay an aircraft carrier that was
01:00:03
stationed in the South Pacific he was in charge while the captain slept okay to Billy this opportunity felt like an
01:00:09
enormous achievement and also a chance to prove his masculinity to those who criticized him or were spreading rumors
01:00:15
behind his back because that was a common theme throughout his whole life of course he had a wife at this point
01:00:19
and people were still talking sh yeah now around 5:00 a.m. a torpedo from an enemy uo slammed into the side of the
01:00:26
ship and that ripped open the hold and it caused a series of explosions from one end of the boat to the other for
01:00:33
nearly half an hour this boat that they were on slowly sank as explosions just ripped the interior apart and flung the
01:00:41
injured and dead from the boat to the water below this was beyond tragedy that's awful Billy who was still in
01:00:48
charge at the time was in a State of Shock and could do little more than stare at the chaos as his own body was
01:00:54
thrown around by the repeated explosions luckily Lieutenant Commander Oliver Ames
01:00:59
stepped into action grabbed Billy and dragged him to S into the safety of a Lifeboat if it weren't for Commander
01:01:06
Oliver Ames Billy most likely would have been among the two-thirds on board to die that day oh my God in just a short
01:01:12
30 minutes Billy's chance to prove himself as something more than a soft-handed trust kid or trust fund kid
01:01:20
had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with nearly 550 wow officers and enlisted men 550 died yeah wow 2/3 on
01:01:30
board the survivors were quickly rescued by a ship a nearby ship and Billy was treated for minor burn injuries and
01:01:37
shock and a month later he was awarded several purple ribbons or excuse me several ribbons and a Purple Heart in a
01:01:43
ceremony decorating him for his bravery and heroism the ceremony only seemed to compound the shame that he felt for not
01:01:50
only failing to avoid the attack by steering the ship away from the area but also failing to show any type of
01:01:55
leadership that could have maybe saved the lives of any number of his crew mates but he was going through all of
01:02:02
this and like blaming himself for not doing what he thought was the right thing exactly it was all survivor guilt
01:02:08
because in his defense a report published many years later actually found that the USS Liz convey was a
01:02:15
poorly designed ship that was not properly designed to safely carry the amount of ammunition on board at the
01:02:20
time of the attack so this really wasn't his fault it was that bad design and poorly secured cargo rather than poor
01:02:27
inexperienced leadership that was the main cause of the disaster oh jeez but Billy wouldn't live to see that
01:02:33
publication of the report and he carried the weight of those deaths with him until the day he died oh that's awful
01:02:39
and it really really changed him I can't imagine of course it would I can't even
01:02:43
begin to Fathom that he was obviously suffering from some kind of PTSD absolutely which only pretty recently
01:02:49
became part of a national discussion and now we recognize the effects of combat and what it can do to people but back
01:02:55
then for Billy and the countless soldiers coming home from all of those Horrors on the battlefields of world of
01:03:01
World War II there was this implicit expectation that they would just come home and settle back into domestic life
01:03:08
yeah just get back into your lives wor their realities hadn't been dramatically and horrifically interrupted just like
01:03:14
oh come on business as usual let's go boys yeah and like that we we kind of still do that yeah we do abs like get
01:03:20
back to work like I said only recently are we starting to talk talking about it ources yeah right but for Billy that
01:03:27
meant returning to a life of partying and you know partying to excess because of the society life that he lived and it
01:03:34
also must to be strange like I've I'm not haven't been in the military nor have I ever been in the military but
01:03:41
it's so regulated and routine and you know like strict that I feel like going back to a life where it's just Loosey
01:03:49
Goosey and you can do what you want whatever you want to do would almost would be so jarring it's almost how like
01:03:55
when people get out of prison after spending a long time in prison how like they can't be in these big spaces and
01:04:01
it's just you're you become used to and comforted by that yeah realize it adjusting to a new environment it's so
01:04:08
different I feel like that must have been tough yeah definitely even though it's like you're going back to partying
01:04:12
and like luxury and [ __ ] like it sounds great but yeah but I feel like psychologically I can't imagine what
01:04:17
that feels and then I'm sure all he was thinking was like wow I get to return to
01:04:20
this like these men yeah died and what most people think is like this incredible life but like he's probably
01:04:27
looking at it all from the outside and just I from the sounds of it just drowning his sorrow yeah psychologically
01:04:33
it must have been horrific that's the thing so after that disaster he returned to the US and spent the remainder of the
01:04:40
Warriors working as an aid to Admiral Patrick Bellinger and nor uh norfol Virginia I can't speak norfol Virginia
01:04:47
norfol Virginia naval office the new position also meant a change of pace for an who moved from their house in Tacoma
01:04:55
to the home of uh Woodward family friend Joe Hartford Douglas Joe had known Billy
01:05:00
almost all her life and had always been incredibly fond of him but she found an to be cold at times and at times also an
01:05:07
unfriendly presence in the house interesting yeah I think this is when Ann really starts to go through it too
01:05:14
because they're both going through it in their marriage and then they're both going through these big
01:05:19
personal things of like doubting who they are and where they come from and you know all of it and it didn't take
01:05:26
long for Ann and Billy to fall back into their routine of arguments that ranged from Petty sniping to full-on shouting
01:05:32
matches and somebody else's home which it's like come on guys in many cases the arguments were brought on intentionally
