[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

]00:20] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:26] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:32] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:33] Meg: And, Jessica, we have a new soundboard.

[00:37] Jessica: The mixer. Yes. It's really fancy looking. It's extremely fancy. Unwittingly, like, we don't need this much power. I feel like we need to start a band now so we can use this mixer properly. I also just want to acknowledge that when we first started this podcast, it took us about an hour to figure out how to use the mixer. And true to type, this one came out of the box. It said, oh, I'm plug and play. You don't have to worry. And I thought, naively, okay, but no, an hour.

[01:13] Meg: Again, nothing is easy.

[01:15] Jessica: Nothing is easy. But I think that you need to give a shout out to our technical support.

[01:20] Meg: Yes. My husband Joe got on speakerphone and said, after about 45 minutes, have you tried pressing this one particular button? And somehow we hadn't, even though, I wwear to God, there's zillions of buttons on this damn thing.

[01:37] Jessica: We had touched every single one. And the terrifying thing is that in doing so, obviously we turned it off. If we had touched nothing, it might have been plug and play.

[01:53] Meg: Who knows? I don't want to overthink it. The point is, thank God we have sound. It is recording. And we had such an exciting two weeks because we couldn't record last week. So what I'm about to catch you up on, Jessica, is two weeks of, like, you're never going to believe it.

[02:12] Jessica: I am so excited. You have no know. And I've been a little depressed this past week. Been struggling, for those of you with mental health issues. Yeah, me too. And I am so excited and happy because I knew this was coming. So thank you, good friend. Love you.

[02:31] Meg: Me?

[02:33] Jessica: Yes. Because I was excited that you were coming, and I got super perky.

[02:36] Meg: Okay.

[02:36] Jessica: I didn't wash my hair or anything for your arrival.

[02:38] Meg: You look gorgeous. You're wearing a cute little sundress and everything. And a headband.

[02:42] Jessica: I'm so happy that we're doing. I'm wearing a headband, preppy.

[02:46] Meg: All right. Because two weeks, you are not in charge of the Instagram.

[02:51] Jessica: Correct.

[02:51] Meg: Or the website.

[02:52] Jessica: I'm in charge of nothing.

[02:54] Meg: You're in charge of the mixer.

[02:55] Jessica: Well, let's see how well I do with that.

[02:58] Meg: It's gorgeous. I started to get a lot of emails and DMs this week, completely unrelated. The first one: I recently heard you two had mentioned the 84th Street Bombers on your podcast, so I tuned in for a couple episodes. I think you guys sound great together and have a really good, honest rapport and were really easy to listen to. So here I am, one of the original 84th Street guys. If you do indeed want an interview with a for real and for true NYC street urchin, hit me back here with a real email and I'll send you some interesting stuff. As it happens, I'm a fairly interesting guy and I did. All right, so this is Travis Myers.

[03:44] Jessica: This is Travis.

[03:45] Meg: This is Travis. And. Okay, so we've been emailing back and forth. We are so going to meet up because you know he lives in the city. He's also got another place, but we're going to organize it. We're going to meet up probably late August. In the meantime, he wrote this that he said I could share. How or why would anyone care about a bunch of nobody teenagers running around the streets in the '70s and '80s was beyond me. But then it seemed our reputation not only preceded us, but it grew as an almost mythical story. Younger guys would say they were connected to us, I assume for some sort of street cred. Parents would tell their kids to stay off of First Avenue or out of Fresca's or Enzo's pizzerias for fear of running into us. We were mentioned in newspapers and magazines. Even a book written by one of JFK Jr's girlfriends tells a story about us. I don't believe it to be true, but who knows? It's possible. I just love that.

[04:41] Jessica: I literally just got chills. Travis, I am living for the end of August. I hope you're listening.

[04:49] Meg: I know we are going to be ready for this interview.

[04:53] Jessica: This is going to be massive. It's going to be a big. This is like. my heart's already. Our white whale.

[04:58] Meg: All right.

[04:59] Jessica: An actual 84th Street Gang guy.

[05:01] Meg: Now, how about this? Jessica. Completely unrelated. Hi, Meg and Jessica. I just listened to your highly entertaining episode with Murder at The Met + Punk Teen Scene. You put out an open invitation for people who went to those high schools to reach out to you. Well, I was the singer of the student teachers.

[05:20] Jessica: Shut up.

[05:21] Meg: Do you want to know more? And I said, yes, David Sharf, I want to know more.

[05:29] Jessica: Are you shitting? Are we famous? No. Are we famous?

[05:37] Meg: I don't know. For some reason we are appealing to the famous people.

