A Dangerous Woman

by Susan Ronald

  Still, Frank and Florence had stronger competition in Nice than just Henri Ruhl. François Darracq, the industrialist owner of the Hôtel Negresco with is monumental domed lobby, worried—as most hoteliers always do—that his city was becoming overbuilt. The Casino de la Variétés objected to the Goulds’ vision for their “Venetian palace” as well as their acquisition of the Municipal Casino, claiming unfair competition. The claim most likely had more to do with the city’s outlawing the vogue for marathon dances among the young clientele at the Variétés than with any real threat from the ultra-luxury offerings at the newest casino and hotel.7 But the Goulds’ palace served a different clientele. It was Florence’s task to bring in the biggest names in comedy and light opera to enhance the Palais de la Mediterannée casino’s program for the public. Silently, the new owners of SBM’s Casino and Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo watched and waited.

  The Goulds’ art deco palace of 187 bedrooms with baths and twelve suites was built in just under a year, by some 350 construction workers using steel-reinforced concrete for its basic structure. The sculpted façade of seahorses and classical goddesses was illuminated at night to give this huge hotel and casino—measuring some 9,000 square meters, or almost 97,000 square feet—its pride of place along the Promenade des Anglais. The lights illuminated the Palais’s raw pulsating power, ten times larger than the Monte Carlo casino. Rumor had it that the Goulds backed the venture with some $5 million of their own cash.8 Darracq of the Negresco, Henri Ruhl, and even René Léon of SBM in Monaco were not amused.

  * * *

  Privately, Frank and Florence were patting themselves on the back for their impeccable timing. Their architects assured them that their Nice hotel and casino were due to open on time for New Year’s Day 1928. They also had one eye to a takeover of SBM in Monte Carlo after their Nice venture, thanks to some fortuitous mishaps that had befallen SBM in the previous eighteen months.

  Léon Radziwill, who was the grandson of François Blanc, was SBM’s president, but he often deferred to René Léon for all decision making. While speeding through a small French town in his roadster, Léon lost control of his car and knocked down a girl. Panicked, he fled the scene. Somehow the girl, known only as Mademoiselle Magnin, lived, and identified the sports car. From there, it was only a skip and a jump to Léon’s door. Given his significance, and that the girl was a poor peasant, Léon was sentenced to a mere fifteen days in jail and fined five hundred francs. There is no record of his ever having served his sentence.

  Of course, there was an outcry from the Monégasque press, screaming that if Léon had an ounce of dignity he should “pack his bag and leave the principality in shame.” More allegations of corruption were hurled by the editor of Le Monégasque against SBM, claiming that French prime minister Louis Barthou had pulled some local strings. Fair enough: Barthou’s brother was a top SBM director and a director of the Monte Carlo ballet. A little sideswipe at Léon as a Jew was also added to spice up the article, in explanation of his revolting behavior.9

  That summer, there was a serious outbreak of typhoid in the poorest districts of Monte Carlo. Since SBM was also responsible for providing clean water in exchange for its exclusive gambling rights, the people and the press were outraged. SBM’s indomitable publicist, the American Elsa Maxwell, knew that polluted drinking water was bad for business, and it needed correcting pronto. So she concocted a publicity stunt to overshadow the deaths SBM had caused. A lavish Christmas Eve party was held to herald the arrival of the new water purification and automated pumping system devised by Philippe Bunau-Varilla during his work on the Panama Canal.* Frank and Florence were invited guests at the party, wishing the Monégasques well through gritted teeth.

  Still, the bad news kept on coming for SBM. On March 2, 1927, Radziwill was found slumped over in his chair. The coroner declared that he had suffered an embolism, but an autopsy revealed that Radziwill had died of an opiate overdose. The press had a rollicking good time, speculating that Radziwill had been poisoned by his mistress, a con artist called Marthe Dalbane, whom they nicknamed “The Death Flower.” Demimondaines who haunted Radziwill’s bedchamber were brought in for questioning, but eventually they were all released without charge.