01:05:39
by Billy who always seemed to be trying to get a rise out of Anne for one reason
01:05:43
or another which inevitably led to a major disruption in the Douglas household in later years the talt of
01:05:49
their relationship would be mostly pinned on an but Joe remained syp sympathetic with when it came to an
01:05:55
which I do feel like speaks volumes when she's like yeah she wasn't the warmest person and like she was kind of
01:05:59
unfriendly she was kind of unfriendly but like I did feel bad for her yeah she told friends years after Anne's death
01:06:05
she was a little girl who had not many opportunities in life she was not the kind of calculating woman we've all seen
01:06:10
around New York she was obviously crazy about Billy Woodward and dying to break into his world wow that's just somebody
01:06:17
like looking from the outside in and who who really has a whole picture to a te yeah and that's just tragic that's all
01:06:23
sad so despite the constant arguing between Billy and Anne on July 27th 1944 an gave birth to their first son William
01:06:31
Woodward III Billy was stationed in Philadelphia at the time so Anne moved into Billy's parents house in Manhattan
01:06:38
where a staff of maids and domestic workers helped tend to the baby now that he was out of the Navy William Woodward
01:06:45
senior started urging his son to take a position with the bank but Billy had little interest in working and he really
01:06:51
didn't have to he's a trust fund kid yeah even though he had exper experienced significant trauma just a
01:06:55
few years earlier and had all the intense responsibilities of becoming a new parent he seemed intent on
01:07:01
recapturing the fun and excite and excitement that he had had when he was young you got to grow up dude not Billy
01:07:07
he stayed up late drinking and carrying on with friends and then would sleep until about 11:00 a.m. most days e it's
01:07:13
it's like dude you're a new father what are you doing and this was all while an spent her days caring for their son
01:07:18
intending to her duties as a society wife he just spent his days getting drunk with his lifelong best friend uh
01:07:24
Grenville Bean Barker who was probably the only person in Billy's life who did understand the traumas of World War II
01:07:31
combat so I that is a very specific trauma kind of trauma and I think they were very much trauma bonded yeah and of
01:07:39
course I understand that Billy was not getting help for the PTSD that he was suffering but at the same time it's like
01:07:45
you have to try to help your wife if you can yeah at least try you know and it doesn't sound like he was really making
01:07:51
any effort so from time to time and would try to join them for lunch or a drink but she would always be told sorry
01:07:58
men only and also gross like like I can understand he's going through PTSD and all that I can't I don't know what
01:08:06
that's like I can't even fathom it so I will never speak on that and it's like but and I can even understand that like
01:08:11
becoming a new father during that is probably a whole different God thing but like the men only thing and like before
01:08:19
that before the disaster he was even being a dick to an and like kind of making fun of her and like being this
01:08:25
little boy right you know it's like grow up right like that's he's he's sounding
01:08:30
very Peter Pan here and it's like the sorry men only thing I'm like sorry no no I can I can give you a lot here but
01:08:37
that's men only grow up that's stupid so although Billy refused to take up a formal position at his father's Bank he
01:08:43
did find other ways to occupy his time other than just day drinking with Bean Barker a baker he sat on the board of
01:08:49
directors for two large companies Turner uh Hy which was a tech textiles company
01:08:55
and United shoe machinery and he also started taking an interest in the breeding of race horses which was a
01:09:00
passion that he and his father shared together and also one that would bring Billy a certain amount of Fame for the
01:09:06
number of Highly Successful race horses bred by The familyowned Stables wow and most ominously he took an interest in
01:09:14
guns and Sport Shooting very high society yes well Billy carried on you know pretty much a bachelor lifestyle
01:09:22
and focused on raising her son and keeping up with the expectations of society women like any dedicated student
01:09:28
she studied the latest fashions from Paris and Milan she took elocution lessons wow she continued her fruitless
01:09:34
attempts to impress elsc Woodward she's still trying all of it she's really trying Billy and Anne continue to be
01:09:41
seen in public together at salons and parties thrown by all their equally wealthy friends but behind the scenes
01:09:47
their marriage was slowly crumbling and perhaps sensing that her husband was slipping away and found a renewed
01:09:53
interest in keeping her husband entertained but by the end of 1946 his eye had begun to wander seemingly
01:10:01
searching for uh literally anybody other than an oh my God nobody can just be content no why bother getting married
01:10:09
everybody yeah so in January 1947 Anne gave birth to the couple Second Son James amongst all this but the birth of
01:10:16
a second child did nothing to heal the rift between an and Billy it usually doesn't yeah by then he had taken the
01:10:22
position uh as the president Handover bank which occupied his days and in the evenings he would drink with Bean or
01:10:28
find another activity away from the house and away from an more often than not and he would spend his weekends away
01:10:35
from his entire family usually with his mistress oh boy princess Marina T Tonia I believe is it how you say it uh she is
01:10:43
Brook Shield's grandmother oh damn yeah and she's a straight up princess she's a whole ass
01:10:49
princess a whole ass princess whole ass princess wow yeah he started having an affair with her more than a year earlier
01:10:56
she was an Italian socialite and uh Billy had met her at a party and just immediately was infatuated by her like
01:11:04
an in her younger years Marina was bold exciting and most importantly to Billy she was a woman of his class okay so you
01:11:14
you literally like basically teased that those traits out of her yep and shamed them out of her and now you're like this
