Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: He's Aaron.
Speaker 3: Hey Elizabeth, Hi, nice to see you. How are you
Speaker 3: pretty well?
Speaker 4: I'm being pretty good, feeling it's nice. It's my favorite
Speaker 4: time of year, Autumn.
Speaker 2: Okay, good for you.
Speaker 3: What about you? How you doing?
Speaker 2: It's spring? I love it nice. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Oh me?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah I Doay, go ahead?
Speaker 3: Oh man?
Speaker 4: Do you know that there was once a knee injury
Speaker 4: that was worth about eleven point five billion dollars.
Speaker 2: I've done that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a knee injury that was worth eleven
Speaker 4: eleven point five billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Tell me more.
Speaker 4: Okay, you see, a long time ago there was a
Speaker 4: high school wrestler. This kid was pretty good, but while
Speaker 4: he was in high school, he injured his knee. He
Speaker 4: didn't know what to do. But since he'd hurt his
Speaker 4: knee and he was feeling restless and he could no
Speaker 4: longer wrestle, he joined his high school's acting troop. He
Speaker 4: started performing, did school plays, eventually went off to Hollywood.
Speaker 4: By then he changed his name from Thomas Mappither the
Speaker 4: Fourth to what you know him as now, Tom Cruise
Speaker 4: Godle career box office as a movie star is roughly
Speaker 4: eleven point five billion dollars worldwide. That was a world
Speaker 4: changing knee injury, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: It really was so exasperated. Look, I don't know what
Speaker 3: to tell you.
Speaker 4: I recently became a Tom Cruise fan, and I used
Speaker 4: to hate the guy, couldn't watch any movies with him.
Speaker 4: And now I'm just like, I love that guy. He's
Speaker 4: so strange and intense. How could I not like him?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So there you go. That was my best impression of
Speaker 3: a Paul Harvey story, page two.
Speaker 2: I can't stand Tom.
Speaker 3: I know you can't. So I told you it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I just that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: One knee injury started all of Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know it's more ridiculous is that you're now a
Speaker 2: Tom Cruise.
Speaker 3: I know I can't believe it either. I think I'm
Speaker 3: doing a bit just on myself.
Speaker 2: Think so I think, well, you know, I'll run a
Speaker 2: bit into the ground. So I wait for you to
Speaker 2: run this one out. Do you know what else is ridiculous? No,
Speaker 2: thank you your love of Tom.
Speaker 3: Cruise, my new found love of Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2: Financial crime, that's art crime. This is ridiculous crime. A
Speaker 2: podcast about absurd and outrageous. Caper's heiss and cons. It's
Speaker 2: always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You damn right there it is. I talk a lot
Speaker 2: about art crime. You talk a lot a lot like
Speaker 2: a lot though crimes, and they've always been forgers. Really
Speaker 2: you do like the fake Yeah? I love them, can't
Speaker 2: get enough.
Speaker 3: Why do you like the fake hers?
Speaker 2: I just love it? I don't know. So today, though,
Speaker 2: I have an art crime from the other side of
Speaker 2: the aisle, so to.
Speaker 3: Speak, somebody who destroys art.
Speaker 2: No, this is on the auction house side.
Speaker 3: Oh that other side.
Speaker 2: Serious auction house, auction and adventure.
Speaker 3: Is that the name of the Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: introduce her, he made that face.
Speaker 2: I'm going to introduce a couple of characters in this,
Speaker 2: some heroes, some villains, some both. They contain multitudes, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, as do we all right, So let's begin
Speaker 2: with Adolph Alfred Tobman a Tobman. Yeah, he goes by
Speaker 2: Alfred Tobman.
Speaker 3: I bet he does.
Speaker 2: His is an incredible story.
Speaker 3: Dolphie is a tough nickname.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he was born in nineteen twenty four in Pontiac, Michigan.
Speaker 2: You know, I always like to set the stage, give
Speaker 2: you an idea. Who this guy is. He invented the
Speaker 2: Pontiac car.
Speaker 3: No, he didn't. He didn't he invented.
Speaker 2: He's just from Pontiac. His parents were Jewish immigrants who
Speaker 2: came over from Poland. His dad was in real estate development,
Speaker 2: and his dad built the first synagogue in Pontiac.
Speaker 3: Good for him.