  Four days later, a twenty-year-old man from the Netherlands shot himself in the heart while gambling at the casino. Fortune smiled on him, and SBM. He survived his wounds. Soon after, Léon hit another car and fled the scene—yet again. Finally, in what seemed like a gangland-style murder, the body of a woman was discovered on a back road leading to the casino. She was missing four of her fingers.10 Lady Luck, Florence believed, rubbing her hands together metaphorically, was not smiling on the object of their desires.

  * * *

  Fortune, as most people know, is fickle—and often success boils down to making one’s own success. How Frank and Florence could think that their rivals would take their meteoric expansion beyond the discreet Antibes–Juan-les-Pins peninsula lying down shows their arrogance. Suddenly, their luck, too, changed. Liquor licenses, gambling permits, agreements that had been previously negotiated with the mayor’s office based on local taxes plus a share of the profits were once again up for grabs.

  Then, with only three weeks left until the Palais de la Méditerranée was to open, the mayor’s office pulled a fast one. The hotel was fully staffed and in training for duty. The entertainment was booked. Seasonal menus were printed and stocks ordered, and the companies operating the casino and hotel were each capitalized for over four million francs. The mayor pounced, unilaterally decreeing that unless the Palais de la Méditerranée agreed to pay fifty percent more than its competition to the City of Nice by way of its “contribution”—a tax in all but name—its gambling license would be withheld. Further, the hotel would not be allowed to officially open. To say that Frank and Florence were apoplectic with rage was an understatement. They had invested over $5 million of Frank’s money in the project. More irksome still was that their new competition, due to open at the same time, the Hôtel and Casino Castellamare, represented by a lawyer with strong ties to Ruhl, Léon, and Darracq, was told it could pay 1.5 million francs less than the mayor’s office was demanding from the Goulds.11

  When cornered by the local press, Nice’s mayor, Alexandre Mari, revealed that, in his opinion, it was “amoral” for a hotel to offer gambling under the same roof where “families slept,” but that he had been persuaded by Joseph Aletti’s and Edouard Baudoin’s management case that the hotel was a necessity to draw guests to their establishment. The management’s argument was made even stronger by their one-thousand-seat theater that was intended to book international entertainment. So, in a vain effort not to appear hypocritical, Mari made a public statement that it was in the city’s interests that only one future hotel and casino be built, for the sake of “public morals.” Unfortunately, unknown to the Goulds, the Hôtel and Casino Castellamare would be that hotel—unless, of course, they could persuade the mayor of the error of his ways with extra folding money.12

  On the Goulds’ orders, Baudoin posted a large poster throughout the city with huge red letters calling out “TO THE POPULATION OF NICE.” It went on to say that “I decided to open the Casino de la Méditerranée on the 1st January 1928 with an opening which would have attracted the cream of the international set. Nonetheless, we are faced with a City which, instead of encouraging this hazardous and costly financial investment made at great sacrifice, proposes to charge me more than any other existing casino, and I therefore regret to inform the people of Nice that we will not be proceeding with the opening.”

  In smaller print, the poster asked the citizens of Nice to take heed of such actions and that Baudoin, who signed the poster, had expected as warm a welcome as he had received at Antibes–Juan-les-Pins a few years earlier.13 Accusations and counteraccusations were hurled by each side publicly. The local unions, which of course had myriad employees expecting to work at the Goulds’ hotel and casino, finally brought their own style of pressur
e to bear. Suddenly, from an intractable position on both sides, face was saved. Gould, using his front man Baudoin, agreed to pay the extra “taxes” for one year only. After that time, the other casinos would be brought into line with the Palais de la Méditerranée.

  This first feud lasted for months, suggesting the usual venality in the greasing of palms and that an entente with the competition was reluctantly declared. It should be noted that there was some defense for the mayor’s inscrutable reasoning. The overspend in the 1928 annual municipal budget showed an investment in the local hospital and the acquisition of the Imperial Park, amounting to an eye-watering 7.3 million francs—and it was only January, the first month of that fiscal year. As part of the truce, it is equally possible that the Goulds agreed to lighten the city’s load by making charitable contributions toward the park and hospital, as a gesture of goodwill. Whatever the mode of peacemaking, the hotel and casino opened nearly four months late, at the end of April 1928.