01:11:21
woman has what you used to have and it's like [ __ ] she had those still but you
01:11:26
shamed her out of them because she was she was never going to belong no this is a woman that is she didn't have a title
01:11:32
she's from class right o yeah that's sad it's really sad like I I told you this whole story is just princess Marina you
01:11:41
know he's married yeah that's not cool girl like like they've been around all over the place they got two kids that's
01:11:45
the thing Society everybody knows everybody's [ __ ] business come on princess Marina so Billy's affair with
01:11:50
Marina was uh hardly a secret and only made Anne try harder to please her husband how humiliating oh my God I
01:11:58
can't imagine one evening late in 1946 they went to a party at Joe Hartford Douglas's house where they used to live
01:12:06
as the evening started winding down an asked Billy to take her home which he did begrudgingly as he wanted to stay at
01:12:12
the party so he dropped her back at the hotel where they were staying and she tried to entice him to stay but he had
01:12:17
every intention of returning back to the party and when she tried to stop him at
01:12:21
the door allegedly Billy raised his hand in a threatening Manner and Ann screamed
01:12:26
at him go ahead hit me but Billy dropped his hand side heavily and just went back
01:12:31
to the Douglas's house wow a violent scene was avoided that night but the same could not be said for subsequent
01:12:37
and usually drunken fights where violence from one or the other would eventually become a common feature they
01:12:44
started getting violent with each other and you have two kids yeah and it's just
01:12:48
like even if you don't like yeah I mean like obviously that's never okay anyways
01:12:53
but it's like my goodness get divorced I think it's a lot less embarrassing than
01:12:56
hitting each other Ann and Billy's marriage continued as we know to deteriorate in the years that followed
01:13:02
when he wasn't at the Stables or on a weekend getaway with Princess Marina he retreated to his work or spent evenings
01:13:08
you guessed it drinking with Bean jeez bean bean is something but an meanwhile recommitted herself to keeping up
01:13:15
appearances and meeting the expectations of a New York social it she was trying basically up until her dying day shortly
01:13:23
after James was born an found a large five-story Town House on East 73rd Street in Manhattan and she convinced
01:13:29
Billy to buy it she filled the home with antique furniture silk tapestries crystals she hoped that the house would
01:13:36
be the perfect opportunity to show Elsie like look I I can do it like at this beautiful house I've put together and I
01:13:43
decorated it like you would have yeah but Elsie found an's taste more go than classic and was like did it wrong good
01:13:50
thing you don't have to live there exactly so lost in all the chaos of the extramarital Affairs Society
01:13:56
expectations and drunken fights were young William AKA Woody and James who were usually left in the care of tutors
01:14:03
maids and other domestic workers while their parents marriage just continued to spiral downwards oh this is so gross
01:14:09
it's awful to the public at large Ann and Billy lived a Charmed typical life of the nation's wealthiest families but
01:14:16
everybody in their Inner Circle knew that their marriage was in shambles and people were worried by 1955 after years
01:14:23
of lies and drunken abuse to each other they mostly seemed to hate each other and they really made no secret of it in
01:14:30
public they sniped at each other with Billy mocking Anne's desperate attempts to fit in with his friends and family
01:14:36
and an frequently now accusing him of having more interest in men than women and in private their fights like I
01:14:42
mentioned before continued to escalate to violence damn by summer of 1955 they started sleeping in separate bedrooms
01:14:49
and Anne was now requiring several drinks and uh a couple of seol orol seol or Thor Thorazine pills to get to sleep
01:14:58
every night which were basically just like tranquilizers several of the staff in
01:15:02
the house also started to notice a dark turn in her personality they thought that she had become erratic and at times
01:15:08
paranoid but nobody dared say anything to her or Billy because that was a good way to lose your job yeah so but things
01:15:15
were starting to get really really bad that fall when the uh children's governess which is like a nanny uh in
01:15:22
Jabor Sorenson had implied that something might be wrong and fired her immediately and had the maid take take
01:15:29
over the care of the children it's like me well this lady just like cares about your family and it's like something's
01:15:34
aai here exactly later that same that same Nanny would tell the police she thought Anne was either quote sick or
01:15:40
mentally ill because of the way that she was starting to treat Billy oh boy which
01:15:45
I think she was at this point yeah it sounds like this is just a [ __ ] mess and now she I don't um it's unclear to
01:15:52
me whether the pills that she was taking to go to sleep or prescribed or not but
01:15:55
one you're taking those interchangeably and then you're drinking and it's like this is just a recipe for disaster this
01:16:03
is reckless and for like a mental break yeah so for the previous several years the family had been splitting their time
01:16:09
uh between the town host on East 73rd Street and their vacation home in Oyster Bay which is my favorite wine and also a
01:16:16
small town on the Eastern edge of Long Island very popular with New York's Elite kind of like um The Hamptons yeah
01:16:22
and the of 195 yeah I love said that yeah or like West Egg yeah oh I love it in the fall of 1955 though a rash of
01:16:31
Breakin and pett Petty burglaries in Oyster Bay had put the wealthy residents on edge particularly Anne Woodward whose
01:16:38
alcohol and drug abuse had already caused her to become more paranoid and impulsive yeah in response she began
01:16:45
sleeping with a loaded 12 gauge double barrel shotgun beside her bed okay okay like I said they had an interest in
01:16:52
shooting game damn and the yearsage an and Billy like I said had taken an interest in big game hunting