[05:41] Jessica: Well, I guess finally the word is out on the street that we're talking about this incredibly tiny enclave and they are showing up.

[05:47] Meg: So we are having an exchange now too and then hold on, Jessica, because then, completely unrelated.

[05:55] Jessica: I can't stand it.

[05:57] Meg: Hi, guys.

[05:58] Jessica: Oh, no. Is this someone we know?

[06:01] Meg: My name is Guy, I'm your age and was kicked out of Trinity School after 8th grade. Ended up going to Music & Art and played in a punk band at CB's, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I've really been enjoying listening to the podcast and have been turning all my old NYC friends onto it. But David Sharf wasn't one of these people.

[06:19] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[06:20] Meg: Completely unrelated. The band that guy was a part of was Addictive Manifesto. We played the Trinity School dance and Tommy Carroll of the 84th Street Gang started a fight and they shut down the show. Apparently the show inspired Matthew Caws later of Nada Surf to get a band together.

[06:40] Jessica: Okay, well, now we have to call him too.

[06:43] Meg: And he's also friends with this woman who is a cousin of all the stage hands who were part of the Murder at The Met.

[06:53] Jessica: What?

[06:53] Meg: I know. It's all just so crazy.

[06:56] Jessica: This is proof that a statement we made really early on in the podcast is true, which is New York City is a small town. Look at how interconnected, this is like we are staging a production of Our Town. This is ridiculous.

[07:12] Meg: Also really interesting and unrelated. So this is Guy Richards Smit.

[07:19] Jessica: Okay. Hi, Guy.

[07:20] Meg: Hi, Guy. He does cartoons for the New Yorker. I've been.

[07:24] Jessica: Are you shitting?

[07:25] Meg: No.

[07:26] Jessica: Am I now passed out on the floor?

[07:29] Meg: So obviously we have to get together with Guy.

[07:32] Jessica: We have to get together with all of these people. I think we have to have a party.

[07:36] Meg: It's so I just. Isn't that crazy? And just in the last couple weeks. Oh, my. No, no. There's something else. Before these guys even reached out, Winnie Wine. From Nightingale? From Nightingale was the daughter of he Quilted Giraffe people.

[07:52] Jessica: Shut your freaking pie hole.

[07:55] Meg: No, I will not. Our great friend Ray reached out and was, uh, guys. Winnie Wine. And I was like, oh, my God of course. That makes sense, doesn't it?

[08:07] Jessica: It's too bad I can't talk because I'm passed out in a heap under the.

[08:12] Meg: Who are the Wine people? It's Barry.

[08:14] Jessica: Barry. And like, Sheila, I think.

[08:17] Meg: Susan.

[08:17] Jessica: Susan

[08:18] Jessica: Barry and Susan Wine. I'm pretty sure I am a dead person, but. Winnie, do you remember her?

[08:23] Jessica: I remember Winnie.

[08:24] Meg: Okay, that's her parents.

[08:26] Jessica: We need to call Winnie, maybe get her in on this crazy. Okay, wait, so Ray was the one who tipped us off.

[08:31] Meg: Because Ray's sister Claudia was in Winnie's class.

[08:42] Jessica: I can't because like my whole day was made by just your intro. I don't even know what your story is going to do because you've been giving me a pretty big build up on your story today. And as a quick spoiler, if your story goes long. Tt's going to go long. I am absolutely seeding the floor to you today. And I will give a little teaser at the end of the podcast if we have time, about what I was going to talk about but will talk about on the next episode. But Meg, you are just surpassing yourself. I am going to interject a lot just so that I am present.

[09:13] Meg: I hope so.

[09:13] Jessica: Other than that, let it rip.

[09:16] Meg: Awesome. Your engagement question, Jessica, although I already sensed that you were engaged. But just to get us into the story, we knew.

[09:39] Jessica: I'm normally not engaged. Like, that's a little frightening.

[09:42] Meg: Are you good friends or have you ever been good friends with someone who inherited just craploads of money? Like, scary friggin money?

[09:53] Jessica: Inherited?

[09:54] Meg: Yes.

[09:56] Jessica: Not with living parents who are super rich. Someone who has had someone die and give them a ton of money, that.

[10:03] Meg: That's a legacy in their family.

[10:06] Jessica: Like, those family dies and then, oh, my God, I'm suddenly as the scion. I'm now responsible for the estates and the money and the yada yada, the burden of the first born son. How much british literature have I read?

[10:24] Meg: Okay, so you're engaged. You get the idea.

[10:27] Jessica: Qui.