Speaker 2: Todman had a stutter, and he had difficulty reading and
Speaker 2: writing because of some dyslexia, and he was left handed
Speaker 2: but forced to use his right hand, which was so
Speaker 2: common in those days. Yes, but he had a broader vision,
Speaker 2: bigger than any hurdle put in his way was. He
Speaker 2: once said, quote, when I look at something, I have
Speaker 2: a sense not of what is, but of what could be.
Speaker 3: Oh he's like Bobby Kennedy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's basically Bobby Kennedy. So he started small. He
Speaker 2: took part time jobs selling shoes and working construction to
Speaker 2: put himself through the University of Michigan, and then he
Speaker 2: left college. He left University of Michigan while he was
Speaker 2: still a freshman to serve in World War Two. Oh goodness,
Speaker 2: So you know, signed right up. When he got back
Speaker 2: from the war, he studied art architecture at Lawrence Technical
Speaker 2: University near Detroit, and he took night classes. He worked
Speaker 2: as a junior draftsman during the day at an architectural firm.
Speaker 2: But then he bounced out of college again and then
Speaker 2: he just headed right.
Speaker 3: Into the working world, I feel you.
Speaker 2: So he saw that the post war boom of the
Speaker 2: middle class was coming. Oh like, he got it. War's
Speaker 2: good business, and he had that larger vision.
Speaker 3: That's not Bobby Kennedy thing.
Speaker 2: Right, He's Bobby Kennedy. So he opened a real estate
Speaker 2: development company in nineteen fifty and he borrowed five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to build and rent out a bridle shop in Detroit.
Speaker 2: That was the beginning of his empire.
Speaker 4: Because real estate, it's like, these people are going to
Speaker 4: get married. They're coming back to the war, they're going
Speaker 4: to get married.
Speaker 2: Here's this building. I'm going to put a bridle shop
Speaker 2: in it. I'm going to rent it. Read yeah, well
Speaker 2: so and it is. It's perfect. And so from there
Speaker 2: he's just making all this money on it. So he
Speaker 2: builds a shopping close in Flint, Michigan, and he put
Speaker 2: the stores. This was totally new at the time. So
Speaker 2: he put the stores in the back of the big lot,
Speaker 2: and he put the parking spaces out front. Oh so
Speaker 2: instead of having a park on the street and it's
Speaker 2: taking up this whole thing, he buys this lot, puts
Speaker 2: everything in the back.
Speaker 3: So he basically makes kind of a modern shopping modil. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: we would recognize.
Speaker 2: He sees that's exactly what he did. And he saw
Speaker 2: this like boom and car ownership and usage, and you know,
Speaker 2: people they're in their sweet rides with Finn they want
Speaker 2: a shop baby. Oh yeah, so he's like helps him out.
Speaker 2: Each venture that he had made more and more money,
Speaker 2: and his business expanded to just bigger projects all over
Speaker 2: the country. This is how he explained it. Quote. Suburban
Speaker 2: growth after the war allowed us to build large developments
Speaker 2: based on new road patterns and new freeways that came in.
Speaker 2: We were able to duplicate a great degree what occurs
Speaker 2: in a downtown, all under one ownership and one control. Yeah, malls.
Speaker 2: So he's credited by everyone with a popularization of malls.
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah, oh damn.
Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty three, he owned a bunch of strip
Speaker 2: shopping centers like little strip malls. His developments the mall
Speaker 2: at Short Hills still that one is still one of
Speaker 2: the most profitable shopping centers in the country, still going damn.
Speaker 2: He designed the mall to have really wide entryways.
Speaker 3: And welcoming and well he was a cathedral of commerce.
Speaker 2: Well, he wanted to avoid what he called threshold resistance.
Speaker 2: Think of that term threshold resistance. He made the malls welcoming.
Speaker 2: He put waterfalls and like plants and stuff, skylight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and his thinking was, quote, we want people to get
Speaker 2: in easily and get out easily. Getting out is just
Speaker 2: as important as getting in. That man drives a woman
Speaker 2: for shopping on Saturday and he has trouble getting out,
Speaker 2: so he can't see a football game. He'll say, don't
Speaker 2: ever bring me back here again, hay Lions. So he
Speaker 2: pulled in big names in retail high end Nieman, Marcus
Speaker 2: saxofth Avenue, north Strom, Marshall Fields, East, San Laurent, Louis Buitan,
Speaker 2: Ralph Lauren. So the malls were posh. He was putting
Speaker 2: up the pash stuff. There's not that way, is I
Speaker 2: don't think so now? And so these are places to
Speaker 2: see and be seen to meet friends, take your family,
Speaker 2: get a meal, watch a movie, shot up, and so
Speaker 2: he kept putting that larger vision to work. He constantly
Speaker 2: tinkered with layouts. He saw that women were actually the
Speaker 2: ones buying or men'swear than men, and so he started
Speaker 2: catering to the female customers. He put makeup counters on
Speaker 2: the first floor, yes, because he saw that that was
Speaker 2: the place where the most time is spent. Everyone had
Speaker 2: to go in and out, and cosmetics have the highest
Speaker 2: markup of all the retail items.