01:17:03
and they'd gone to India several times where they hunted large cats which is absolutely horrible that's gross um and
01:17:09
as a result of their interest in hunting both became very proficient with small and large guns so an was confident that
01:17:16
she could protect herself should anybody break into the home with this wild ass gun if you can shoot a giant wild animal
01:17:23
who was just minding their own business then you're probably pretty good shooting anything mhm so gross I hate
01:17:29
that stuff I hate that stuff so much on the evening of October 28th police were actually searching Oyster Bay after
01:17:35
getting another call about a suspected Prowler when they were tipped off by the night Watchmen at the cinam cinama which
01:17:41
was actually on the Woodward's property that the man on the grounds was supposedly carrying a shotgun after a
01:17:47
search of the property police actually found no evidence of the prowler but the suggestion alone was enough to conest
01:17:53
and that there was real danger yeah that would scare the crap out of me yeah and
01:17:56
you know you have two kids and just in general you're you're going to want to protect your home and also by the way
01:18:01
with the hunting thing I was talking about those big game Hunters who go to like these countries and like shoot a
01:18:06
giraffe it's like [ __ ] you exactly it's that's just gross wild so two nights later Billy and an attended a
01:18:14
dinner party at the home of Wallace Simpson and Edward the hold on five six seven the eth yes I was counting the the
01:18:22
one like five six seven um if you and if you'll remember they were in the margarite Ali bear story oh [ __ ] yes oh
01:18:31
okay or case I should say not story so uh that's where they were just hanging out with royalty essentially of course
01:18:38
and all anybody was talking about that night was the neighborhood Prowler because yeah it's [ __ ] intense so
01:18:44
throughout the evening Billy made sure that everybody knew he was ready should the prowler show up and he flashed a
01:18:50
pistol that had been holstered beneath his jacket an also told several guests about the gun that she was keeping
01:18:56
beside her bed to several of the couples at the party Anne and Billy specifically
01:19:00
seemed obsessed with the prowler everybody was worried about it and just like talking generally but they seemed
01:19:06
to like bring it up in every single conversation that they could oh damn and an they thought seemed more paranoid
01:19:12
than anything and people viewed Billy as eager to uh prove his manlihood geez so
01:19:19
that's nice that's nice but the party wound down a little after midnight and Anne and Billy both sufficiently drunk
01:19:25
at this at that point said their goodbyes and began the drive back home where they retreated to their respective
01:19:30
bedrooms according to Anne she hadn't been asleep long when she was awoken by the sound of footsteps on the roof above
01:19:37
her bedroom followed shortly by a crash in the upstairs hallway then The Barking
01:19:41
of the family dog she had taken a sleeping pill as soon as they got home that night so she was groggy as she got
01:19:47
out of bed and reached for the shotgun in the chair nearby oh no she walked slowly to the door door and when she
01:19:53
opened it she saw the shadow of a man in the hallway and with the door half open
01:19:57
she raised the shotgun and fired into the dark knocking the Intruder to the floor she slowly approached the body on
01:20:03
the floor and it was immediately horrified to find that it was not a Prowler it was the naked body of her
01:20:09
husband oh in a moment of panic and impulsive action she had shot and killed Billy Woodward oh boy so the
01:20:17
investigation into the death of Billy Woodward was surprisingly short for someone of his wealth and status but
01:20:22
Ann's version of events was pretty much exactly what I described she told the police in her initial interview and this
01:20:28
was a quote it was all done in one movement it was so quick I heard the noise open the door and I fired as far
01:20:34
as the police at the scene could tell Anne fired the shotgun from her bedroom doorway the F the first shot had missed
01:20:41
and struck the wall but the second shot quote ricocheted off his bedroom door and hit Billy making superficial wounds
01:20:47
on the right side of his face and neck oh man and then another piece of buck shot stuck him in the head sending a
01:20:54
small pellet into his brain holy [ __ ] that blast knocked him backwards into the bedroom where he landed on his
01:21:00
stomach and bled to death within 10 minutes oh my God that's brutal brutal way to go when she realized what she had
01:21:06
done and claimed that she ran downstairs and threw the remaining ammunition into
01:21:10
the back cabinet quote fearing that if she had any ammunition at all she would shoot herself because she was so upset
01:21:16
and distraught at this point as Nassau County Sheriff's deputy surveyed the scene at the Woodward house there was
01:21:22
little to contradict an's story nothing was missing there was no sign of a Breakin there was no sign of a struggle
01:21:29
in a press conference held later that morning Nassau County chief of detectives uh St vescent pennel I
01:21:34
believe is the name wow what a name quite a name told investigators that the sheriff's office would continue their
01:21:40
investigation but he expected the case was quote more likely to be accidental than homicide wow while police updated
01:21:47
the Press on the events in the Woodward house the children had been taken to Manhattan to stay with William and
01:21:53
while an who was supposedly in a in a state of severe shock and hysteria was taken to a doctor's hospital on Park
01:22:00
Avenue where she was sedated Days Later Elsie Woodward hired ingabo Sorenson whom an had recently fired to watch the
01:22:08
boys wow yeah a big [ __ ] you it was a big [ __ ] you but it was also like the boys are used to this woman that's the
01:22:16
thing and they're going through like a [ __ ] ton of trauma right now and it was
01:22:21
honestly stupid of to fire this woman just for being like I'm concerned about your family like you could have just
01:22:28
told her mind your business like you didn't need to fire her and it's like your boys you got to think of your kids