[10:28] Meg: I hope that sets the stage. My sources are Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times. On February 27, 1986, at New York's surrogate court on Chamber Street, Johnson versus Johnson, the largest inheritance contest in the history of New York, began its 14 week trial. John Seward Johnson I, had left the bulk of his fortune, which was $402,824,971.59 which would be $1.2 billion today, to his wife, Basia. Now, does that sound familiar to you from your story about The Quilted Giraffe? No. So when you were telling your story about The Quilted Giraffe, you quoted somebody as saying, Basia was sitting in the corner. It's this Basia.

[11:25] Jessica: Oh, my lord.

[11:27] Meg: I'm going to tell you the story of Basia.

[11:28] Jessica: I got a little confused for a moment, because my cousin, who I adore is named Basha. My brain just went in 19 different directions. Like, basha, basha. Where did Basha inherit a lot of money? I got to give her a call.

[11:45] Meg: John Seward Johnson I had excluded five of his six children and his beloved charity, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The children had issue with this, as did Harbor Branch. So they took Basia to court. The court case is wild stuff and deserves its own episode. But today I'd like to tell a tale of two women. Basi Johnson, born Barbara Piasecka in Poland, and Mary Lea Richards, born Mary Lea Johnson in New Jersey. Basia was Seward's wife for twelve years before his death in 1983 at the age of 88. Mary Lea was Seward's eldest daughter. To understand these two women, I should give you some background on Seward. It's not pretty. Seward was born into the Johnson & Johnson fortune, which you may know from band aids and baby powder.

[12:41] Jessica: You may know them from their band aids fame. Yes.

[12:45] Meg: Unlike his brother, who people called General Johnson, who would go on to make Johnson & Johnson more powerful and lucrative than even his father, who was the founder of the company, could have imagined. Seward was cool having no responsibilities as long as he had all the money. And all he had to do for that money was to hang on to the shares that he inherited, which ballooned under his brother's watch. So he in turn lived the life of a libertine, quoten"He bought his own comfort and pleasure at the expense of his obligations." Yeah, that's what his son, his namesake son, who's actually a sculptor of great renown, John Seward Johnson II. But we're talking about the John Seward I. He liked sex and sailing.

[13:37] Jessica: Together.

[13:38] Meg: Maybe. Most descriptions make him sound like a mercurial, spoiled toddler in a man's body with craploads of money. And it's true that he was saddled with generations of parental neglect and abuse and had a profound case of dyslexia. But that doesn't excuse boohoo. Well, yeah, and it doesn't excuse the cruelty he indulged in. Boohoo. "Seward didn't know right from wrong. For him, there were no rules." That's another quote. Mary Lea was Seward's oldest child by his first marriage. She was the first baby to appear on the Johnson's baby powder can.

[14:15] Jessica: Oh, how cute.

[14:16] Meg: But by all accounts, her relationship with her father damaged her irrevocably.

[14:21] Jessica: Irrevocably. Sorry, you just did that.

[14:26] Meg: He would alternate between cruelty and intense attention. When she was nine.

[14:32] Meg: Oh, he was a sociopath. He was love bombing her.

[14:35] Meg: Oh, yes. Okay, you need to buckle up on this one.

[14:39] Jessica: I'm not going to survive it. This is not really going to get.

[14:42] Meg: It's not good at all.

[14:43] Jessica: Okay.

[14:44] Meg: When she was nine, he began having sex with her. When she was eleven, he divorced her mother, Ruth, and married Esther and Mary Lea said, quote, "I felt absolutely abandoned, as if nobody wanted me. When dad divorced mom, I felt he divorced me." But he did continue to have sex with her. This is another quote from Mary Lea, "When I told my mother, she said, I think it's a very good idea to tell your stepmother, Essie. And I think that was the worst possible thing she could have said. I think she could have said, I'll go to Essie with you. I needed somebody to back me up. I went alone. I told my stepmother, Essie, I don't think it's a very good idea. Would you please not have daddy come to my room? She thought I'd made the whole thing up. After that. She didn't want to have me around. She thought I was a bad influence on her children. Years later, though, she realized that what I'd said was true." This poor child. Mary Lea, was desperate for her father's love, her whole life. She tried to get his attention by telling him about her scandalous affairs or that she was a lesbian. But he never took the bait. Once, when she was 18, she came to visit him, and when he saw her enter the room, he barked, what do you want now? She cried for a week. Incidentally, I'm not sure if I said this earlier. He stopped having sex with her when she was 15.

[16:11] Jessica: You did not include that piece.

[16:13] Meg: Yeah. So it's from nine. From the ages of 9 to 15.

[16:17] Jessica: I wish that you could take a photo of my face, because there are rare moments when I can feel how I look, and I am beyond rage.