Speaker 3: And they smell nice and feel good when you walk in.
Speaker 3: I remember as a kid, you always have to walk
Speaker 3: in generally through the making.
Speaker 2: And like, let's face it, ladies be shopping rights anyway.
Speaker 2: So at one time Tobman owned and managed nineteen regional
Speaker 2: shopping centers in the United States. He was a self
Speaker 2: made billionaire and was on Forbes four hundred list of
Speaker 2: richest Americans for two decades.
Speaker 3: And this guy's going to be a crimer at some point.
Speaker 2: That's like, wow, a successful crimer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why did he turn He's got it all, He's.
Speaker 2: Got it all. Well, you know, we always went a
Speaker 2: little bit more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: There were critics of his of course, because you know
Speaker 2: the fact that Mal's chipped away at jobs and businesses,
Speaker 2: wrote it down on towns. Yeah, it's troubling, he'll say.
Speaker 2: And he sort of set the stage for Walmart to
Speaker 2: come in and like wreck shop of.
Speaker 3: All the small home big box revolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this mollification was felt, especially in places like
Speaker 2: Detroit who were struggling to save their downtowns when the
Speaker 2: suburbs were luring everyone away. And then there's the whole
Speaker 2: paving of paradise for the creation of parking lots. So
Speaker 2: so long farmland, green space, Hello smog and traffic and
Speaker 2: over crowding. Todman, though not hearing it, he said that
Speaker 2: malls were the modern day equivalent of ancient marketplaces exotic bazaars.
Speaker 3: Well he's not wrong.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's exactly what they're modeled on. It's the
Speaker 4: Turkish bazaar for a modern car exactly.
Speaker 2: So by the late nineteen fifties, he hooked up with
Speaker 2: Max Fisher, a Detroit financier. I know, and by hook
Speaker 2: up not in an intimate sense, but as a business part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's actually a big business person. He was taken.
Speaker 2: So Fisher hired Tobman's firm to build something to go
Speaker 2: hand in hand with all them parking lots. He was
Speaker 2: laying down speedway gas stations. Right. So here's Tom and
Speaker 2: building the America we know today, serious over consuming, spending, burning, selling, expanding,
Speaker 2: well stated America. That America, my America. This is America.
Speaker 2: So while he may have been building for the every
Speaker 2: man and woman, Tomman was living life with the swells.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's a billionaire, right, and he loved art.
Speaker 2: Oh here we go, right, is a tingle. He collected
Speaker 2: old Masters, French impressionists, modern artists like Jackson Pollock, and
Speaker 2: every piece in his collection was a forgery. I'm just
Speaker 2: kidding now.
Speaker 4: He just couldn't see very well and had no idea
Speaker 4: hot for forgeries.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm guessing some probably were, like you.
Speaker 3: Know all they wanted to have a forgery collection.
Speaker 2: That's not that's my goal.
Speaker 3: That would be you.
Speaker 2: He's a cultured fella, yes, right, So he was a
Speaker 2: board member on like a number of cultural organizations. He
Speaker 2: liked the finer things in life, and luckily he could
Speaker 2: afford them. It was these megadeals, like the one that
Speaker 2: he pulled off in nineteen seventy seven that made him
Speaker 2: a real Richie Rich because see in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 2: he went to a friend with an idea, let's put
Speaker 2: together a group to outbid a giant corporation on a
Speaker 2: piece of land. Who's the friend, Donald Brenn Probably haven't
Speaker 2: heard of him, don't know that name. Fellow real estate developer.
Speaker 2: He was based out of Mission Viejo in southern California. Today,
Speaker 2: Bran ranks one twelve where the players dwell on the
Speaker 2: Forbes Billionaires list due to his net worth of sixteen
Speaker 2: point two billion dollars. Dang right, So what's the giant
Speaker 2: corporation they're going to go up against? Mobile Oil?