01:22:34
your kids are comfortable with her she if you kept her on she must be good with your children right and it's like so
01:22:39
Elsie's probably being like I'm just going to put you know you know there was shade involved but like I was say but
01:22:44
you know that part of it was like they woman and this woman knows them that's the thing why hire a stranger while
01:22:50
they're going through this right and like you said they know her so they're going to be comfortable but despite
01:22:56
their own shock over the death of their only son wow Elsie and William sprang into action taking control of the story
01:23:03
and instructing those within their Circle as to how they should respond the day after the shooting the story was the
01:23:08
headline in most Metropolitan papers but the story was surprisingly light on the
01:23:13
details some articles focus more on Billy's ownership of the celebrated horse Nashua than they did on the fact
01:23:20
that his wife had uh shot him to death yeah that's pretty big other outlets meanwhile printed a carefully crafted
01:23:25
and highly suspect story about the Woodward story book romance oh yeah the LA Times claimed no one in top level
01:23:33
Society had more fun than an oh like I think many people did according to the LA Times article Elsie Woodward was
01:23:40
quote unable to go to Tacoma when Bill and Anne were married there but she did everything after they arrived in New
01:23:45
York to launch an socially and she cherished her two little their two little Sons which I believe part of that
01:23:52
but she definitely didn't try to La trans socially the report goes on to say having interviewed all the guests at the
01:23:57
party that evening as well as the Woodward's family and friends police found no evidence of Discord between the
01:24:03
Woodwards and that they were in love oh you sure about that you sure about that I'm like everybody else after like not
01:24:11
talking to the LA times but talking amongst each other was like wow they [ __ ] hated each other in the end that
01:24:17
now while some news outlets were content to accept the obviously fabricated stories of happy me uh marriage and
01:24:24
domestic Bliss others dug deeper into the story on November 1st the Buffalo Evening News included among their
01:24:31
reporting a brief news note on Anne's father Jesse crowl whom she claimed was dead after he was shown a photo of his
01:24:39
daughter he told the paper it could very well be her I used to hear about her sometimes in a roundabout way I thought
01:24:45
she married I thought she was married to somebody out in California wow it's like
01:24:49
yikes but they're just embarrassing her at this point like publicly yeah I mean she claimed he was dead yeah so I guess
01:24:57
like they're all kind of just sniping at each other at this point yeah exactly other reports of odd or unsavory
01:25:03
Behavior soon followed including quotes from the recently fired governance uh ingabo Soren in there who told reporters
01:25:10
Miss Woodward would sometimes get up in the middle of the night and pound on his
01:25:13
door screaming for him to open up she was a very suspicious woman oh man like I said I think in the
01:25:20
end they both just lost it I mean with all the stress and drinking drinking and drugs and all all everything I I think
01:25:29
she was at a sh she had a mental break I definitely think so it sounds like at that's what it sounds like and despite
01:25:35
the Woodward's family the Woodward family's best efforts to control the story rumors about Anne and Billy
01:25:41
managed to find their way into the news of course while papers in and around New
01:25:44
York City stuck with Elsie's version of the story cuz they knew what was good for them the press in other parts of the
01:25:50
country published way more salacious details the San Francisco Examiner wrote for the last 6 years the married life of
01:25:56
Bill and Anne Woodward was marked with quarrels threats of divorce long separation and sudden
01:26:01
reconciliation and even worse the papers were digging more and more into Anne's background in early life in Kansas
01:26:08
threatening to expose everything she had worked to cover up into her adulthood this is so bizarre such a bizarre way to
01:26:15
exist it really is it really is as the Press continued to spend the story every which way they could and remained in a
01:26:22
private room at the Doctor's Hospital supposedly being treated for shock but also to avoid uncomfortable questions
01:26:28
from the press and police while Ann convalesced Elsie dispatched a team of lawyers and private investigators to
01:26:34
clean up the mess first and foremost she wanted to know if there was any proof of
01:26:38
Anne's guilt and if so wanted to know could she be convicted if there were to be a trial Elsie was mourning the loss
01:26:45
of her son but she was still a member of the New York's Old Guard aristocracy and
01:26:50
as such her primary director in the wake of the killing was to control this story
01:26:54
and protect the reputation of her family yeah I mean that's that that's what they're built to do literally they're
01:26:59
built to protect reputation that's all it is so a week after Billy's death 22-year-old Paul worths an occasional
01:27:06
brick layer and known felon was arrested on prowling and burglary charges in Oyster Bay so he was the guy that was
01:27:12
there really was a Prowler the arrest cast an's claims in a new light causing many to wonder whether the arrest of an
01:27:19
actual Prowler exonerated her of any wrongdoing and in a suspicious and conveniently
01:27:25
timed confession wors admitted to being on the Woodward's property at the time of the shooting which gave Credence to
01:27:33
Ann's story of shooting Billy only after she heard the sounds of a Prowler yeah he told the detectives of hearing the
01:27:39
shotgun blast that killed Billy I slammed the door and ran like hell so he was saying I really was there that night
01:27:45
now given the influence of old money and high society power on the political systems of small towns like Oyster Bay
01:27:51
it really shouldn't come as any surprise that Paul worth seemed to have all the answers and details that would allow the
01:27:57