[16:30] Meg: Mary Lea went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and had a brief career as an actress before she married a gentleman farmer, William Ryan. In eight years, she had six children, one miscarriage and a stillbirth. When she bought a diaphragm.

[16:47] Jessica: She was pregnant every year.

[16:49] Meg: Yeah. I don't even know.

[16:51] Jessica: Eight conceptions in eight years. I can't even.

[16:55] Meg: Listen, it gets worse. When she bought a diaphragm, her husband called her a disciple of the devil and never had sex with her again. Blessing in disguise.

[17:08] Jessica: And she said than God, Fuck off. Gentlemen farmer, but no gentleman there. What a disgusting, revolting thing. That poor woman.

[17:19] Meg: By 1971, she was 45 years old in a horrible marriage, and her sons were acting out and taking drugs. Dr. Victor D'Arc

[17:30] Jessica: Are you kidding? That's his name. Dr. Dark.

[17:32] Meg: It's D apostrophe A-R-C.

[17:37] Jessica: Does it matter?

[17:40] Meg: So you can visualize. So Dr. Victor D'Arc was a psychiatrist at St. Luke's Hospital on 114th Street, and he started treating her son, Seward. They're all named after each other. During his sessions with young Seward, he learned a lot about Mary and used that information to court her. Mary fell for it, and Dr. Victor Dark became her second husband. All was wonderful for the first three months of their marriage, but then Victor started bringing men home to have sex with. For him to have sex with. And he also wanted Mary to have sex with him, too, while he watched. This was terribly unsettling to Mary, but she did as she was told. She was tailor created for horrible men to take advantage of her. You know what I mean?

[18:32] Jessica: Yes, I do. Yes. Yes, I'm following.

[18:35] Meg: When Mary attempted suicide, Victor told her, quote, that was a very hostile act toward me.

[18:46] Jessica: It's so psychotic that it's almost incomprehensible.

[18:52] Meg: Very early in their marriage, John Fino, a young actor, moved in with Mary and Victor and performed as both their chauffeur and their lover. He introduced Mary to Martin Richards, a casting director who had optioned a screenplay about two Bronx police officers. Mary, whose trust was now worth $30 million, ended up financing the development of what would become the 1981 film Ford Apache the Bronx. Chills. Marty Richards. Does he sound familiar to you? Okay, he will in a second. Marty Richards and Mary got along wonderfully. Marty was as gay as gay can be. But he also fell in love with Mary. He was heartbroken over her abusive marriage to Victor, and he offered Mary a place to live, and she took him up on it. John Fino, the chauffeur, lover, actor, actually took a shine to Mary, too. Or at least he liked her more than he liked Victor. So when Victor started shopping around for a hitman to kill his soon to be ex wife, John recorded the conversation and played it for Mary Lea. Quote, "I listened to the tape, and I heard Victor ordering up my death as if he was ordering a grocery list." Marty and Mary got a bodyguard, and they got married. Seward. Back to bad Seward, the father. That guy?

[20:26] Jessica; The original.

[20:27] Meg: Yeah.

[20:27] Jessica: Okay.

[20:28] Meg: He and Basia attended the wedding reception at The Boathouse in Central Park.

[20:32] Jessica: So this was the father who had been abusing.

[20:36] Meg: Yes.

[20:36] Jessica: Okay, so abuser and Basia go to The Boathouse.

[20:40] Meg: Yeah. To the reception.

[20:42] Jessica: This is like the worst children's book ever. Okay, good.

[20:45] Meg: So now let's turn back to Basia and find out what her whole story was.

[20:51] Jessica: Okay.

[20:51] Meg: Back in 1968, a mere ten years before Mary and Marty's New York wedding, 31 year old Basia arrived in America from Poland with $200 in her pocket and a master's degree in art history.

[21:04] Jessica: Well, that'll take you far well, it did, actually.

[21:09] Meg: Her childhood in Poland in the 1940s was rough. Her first memory was of Bolshevik soldiers beating up her father. Her family managed to evade the Nazis, often fleeing with only the clothes on their backs. Quote, and I cannot do this accent, and I'm not going to try.

[21:27] Jessica: Okay.

[21:28] Jessica: "I always dream for a better life, that I can create something. I felt that I am full of energy, and I can do many things which God gave me to do. I thought of it all the time. I never was afraid of hardworking and strong dreams."

[21:44] Jessica: All right. Right on.