  Profits were budgeted at around 25 million francs, justifying, too, the ten percent of profits the city was demanding. That said, the real bottom line was more than likely closer to double that amount. As casinos are a cash business, no one could know for sure if Baudoin and the Gould owners were declaring their full income on their corporate tax returns. Government oversight was still lax in those days, particularly since there was no gambling tax yet in France.

  * * *

  Despite the bitterness of the battle with the mayor and his council, the first year of operations in Nice was said to be wildly profitable. The hotel was full. Florence and Frank funded the local Nice opera. Yet all plans to mount operas in their hotel theater had to be rearranged, due to the delayed opening. Insultingly, Aletti was obliged to submit for “council approval” the list of performances, which included such famous works as The Marriage of Figaro, Falstaff, The Barber of Seville, and Lucia di Lammermoor.14 They spent money on these extravaganzas that few would have contemplated. To boot, the Associated Press wire agency burned with the news that the Goulds were offering $50,000 in prize money for the Foster’s Beauty Show to take place at their Nice casino, assuring the English-reading public that “an American beauty” would be represented, and that there would be international judges in attendance.15

  The hotel and casino that Frank claimed “even Caesar could not have built” was finally opened. Nightly merrymaking was ordered by Florence. Americans “toasted the prohibition” with Florence while she gambled incessantly at the baccarat tables, thrusting her much-vaunted winnings into her deep-pocketed, sequined evening wear, giving rise to bawdy Mae West jokes about happy pistols in pockets. Spotters were employed not only to stop card counting and other forms of cheating, but also to slip enough money for the journey home into the pockets of those who lost their fortunes at the tables. Meanwhile, the private gambling rooms were thick with cigar and cigarette smoke, while the high-stakes rollers in tuxedos pitted their fortunes against the bank and, invariably, lost more than they won. Even the bad news received from New York in December couldn’t dampen their spirits. Frank’s most trusted business manager of all his U.S. business affairs, George H. Taylor, had died at the age of sixty-eight of heart disease.16 Maybe it was an omen.

  The year 1929 dawned as one of promise. With Taylor’s death, Frank sold most of his private stock market investments (as opposed to those still invested through the Gould family trust), until he could officially appoint a new permanent manager for his U.S. affairs. Then, on January 24, by decree no. 36.617, Florence joined her husband as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for her generosity to charitable causes.17

  And there were other, more pressing wars to fight on the French Riviera. All the Goulds’ major competitors, as far west as Hyères and east to San Remo in Italy, were balking at how the Palais de la Méditerranée was stealing their business. SBM grumbled about its poor season. Frank and Florence increased the pressure, and began to militate for roulette tables to be allowed in France. If countenanced, it would break the deal that had existed between Monaco and France since 1860.

  A year after the hotel and casino’s opening, the war of words and ill feeling that the Goulds harbored against their competition still simmered beneath the surface. Then, without an apparent cause, anti-SBM posters appeared on the streets of Monte Carlo, urging the Monégasque population to “STAND UP!” What should they stand up against? “A foreigner who has exploited us for years, the administrator of that gambling hell. Our freedom is not meant to be controlled by these wretched characters, these shady racketeers.” Apparently, the posters were all over Nice, Cannes, and Juan-les-Pins, too. A detective known only as Duchamp of the French intelligence service reported to Léon at SBM that these posters were cheaply printed in an exceptionally large print-run in Nice by a group known to police as “The Four Devils,” headed by one “Monsieur Noah.” The only hitch was that Noah wouldn’t have had the money for the printing. Léon told Duchamp to do nothing about the posters.18 Two could play at the Gould’s game.

  * * *

  Black Friday and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 went virtually unnoticed on the French Riviera, at first. The American literati had to go home, of course, but wealthy Europeans had no idea that an American stock market crash would affect their own incomes. They hadn’t thought for a moment that the newly insolvent U.S. banks, which had lent vast sums of money to France and Germany after the war, could demand early repayment. Nor did they fathom what an early repayment would mean. As far as Frank and Florence were concerned, George Taylor’s death some ten months earlier had literally saved them millions. It also helped them to believe that they were unassailable.