detectives to wrap up that case neatly and and very quickly huh he actually only came forward to confess after he
01:28:04
was visited by a detective Who quote urged him to shed any light he could on the shooting of William Woodward Jr only
01:28:10
after that visit he was prodded by his conscience into changing his story oh you don't say he had told a different
01:28:17
story at first now two weeks after his confession a grand jury convened Nassau County in a Nassau County Courthouse to
01:28:24
determine whether an was at fault for her husband's death in total 31 Witnesses were called to testify
01:28:30
including nearly all the attendees of Wallace Simpson's party those in the house at the time of the shooting and of
01:28:36
course Paul Worth's among the more significant Witnesses called was Dr Jane Alden a psychiatrist who evaluated an
01:28:43
just right after the shooting occurred this doctor told the jury that quote the shooting was an accident based on Anne's
01:28:50
unconscious impulse an had no Center she only Leed to please Billy I don't buy her shooting him as a conscious decision
01:28:57
I can see that I see it yeah during the hearing the assistant District Attorney Edward Robinson was careful to remind
01:29:05
the jury that the question before them was simple is there evidence of a homicide that is Criminal homicide and
01:29:10
the answer was no yeah he said after listening to the testimony the jury unanimously agreed with Robinson and
01:29:17
they found no evidence of a crime having been committed by an they did however find wors guilty of burglary and 3
01:29:24
months later a judge sentenced him to 10 to 20 years in prison after which his lawyer announced they would quote seek a
01:29:29
pardon in Albany so that wors can be deported without having his sentence having without serving the sentence so
01:29:36
that was all a big mess yeah but although she'd been cleared of the murder of her husband in court to say
01:29:41
that Anne never paid a price for Billy's death would be wildly inaccurate I can imagine she sequestered herself in that
01:29:47
private room in a doctor's hospital in Manhattan while Elsie Woodward was pulling every string and leveraging
01:29:53
every single connection she had not only to force Ann out of the family but to ensure that she took nothing with her
01:29:59
when she left including her two children oh damn yeah within days of their father's death both Woodward boys were
01:30:05
assigned a special Guardian Manhattan lawyer Harold Corbin according to the family spokesperson Williams Collins
01:30:12
Corbin was assigned as the boy special Guardian to protect their quote large financial interest in the Estates of
01:30:18
their father and grandfather in reality that Guardian was really put in place to
01:30:22
keep the kids away from an while Elsie came up with a a more long-term strategy to deal with her unwanted
01:30:28
daughter-in-law oh boy yeah just days before the grand jury was to convene Elsie called Anne to the Woodward house
01:30:35
to discuss Billy's will it seemed that he had made a handful of changes in 1948 during the height of his affair with
01:30:43
Marina oh no that affected an's inheritance and it was important that the details be imparted to her uh
01:30:50
imparted to her before the trial trial Elsie thought among the changes Anne was now to receive $2,500 in cash and quote
01:30:58
a lifetime income uh of onethird of Billy's estate which was far less than she had been expecting oh boy the
01:31:06
remaining two-thirds would go to the children but then Elsie made an a hideous proposition the Woodwards would
01:31:12
not challenge her inheritance and they would forgive the $100,000 loan that they made to an for some additional
01:31:18
property in Oyster Bay and an exchange she would not object to her boys being sent to the Leer Rosie a a boarding
01:31:25
school in Switzerland whoa so they were like we're not going to challenge your inheritance and we'll let that loan go
01:31:33
we'll let that loan go but in turn you're going to sent away your children are being
01:31:38
sent away and you're not really getting any of the money that you're entitled to
01:31:41
wow in hindsight Ann would obviously regret accepting Elsie's proposition but that at the time she felt like she
01:31:47
didn't really have a choice she was still young but she had no practical marketable skills to speak of at this
01:31:53
point and so without the inheritance from Billy's estate she would be destitute she would at least would
01:31:58
challenge it if she didn't accept if she didn't accept it it's true that she would have still had her children but
01:32:03
they wouldn't have been able to access the money from their father's estate for many years meaning that not only she but
01:32:09
the boys would have been destitute yeah so she was trying to think did the best thing yeah she did the best thing for
01:32:14
her kids and faced with those two terrible choices she did what she thought was best she believed that they
01:32:20
would at least be taken care of material L if not emotionally but making matters worse
01:32:25
Elsie also also suggested that an quote would be better off for at least four years if she made her home abroad so she
01:32:33
was like get the [ __ ] out of here oh yeah damn an had little choice but agreed to the terms and by the end of
01:32:39
the year the boys were shipped off to Switzerland and she relocated to Europe Elsie is powerful she is very powerful
01:32:47
damn she's very I didn't see this coming for Elsie especially with a name like Elsie I love the name Elsie I think it's
01:32:53
adorable that's what I think it is I think it's adorable I don't see Elsie sitting there like just straight up just
01:33:01
being like you're going to move to Europe and your boys are going to Switzerland and we're not going to
01:33:05
challenge the little amount that my son left you in his well exactly like I don't see that of an lsie but I think
01:33:11
she was like you killed my son and like I believe you did it on purpose I think she's looking from the beginning and
01:33:18
she's going I'm pretty sure you had an affair with my husband yep and then that all set it all
01:33:23
off at all oh absolutely not I'm saying that's why Elsie's being so ruthless and
01:33:29
she seeing this as as validation and at the end of the day even had all of that not happened she killed her son yeah