[21:45] Meg: She started working for Essie and Seward Johnson, the old guy, as a chambermaid. After ten months, she'd saved $4,000 and quit, and she went to go study English at NYU. Her work ethic impressed Seward, apparently, so he sent a limousine to bring his wife's former chambermaid to his office to make her a proposal. He knew she had a degree in art history. Apparently, she had criticized two Hans Hofmann paintings, saying that they, quote, "do not have any artistic value and they do not express anything specific" and Seward thought her assessment was brave and decisive, and he hired her as a curator for $12,000 a year and set her up in an apartment in Sutton Place. He also asked her to learn how to scuba dive and gave her $2,000 to cover her expenses. A year after arriving in New York City from war torn Poland, Basia was traveling the world, buying Picassos and Cezannes and Monets. Seward, who was 74, was smitten and soon moved into the Sutton Place apartment, and not long after that divorced Essie, his wife of 30 years. Eight days later, he married Basia. She was 34. Even the Johnson children admitted that Basia was good for Seward's mood. He started wearing turtlenecks and a Bulgari medallion and sped around in a Jaguar convertible.

[23:16] Jessica: I need help right now. I knew you'd like visual. A 74 year old man in a turtleneck with a medallion. I mean, so what year is this? The reason I'm asking about exactly what year this was is because I need a mental image of the turtleneck and the Bulgari.

[23:33] Meg: It's 1971, I'm pretty sure.

[23:35] Jessica: He's cutting edge.

[23:37] Meg: Yes. Basia put her energies into building a 140 acre estate in Princeton, New Jersey, and named it Jasna Polana, which means bright meadow in Polish. She filled it with Flemish tapestries and 18th century furniture and paintings and drawings by Rembrandt and Botticelli. Not surprisingly, she was an exacting boss. Quote, "she hired and fired scores of workers and craftsmen she ordered entire walls torn down because she didn't like the color of a few stones." She imported Polish workmen to work on the wrought iron gates and banisters. In 1983, it was the most expensive private home in America. It cost the Johnsons $30 million to build. Basia liked all kinds of nice things. She once said she, quote, "spent more in a year than Queen Elizabeth." Basia befriended Nina Zagat. No. Of the Zagat's. Okay, there's so much callback here. It's crazy.

[24:45] Jessica: I mean, small town.

[24:47] Meg: Everyone was, like, ragging on her and everything, but it sort of sounds like people, how they ragged on Leona Helmsley. Basia and the 84th Street gang. All right, so Nina Zagat, who at the time was a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling. Nina started traveling with the Johnsons and ultimately started handling their legal affairs, including Seward's will. As his health began to decline.

[25:16] Jessica: Oopsies.

[25:17] Meg: His forceful personality softened and by most accounts, he, quote, "became like moral mashed potatoes." That's another quote from his son. He succumbed to whatever Basia wanted. How his final will ended up cutting out his children and his beloved charity, Harbor Branch, is up for debate. Nina Zagat definitely had a lot to do with it. She and Basia claimed he was disillusioned with his children, who already had healthy trusts, and that Harbor Branch was also well provided for without an additional $72 million because that's what he was going to leave Harbor Branch and then he just cut him out.

[25:58] Jessica: That's from a previous will.

[26:00] Meg: Exactly.

[26:00] Jessica: So from a previous will, prior to Nina and Basia getting their mitts on it, Harbor Branch was getting 72 million.

[26:11] Meg: Yes.

[26:11] Jessica: She was getting a piece, and all of the other children were getting pieces.

[26:15] Meg: Yes.

[26:15] Jessica: Okay.

[26:16] Meg: But because remember General Johnson?

[26:19] Jessica: I certainly do.

[26:20] Meg: Okay. He had already set up all these trusts for everybody, probably just for tax reasons or whatever, but it's not like these kids were going to be living in the street or anything.

[26:30] Jessica: I didn't get that.

[26:32] Meg: Okay.

[26:32] Jessica: I'm just saying that there's still a disposition of this estate, particularly after all of the sexual abuse. It might be nice to have some reparations.

[26:40] Meg: Yes, absolutely. And also because she just wanted to be recognized by her dad. And for him to just completely erase her from the will, it was heartbreaking. But it's not like she needed the money anyway.

[26:52] Jessica: Emotionally. She did.

[26:54] Meg: Exactly. After he died in 1983 of prostate cancer, the Johnson clan went to war with Basia, claiming she'd bullied him into changing his will. It was the largest inheritance contest in the history of New York and was ultimately settled out of court, Basia kept more than $300 million. The children split up $40 million, and Harbor Branch was awarded $20 million. And the lawyers for both sides made a killing. Nina made $6 million, plus $1 million a year until Basia's death in 2013.

[27:34] Jessica: Okay, so that million a year until Basia's death, that's considered payment for legal services. Yeah, well, that is the shadiest shit I've ever heard.