Speaker 3: Ooh?
Speaker 2: And what's the piece of land? The Irvine Ranch.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So that may not mean much to you, So let
Speaker 2: me enlighten you and anyone within earshot. The Irvine Ranch
Speaker 2: is this enormous parcel that stretches nine miles along the
Speaker 2: Pacific coast and then twenty two miles inland, and it
Speaker 2: contains more than twenty percent of Orange County within this area.
Speaker 2: And Orange County is huge, by the way, on the
Speaker 2: seven hundred and ninety eight square miles. So inside Irving
Speaker 2: Ranch are the city of Irvine. The University of California
Speaker 2: at Irvine, parts of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Anaheim
Speaker 2: Unincorporated County land and little bits of Santa Ana and
Speaker 2: coast to Mason.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So the Irvine Ranch was first cobbled together by James
Speaker 2: Irvine in eighteen sixty four, and he got the land
Speaker 2: from Mexican and Spanish land grant from California. Is right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So he dies in eighteen eighty six and his son,
Speaker 2: James Junior, inherits it. He's only nineteen years old. He
Speaker 2: James Junior and his friend Rode bicycles from San Francisco
Speaker 2: down to Orange County to inspect his inheritance. Like Penny Farthings,
Speaker 2: I guess no.
Speaker 4: That's how outrageous. I mean, there's no infrastructure to help you.
Speaker 4: I mean you're just obviously sleeping on the side of
Speaker 4: the road.
Speaker 2: El Camino Royale is what they're doing, is like they're
Speaker 2: just taking from mission to mission to get down now.
Speaker 3: So even gave me pause, and I have all kinds
Speaker 3: of bad ideas.
Speaker 2: So Junior takes the land from ranching to farming and
Speaker 2: builds an agricultural empire. He had tenant farmers They grew
Speaker 2: lima beans, black eyed peas, sugar beets, walnuts, avocados, strawberries, lemons, oranges,
Speaker 2: lots of citrus, lots of citrus. During the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 2: Orange County was the fastest growing county in the nation.
Speaker 2: It was What's up Disneyland.
Speaker 3: It was the model of what you thought of California
Speaker 3: if you're outside of California.
Speaker 2: So the Irvine Company had to decide what to do
Speaker 2: with the land sell or like, you know, develop it
Speaker 2: piece by piece in the name of urbanization, like keep
Speaker 2: it one parcel. So they went with the development of
Speaker 2: a master plan and in nineteen sixty an architect was
Speaker 2: hired to create a vision for this entire new community.
Speaker 2: There'd be houses and jobs and retail and schools and
Speaker 2: parks and open spaces. There would still be agriculture because
Speaker 2: Irvine Ranch is still one of the nation's largest providers
Speaker 2: of avocados.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's some huge avocado regions. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty one, the Irvine Company sold nine hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety acres to the University of California system for
Speaker 2: one dollar. And this was for the purpose of creating
Speaker 2: a new campus, which became the University of California Irvine.
Speaker 2: The school was named in honor of the Irvine family,
Speaker 2: not the city of Irvine, because that city didn't even
Speaker 2: exist yet. Ah So the city of Irvine was officially
Speaker 2: incorporated in nineteen seventy one. That grew up around this campus.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that late.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that mean either. Nineteen seventy seven, Mobile Oil wanted
Speaker 2: that land, which is scary. It's some of the most
Speaker 2: valuable real estate you can imagine. So Taubman he got
Speaker 2: with his buddy bren and they put together a group
Speaker 2: to outbid Mobile. So they paid three hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: seven point four million dollars for the Irvine Ranch. That's
Speaker 2: the equivalent of one point seven billion today. And I
Speaker 2: feel that's undervalued given what's on that land. So then
Speaker 2: six years later Taubman sold his interest to Brenn and
Speaker 2: made him self a tidy one hundred million dollars on
Speaker 2: the deal. And that's the equivalent of three hundred million
Speaker 2: on you know today, So in the period of six
Speaker 2: years he makes three hundred million bucks. He called the
Speaker 2: purchase of the Irvine Ranch the best deal since the
Speaker 2: Louisiana purchase. So Bren. He took over the Irvine Company
Speaker 2: and has catapulted himself into super wealth with it. The
Speaker 2: Irvine Company owns more than one hundred and twenty million
Speaker 2: square feet of real estate. That's hotels, Marina's golf courses,
Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty office buildings, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five compartment complex, is forty shopping centers, and he actually
Speaker 2: bren currently owns about ninety seven percent of the met
Speaker 2: Life building in Manhattan. So these guys like they all
Speaker 2: gathered together and they're all these sort of like self
Speaker 2: made developers. Let's take a break. When we come back,
Speaker 2: I'll let you know what else Alfred Tobman bought with
Speaker 2: his incredible wealth. And here's a hint. I love drinking.