01:33:38
that's just whether intentional or not she did so she's so Elsie is Elsie is Out For Blood here exactly now wild
01:33:47
initially an planned to uh resist Elsie's suggestion that she relocate herself and instead continue her life in
01:33:55
Manhattan as Mrs William Woodward Jr but she underestimated Elsie's influence in
01:34:00
New York I think we all did so she tried to stay in New York and it seemed that everywhere she went people were
01:34:05
sympathetic to her situation but were unable to accommodate or unwilling to socialize with her particularly her
01:34:13
former friend charie nicker Boer who had reported the details of an's parenting failures to the New York
01:34:19
Times oh no one turned on her by 1956 she saw no reason to to remain in New York and she did leave the country in
01:34:28
the years and eventually decades that followed Billy's death and floated around Europe and the United States
01:34:33
becoming increasingly dependent on the fleeting and this is a quote the fleeting kindness of lotharios jigal
01:34:40
Good Samaritans oddballs and conmen oh boy this is very sad it's awful her life was a shadow of what it once was and
01:34:47
most among New York Society had forgotten all about an but not not trouin capot and he had an axe to grind
01:34:55
oh no yeah and you don't want to be on his axe that's getting gr just going to say I don't want him having any access
01:35:02
to grind with me no so the following is all alleged and based on an account of Rosanne montillo she recalled that capot
01:35:09
had run into Anne Woodward in 1956 While She Was Out dining at a restaurant in St
01:35:14
Mort uh maritz with her companion for the evening uh a man named Claus van buulo his name might sound fam because
01:35:22
he tried to poison his wife allegedly oh that guy yeah you know but capot glared
01:35:27
at Anne from his table finding her being in the presence of a man so soon after her husband's death to be in very poor
01:35:34
taste oh eventually capot wandered over to the table and made a crude remark to which Anne responded by calling capot a
01:35:42
little effler oh yeah the exchange was very nasty yeah but brief and hardly an UNF familar insult insult to capot but
01:35:53
it was one that he would hold on to for three decades before getting some kind of payback damn at the time of their
01:35:59
unpleasant exch Exchange in St Moritz an was an exiled socialite and Truman capot
01:36:05
was a promising young writer in the years that followed and celebrity continued to decline while capot Rose
01:36:12
yeah that's not great primarily through the publication of wildly popular novels
01:36:16
like in Cold Blood which we've talked about and his widely covered Society parties like the notorious notorious
01:36:22
black and white ball by the mid 1970s though he had been in a yearl slump and the novel that he had been promising to
01:36:29
his publisher answered prayers amounted to not really much more than a few chapters of high society gossip in fact
01:36:37
Truman surprised nearly everybody when without permission from his editor he actually published one of the stories
01:36:42
from a forthcoming manuscript in the November issue of Esquire oh [ __ ] yes you going to get in trouble for that so
01:36:49
the short story laot back ask I think that's how you say it it sounds really bad if you're American it's French it
01:36:55
focuses on a gossipy conversation between two New York socialites over lunch during which they trade rumors and
01:37:01
secrets about other ladies in their Social Circle until they eventually get around to one of the more scandalous
01:37:07
stories that of Anne Hopkins quote unquote a once poor social climber who sleeps and schemes her way into New York
01:37:15
Society before ultimately shooting her husband to death oh [ __ ] quote unquote claiming that she mistook him for an
01:37:20
intrud oh shut the [ __ ] up yeah he just was like boom he was like I'm not talking about you yeah the characters in
01:37:28
this story were uh thinly disguised portrayals of actual actual Society women at the time including Gloria
01:37:35
Vanderbilt oh [ __ ] bab P I think it is pyy babe py and of course an Woodward oh
01:37:42
no yeah yet while many of the women in the story are portrayed in a somewhat unflattering light the real Target of
01:37:49
his cutting wit was Anne Woodward while the other women in the story are gossipy and unkind quote unquote Anne
01:37:57
Hopkins is portrayed as a gold digging sexually promiscuous social climber and murderer which effectively reignited the
01:38:05
rumors and slander surrounding Billy Woodward's death [ __ ] now perhaps it was coincidence or maybe she somehow
01:38:13
received an advanced reader copy of capote's story but on October 10th 1975 just days before the story was published
01:38:21
in Esquire and took her own life by ingesting cyanide I had no idea that's how this
01:38:28
ended yeah holy [ __ ] when the news of her death hit the papers Elsie Woodward is reported as have as having said well
01:38:35
that's it she shot my son and Truman murdered her which obviously Truman did not murder her that's what Elsie said
01:38:42
but Elsie said that well that's that yeah she shot my son and Truman capot murdered her to say
01:38:50
Truman capot is responsible for the death of an and many people have said it would be wrong and unfair but it's not
01:38:56
unreasonable to assume that after Decades of heartbreak mistreatment and disappointment the news of the book
01:39:02
coming out was the final disappointment that did probably send an over the edge damn whether or not it it was the main
01:39:10
thing that contributed to her so or her suicide or not is unknown but the story was met with very hostile criticism for
01:39:17
its cruelty and vulgarity and it not only ended Capo writing career but also many of his close relationships with the
01:39:24
women unflatteringly portrayed in the story and I think that's what that new show is about exactly which now I want
01:39:31
to watch that I'm very intrigued because I'm like wow yeah now the book uh that the story was to be included in answered
01:39:39
prayers was actually never published and in the years that followed capote's alcoholism and drug abuse worsened until
01:39:45
he finally died of liver disease and drug intoxication on August 25th 1984 wow yeah unfortunately though the