[27:44] Meg: She still walks amongst us.

[27:46] Jessica: Is Basia still walking amongst us?

[27:48] Meg: No, she died.

[27:49] Jessica: Okay, so at least Nina is not still cleaning up.

[27:52] Meg: She cleaned up for a long time.

[27:55] Jessica: I'm just. I'm finding cold comfort in whatever I can.

[28:00] Meg: It's just too much fucking money. According to David Margolick, in his book Undue Influence The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune, quote, "the Basia that emerged from the case was alternately compassionate and cruel, cunning and naive, loyal and fickle, generous and selfish, explosive and meek, articulate and tongue tied, helpmate and tormentor, cheerful country girl and urbane shrew. Someone who spent her husband's final weeks either wiping his rectum or circling in auction house catalogs the antiques she would soon buy with his money." I don't think David likes women so much.

[28:40] Jessica: Why would you say that David doesn't like women. He's talking about this one woman.

[28:44] Meg: I just find a lot of that terminology not pro woman.

[28:49] Jessica: I don't hear it that way at all. I hear it as

[28:53] Meg: Shrew? Really? Okay.

[28:54] Jessica: What always interests me is that when a character like Basia emerges, in you know the news or pop culture or whatever, there's sort of, like, an amazement. Like what a monster. But she seemed normal, but she was a monster. And I don't know. What do you think of this? My feeling is your average sweetheart doesn't become the wife of cuckoo Johnson after three years. There's some personality trait. There's something in there that's cutthroat. She's in it to win it.

[29:31] Meg: Sure, all I'm saying is what I hear from David's description is this whole virgin whore dichotomy that I don't associate with people who see women as actually, like, three dimensional people.

[29:45] Jessica: I hear you, and I wasn't listening that way, but I got you.

[29:50] Meg: Basia funded many charities, mostly in Poland, where she died in 2013, which I thought was sort of interesting. She was really into Poland. She loved Poland. It's just one more.

[30:02] Jessica: No, I mean, I'm just thinking about being driven from Poland by the Nazis, you know, her father being beaten up by the Bolsheviks, and then wanting to save her country. Yeah, it creates an interesting story behind the drive to get the money.

[30:22] Meg: I agree.

[30:23] Jessica: And she hired them to fix the gates.

[30:26] Meg: Mary Lea Johnson Richards and Marty founded the Producers Circle and went on to win 22 Tony awards for their Broadway shows, which included On the Twentieth Century, Sweeney Todd, La Cage aux Folles, Crimes of the Heart, and Grand Hotel. I saw all of those.

[30:43] Jessica: That is so uplifting and wonderful.

[30:47] Meg: Their marriage was a happy one. Eventually they lived in separate apartments in the same building.

[30:53] Jessica: I think that's what makes for a happy marriage, whether you're gay or not.

[30:57] Meg: And Mary told Marty, quote, "be discreet, don't embarrass me.: A mutual friend said of him, quote, "he couldn't change who he was, but he would have killed for that woman." And Mary Lea died of liver cancer in 1990. She was 63.

[31:14] Jessica: You know what I was going to say? What a tragic life, but what a not tragic second part of her life. Like, she kept going.

[31:21] Meg: She kept friggin going. I mean, can you imagine? How much are you supposed to take? I wanted to tell the story of these two women who were both connected to this horrible, horrible man who had very different stories, but ultimately were survival stories. Yeah. And who fought each other in court, which is kind of a bummer, but they both came out fine because there was too much fucking money.

[31:45] Jessica: Well, that's the thing. That much money. As you were telling the story, I genuinely got chills a few times because of how horrific certain moments were or how triumphant they were. But what a cautionary tale about, as you keep saying, about too much money, about no checks and balances or whatever on morality or the behavior of these, I don't want to say it, but these men, the men are kind of bad. It's really bad.

[32:22] Meg: I mean, I do think there's something in going through those decades and who parented whom and how really, there was not any good parenting going on in that Johnson clan. I mean, even Mary Lea apparently was not a very good parent. How could she be expected to be? She didn't have any role models.

[32:43] Jessica: Is there any information about Seward's father, about the original Johnson?

[32:50] Meg: I don't think that he was much of. I mean, that's Victorian, right? Yeah. Are Victorian dads known as being good dads?

[32:59] Jessica: What year was Seward, the offender, born, do we know?

[33:03] Meg: 1895.

[33:04] Jessica: Wait, Seward the offender was born in 1895? Oh, yes. Parented by a Victorian.