  As if to rub salt into the weeping wounds of the afflicted, Florence went on a spending spree bedecked in furs, frolicking in and out of Paris’s rue de la Paix jewelers, where fortunes in canceled orders went begging at huge discounts. Similarly, Impressionist art hung on the walls for months on end at the big art dealers in rue de La Boëtie in Paris, giving Florence her first big haul of Bonnard paintings on the cheap. Real estate, that immovable commodity the Goulds snapped up wherever possible, became instantly affordable, like the property advertised as “For Sale, Cheap, Nice Old Chateau, 1 Hr. from Paris; Original Boiserie; 6 New Baths; Owner Forced Return New York Wednesday; Must Have IMMEDIATE CASH; Will Sacrifice.”19 If there was one thing Florence and Frank had in common, it was an opportunistic instinct.

  Of course, they had no idea that René Léon was plotting his revenge. That December, the Goulds thought Léon was busy dealing with a simmered of all twenty-one members of Monaco’s National Council, who resigned over SBM’s failure to provide the public services as originally agreed upon with François Blanc. The American press reported on the “Tempest in a Teapot” rather unsympathetically, since the Monégasques were making untaxed demands on a private company. Léon struck in the middle of the furor. A British and French combination pitted their wits with the Greek syndicate headed by the “cleverest little man who ever dealt a hand of baccarat,” Nico Zographos, to beat the Goulds’ bank at the casino. Zographos had hitherto been the high-stakes gambler at SBM’s Casino de Paris in Monte Carlo.

  The raid on the Goulds’ casino began on December 26. Florence and Frank were spending Christmas at their home at Maisons-Lafitte, when they were called urgently to Nice. By the time they reached the city some twenty-four hours later, the consortia had already taken the bank for some 9 million francs. Gould had seen off Zographos before at Juan, and knew that the only thing to do was to appear to be a sportsman, and increase the stakes of Tout Va, or “the sky’s the limit.” Over $2 million wafted across the gambling tables in the direction of the gamblers in the first forty-eight hours. Luckily for the Goulds, the casino’s profits at all the other tables combined, were higher.20 Again, the California newspapers couldn’t miss the opportunity of reporting the hard-to-believe figures being wagered, and naturally also dredged up the old chestnut of “San Francisco born” Florence Lacaze and her short marriage to Henr
y Heynemann, who was, by then, on his third wife.*

  With each passing day, and no definitive result, thousands gathered outside the room where the high-stakes game was being played. The United Press International newswire sizzled with its report that after seven days, the battle “where millions were scattered on the tables of Frank Gould’s palatial casino” still had no outright victor, although the bank was ever so slightly in the red. Government inspectors, medical doctors, and French casino authorities took their positions lining the walls of the salon where the betting was taking place, in an effort to avoid what might end in several deaths from exhaustion—or perhaps suicide or murder if any signs of cheating were detected.21 After two weeks of frenzied play, the casino was even, and the consortia that tried to bring Gould down quit in exhaustion.

  Léon fulminated. The great journalist and historian William Shirer reported for the Chicago Tribune:

  There is a war to the finish along the Riviera, that Gold Coast spot of the Old World which about this time of year airs out its glittering hotel palaces, renaissance gambling rooms and restaurants, and opens them for such business as elderly American women with their young ideas, their husbands and European counterparts can be induced to steer that way. This struggle is mainly a war between Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo, the three picturesque towns which look out over the Mediterranean and implore the gods to send them some gamblers to their half-empty casinos.22

  Shirer makes no mention of Black Friday emptying the casinos of the Riviera, blaming the falling business instead on Americans finding equally brilliant watering holes stateside. Prohibition hadn’t been repealed, but it was already seen as a failed experiment to keep America moral.* The article claimed the casino war’s escalation began with unfair competition by Madison Avenue advertising men imported by Gould to the sunny Mediterranean shores.