01:39:54
tragedy of the Woodward family did not end with the death of Anne Woodward in 1976 after years of struggling with
01:40:01
substance abuse and mental health issues and and Billy's youngest son James also
01:40:06
died by Suicide when he threw himself from his hotel window oh jeez both boys had struggled considerably in the wake
01:40:14
of their father's death but William Woody Woodward theii managed to succeed and the decades after his parents death
01:40:21
he deaths excuse me he became a successful journalist he ran for political office he actually even served
01:40:27
as New York State's Deputy superintendent of the banks wow and then he just left the public eye to live a
01:40:33
quiet life good for him by all accounts he managed to avoid the effects of generational trauma that ended the lives
01:40:39
of his three immediate family members but then something went entirely wrong no on May 2nd 1999 he too threw himself
01:40:48
out the kitchen window of his 14th Flor New York apartment dying obviously as soon as he hit the
01:40:54
ground what the [ __ ] isn't that so darking like both of their children died the same way by throwing themselves from
01:41:02
a build like that's really horrifying oh I feel that's really sad yeah now they didn't ask no they did not ask in the
01:41:09
midst of all this [ __ ] at all and they should have just been left alone yeah after all this now obviously we'll
01:41:16
never know whether the death of Billy Woodward truly was an accident or something more nefarious but Roseanne
01:41:21
mono's 2022 book deliberate cruelty suggests that there was some truth to the rumors that an murdered Billy
01:41:29
according to montillo shortly before his death Billy had traveled to P Pittsburgh
01:41:33
Kansas to buy a small prop plane from a private seller and he ran into somebody who recognized him as Anne's husband
01:41:41
that individual through that individual and a number of others Billy learned that an's entire history as she had
01:41:47
explained it to him was a lie and he was eager to return to New York to confront
01:41:52
his wife now the Revelation that she'd been so deeply untruthful would have been grounds not only to divorce an but
01:41:59
also to obtain sole custody of the kids and leave her with no Financial Resources so simply put according to
01:42:07
this story he was going to undo everything that Anne had worked so hard to achieve and deliver her back to the
01:42:14
thing that she feared more than anything a life of poverty and insignificance so some people wonder is
01:42:21
that what happened and is that why she shot him but we won't know but when you strip away all the money the jewelry and
01:42:28
the privilege what Anne really wanted was security and to be accepted and valued by those around her and she never
01:42:35
really got that no and she really had no idea that the length she was willing to
01:42:39
go to to achieve those things would have very wide and long repercussions that would end the lives of every single
01:42:47
member of her immediate family I am speechless at how horrifyingly that all ended up what a
01:42:56
tragic everyone in tragic tale every three out of four by Suicide and one from murder possible murder but like
01:43:04
unintentional or intentional is Right wow how [ __ ] up that's really and it's so sad like that whole you and it's not
01:43:17
all that Glitters is gold it's like that's shows you you look at it's the same thing as looking at like social
01:43:24
media or something we've seen it happen again and again everything looks hunky dory the grass is not always greener you
01:43:30
don't know what's happening behind closed doors it's like damn isn't that so sad when you live your life for you
01:43:37
know material things and everybody else's opinions and everybody else's you know Judgment of you yep then
01:43:46
oh man that's just like really sad all the way around story sad in this story I know from
01:43:54
beginning to end that's the thing I want to look up when that um that Truman capot Show is coming out yeah holy [ __ ]
01:44:01
that's a wild wild story a wild story and one I had heard the names before but I had never heard the whole story I just
01:44:09
never looked into it thing I had heard the like you just said I'd heard the names before but then I was like wait I
01:44:15
want to look more into this and Dave was like oh I know this story Dave was like
01:44:19
girl down Dave obviously helped like so much with like the uh research on this and especially putting like uh the
01:44:26
context contextual things into yeah exactly certain parts of it and actually Dave was the one to tell us about the
01:44:32
show that's coming out it's called Uh Feud capot versus the swans the SW I'm trying to see when it comes out if it
01:44:38
hasn't already watch this [ __ ] has to come out cuz I'm like damn let's sit down and start watching this seriously
01:44:43
it looks more is playing yeah Ann Woodward uh let me see I think you're right and I
01:44:50
think Molly Ringwald is in it she's playing one it like it's a lot of heavy Heavy Hitters yeah Tom Hollander is
01:44:55
playing truly uh Truman capot Naomi Watts is playing Barbara paly uh Diane Lane is playing slim Keith oh Chloe
01:45:04
savini is going to be in it damn I don't see anything about Demi but I think you're right yeah I think she's playing
01:45:10
in Woodward January 31st January 324 oh the day after um after the Vander pump rules wow oh man what a week I just
01:45:18
sounded really old there after the VES vender pump rules after my programs are on Wow January 31st it's only going to
01:45:27
be eight episodes on Wednesdays I love that I love a miniseries I do too especially one as scandalo as this one
01:45:35
yeah then there's going to be even more scandalosa because there's like a bunch of other women damn capot for
01:45:40
real thank you for telling what such a compelling and horrifying story you're welcome so much and thanks to Dave for
01:45:46
helping me with it and uh we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that all of
01:45:54
this happens because oh my God that's so tragic just love people and accept them
01:45:58
for who they are even if they don't uh come from your Society worry about your own [ __ ] yeah the grass not always
01:46:05
greener [Music] bye [Music]