[33:10] Meg: Well, and his dad actually did have a great work ethic. It's interesting that that somehow wasn't passed on to his son. And they do associate that with his severe dyslexia. Like no one knew how to deal with that apparently he could barely read and that's heartbreaking.

[33:29] Jessica: The great grandson did a documentary called Born Rich.

[33:34] Meg: I know I haven't seen it and now I will.

[33:37] Jessica: I highly recommend it.

[33:39] Meg: You have seen it?

[33:40] Jessica: Yes.

[33:40] Meg: Okay.

[33:41] Jessica: 1000% worth watching. Now that this, is very illuminating. Born Rich.

[33:48] Meg: Born Rich. Don't do it. I remembered one more thing.

[33:57] Jessica: Oh my God.

[33:58] Meg: Okay, so when Seward the father, we were talking about Seward I. When he was young, he to call.

[34:07] Jessica: Just to be clear, this is Seward the abuser.

[34:10] Meg: Seward the abuser. When he was young, he was the favorite child of his mother. But then at some point, you are not going to believe this, but this has actually happened. Her friend, who was a woman who lived on Park Avenue, kidnapped him when he was like eleven and kept him in her apartment and everyone knew where he was, but no one went to save him. And he was her sex slave. And the mother, kind of with the mother's, well, definitely with the mother's approval, because she didn't go and get her friggin son.

[34:49] Jessica: Okay, so he was born in 1895.

[34:52] Meg: Yeah and he had dyslexia too.

[34:56] Jessica: This was 1906. He has been kidnapped by some of the Gilded Age folk.

[35:04] Meg: Yes.

[35:04] Jessica: And secreted in, openly secreted in an apartment in town with this few blocks away, using him. And how did people wind up finding out that she had been using him as a sex toy?

[35:19] Meg: I think it was with the mother's approval. Like I said, I think the mother knew what was going on and the mother was like, okay, but it was a little weird because he was supposedly her favorite child.

[35:29] Jessica: And was he kidnapped as in, you're not allowed to see your family like you are in a room. And that is what we're doing. That is a detail that certainly unpacks a lot of his behavior.

[35:51] Meg: It's awful.

[35:52] Jessica: I'm not saying anything is justified.

[35:54] Meg: No, but it also with what happened with Mary Lea.

[35:55] Jessica: It gives a huge amount of information. The thing about the rich, they're not normal people as we understand normal people. And the one thing that really leaps out at me about the rich is how insular they are and that their worlds, even now, it's, don't talk about what you have, don't let other people know, don't let anyone have access to you, because then they're going to try to have access to the money. And that kind of gag order basically creates a lot of room for insanity to take place. It's the ultimate creation of behind closed doors, both figuratively and literally. And I think you started this with the engagement question. Do you know anyone who inherited? Blah, blah, blah. Even some people who we knew or knew of growing up fell into this category of don't talk about it. It becomes so natural that it's like the people around them don't notice it anymore. It's just that's how the ultra rich are. Okay. And so much happens with those people and the girls particlulary. I mean, there is a story that I know of that to this day haunts me, and it is in keeping with all of this secrecy. Secrecy builds. I was talking to a friend recently, and this is also why I said, oh, my God, sociopath. Love bombing. People who take advantage of other people are very adept at creating secrecy, and that's what they trade on. And if you can convince someone not to talk, the world is your oyster. That is what it's about. So anyway, this is all really pathetic and sad. And now knowing that at 11 you know, the other thing I was reading. What was I reading? I was reading, oh, I'm reading a really good book right now by Lucy Foley called The Paris Apartment. And my beach reads are always like, mysteries and murders and that kind of stuff. You like the real life murders? I like fictional murders. There's a character in there who is from an ultra rich family, and he talks about his sexual initiation that at an inappropriately young age, he was taken by his father to a whorehouse to be and I was like, my God, this sounds familiar. And I was like, I've heard this story. I've heard this before, and I feel like I want to now look like, is this a fictional trope or it must come from reality that there is this. All right, it's now time for you to be a man. So here's your inappropriately young sexual experience. I know we are so feminine focused, female focused on this podcast. And quite rightly, I'm having a moment of boys are also in a pretty bad situation.

[39:18] Meg: Absolutely no question.

[39:21] Jessica: Well, that was, as usual, sobering and terrifying, but with a quasi happy ending for Mary, I guess.

[39:34] Meg: I mean, it's a shame she died so young, but she did enjoy her last few years with Marty, who seems like a pretty upstanding guy.

[39:43] Jessica: I mean, this only proves our long standing point. Hang out with your gay friends. Just stick with your gay boys, and that's it.

[39:53] Meg: Speaking of which, Nick is going to have a lot to say. I kept thinking about him while I was writing this story because he must know so much about the Johnsons just because of all the stuff. They had so much beautiful stuff.

[40:08] Jessica: We need to get him on the podcast. We've talked about this before. We need to get Nick on the podcast.

[40:14] Meg: Evening at The Odeon or something.

[40:16] Jessica: Funny you should mention that I was looking at The New York Times cooking section because I have it on my iPad or not a cooking. Know, the whatever. Their app. Their cooking app. And there is a salad recipe that Sam Sifton, who went to Collegiate School with John and Toby. Sam Sifton, who is the editor of The Times cooking section, put in that was like the addictive salad at The Odeon. So I think that we're going to have to have Odeon salads the next time we do this broadcast. We'll spray vinaigrette everywhere. But Odeon. Odeon. Yes. Get Nick.

[41:09] Meg: Okay, so give us a teaser for next week, Jessica, because I took up way too much time.

[41:14] Jessica: No, you didn't take up too much time. I think that the story merited this level of investigation, and we also took up time explaining our very steep technical learning curve.

[41:26] Meg: Oh, thank God that's over. That was stressful.

[41:28] Jessica: No kidding. Although too bad we don't know how to use any of the other buttons on this thing.

[41:33] Meg: Don't touch any of that.

[41:34] Jessica: I'm not touching anything. We need to put tape with little arrows. Tape it down, like, don't touch, don't move. So what I will talk about next week, I'll give a little teaser. So many times I've talked about things that I adored as a child and as the younger sister, I got dragged into all kinds of things by my older brother. And he and I are still very enchanted with some of these topics. And one of the things that John was really into and kind of still is, but in a different way, in a much more literary way, is the occult. And John, so growing up, my brother was really an experimental fellow and very musically gifted. So there was a period of time when he was like, I'm now going to be a yogi. And was like literally playing the sitar in his room and trying to learn how to levitate. No, it's awesome. I just got a visual that is just like, yes, playing the sitar and convinced that he could levitate. And I was like, I'm in. Like, I'm all in. This works. He also used to go to, oh, I will remember the name of it for the podcast. But there was an occult bookstore downtown that he would frequent.

[42:59] Meg: Thank God he didn't. I mean, he.

[43:01] Jessica: Wait, no, it gets great. Okay, so he was also very, very interested in eastern mysticism and eastern religion.

[43:10] Meg: How'd George Harrison of him.

[43:13] Jessica: Well, so he started getting all of this literature sent to the apartment and my parents eventually had to intercept it because he was getting literature from cults. Of course he was. And they were like, yeah, we're going to lock this down now. Back in your room with the sitar Swami. Forget it. So the occult was something that loomed large and his attention moved over to like, H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley and that sort of thing, which of course, I dutifully followed him, so. But my enchantment with all things occult, because I process things very differently than John does, I wonder, well, who else was into, like, historically? Because we know, like, anyone who saw the first Taiders of the Lost Ark. It's like, were the Nazis really trying to figure out ways to do crazy shit with the occult to get money and power? I don't know. Maybe. Who was into Aleister Crowley, who was Madame Blavatsky? So I start to look up all of this stuff. So my very, very wackadoodle presentation for next week involves. I'm going to give some hints. The 1980s film in which Nicholas Cage gave the most peculiar performance of his life Peggy Sue Got Married. It involves a very special evening for my grandfather. This is linked and Fiorello LaGuardia's strange background that may not be known by many now, it was at the time, and some of his very special interests and inclinations, none of them sexual. Just putting that out there. But he was a savvy dude who was also into some potentially dark arts. Cool. So that is the preamble.

[45:16] Meg: Awesome. Great. I can't wait. Should we name our new soundboard?

[45:31] Jessica: Well, considering that we don't have a tie in today, but we need to have some kind of closure. I do think that naming the soundboard, do you think naming it will tame it as well? Name and tame.

[45:43] Meg: We need it to like us.

[45:45]Jessica: Okay, so what would be like, Betty? Like, Betty seems like a very inoffensive, actually, you know, I just ordered because I'm really feeling like I need some support as a woman in a male world of fundraising right now. I got a Funko. I know how much you love Funkos.

[46:09] Meg: Yes.

[46:09] Jessica: I got a Funko of Peggy Olson when she's got the cigarette hanging out of her mouth walking into McCann Erickson as a boss.

[46:15] Meg: I love it. So it's Peggy.

[46:19] Jessica: It's Peggy.

[46:20] Meg: I think it's Peggy.

[46:21] Meg: Hey, Peggy.

[46:22] Jessica: Peggy. Peggy rules. Peggy. Welcome, boss.

[46:24] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s.