Speaker 2: The stuff aren't here and crime. Trust me, we'll get
Speaker 2: to it. Zarin, Hey, Hi, what are you doing here?
Speaker 3: We were doing story time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing story time. So Alfred Todman, rich guy,
Speaker 2: self made true American success story. He did that huge
Speaker 2: deal with the Irvine Ranch, and his worth skyrocketed and
Speaker 2: he just kept doing deals.
Speaker 3: His timing was incredible, right, it is getting it in California.
Speaker 2: At that moment, he sees like the retail boom in
Speaker 2: the fifties. He sees the car boom retail and like the.
Speaker 3: Whole suburban family idea of like post war America. And
Speaker 3: then he goes, you know what Orange County is like
Speaker 3: the applethesis of that.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, it's incredible. So in nineteen eighty two he
Speaker 2: bought load Eye, Zone A and w restaurants.
Speaker 3: Yes, get back.
Speaker 2: He didn't get the drinks, just the restaurant. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: hot diggity.
Speaker 3: I love diet Roopier, dude, I love everything.
Speaker 4: I love amw Like. We used to go, like you
Speaker 4: know people go to like a dairy queen. We would
Speaker 4: go tow.
Speaker 3: That was the way I want. I want to Rootier Float.
Speaker 3: I wanted to rock be Yes absolutely love and I
Speaker 3: don't even go to lowd Eye. I would go to
Speaker 3: these o. I wasn't that far from it from my
Speaker 3: home town.
Speaker 2: I love it so uh die Roopier, that's my new vice.
Speaker 2: I used to drink a lot of dit coke, but
Speaker 2: I stopped that years long years ago.
Speaker 3: On you.
Speaker 2: I've been like on a solid water in crystal light
Speaker 2: beverage regime for a while.
Speaker 4: That's good because you know the sugars and dit coke
Speaker 4: if you heat them up, then turned into a bisco
Speaker 4: wood glue.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I was drinking it.
Speaker 3: Before your body heats things up.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but now I like the diet rooper. I
Speaker 2: like that for you A and W the iconic stuff.
Speaker 2: That's my little treat. If I'm good and obedient and respectful,
Speaker 2: I allow myself to die. Ruper keeps me on the
Speaker 2: straight and marror. So anyway, I don't do that, so Tom,
Speaker 2: I don't have him very often. Tom and he bought
Speaker 2: the ANW restaurant and they started in load. I stuck
Speaker 2: in Lodie again, shout out to another California Central intown. See,
Speaker 2: I can work California or the Central Valley into every show.
Speaker 2: So anyway, the restaurants they weren't doing so hot, and
Speaker 2: he did a bit of restructuring and then he sold
Speaker 2: it in nineteen ninety four to Sagittarius Acquisitions. Made another
Speaker 2: Tidy Prophet right now though it's part of that Taco
Speaker 2: Bell Pizza Hut KFC long John Silver's Young Brands group, the.
Speaker 3: One that Pepsi conglomerated then sold.
Speaker 2: To Yum completely. So you know, he got in on
Speaker 2: the ground floor, repackaged, made more money. He bought a
Speaker 2: ton of stuff in the eighties. He bought department store
Speaker 2: chains like Woodward and Lothrop.
Speaker 3: I've never heard of that.
Speaker 2: Who knows. Between nineteen eighty three and nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: he was the majority owner of the USFL mis Chigan Panthers.
Speaker 3: Oh, get back USFL baby.
Speaker 2: Before he merged the team with the Oakland Invaders for
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty five season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very short lived.
Speaker 2: The team, as you know, with the rest of the USFL,
Speaker 2: folded after the eighty five season. But I suppose it
Speaker 2: was fun.
Speaker 3: We'll last it was. That was nuts. A lot of
Speaker 3: great NFL players were actually in the USFL.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know nothing about that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, herschel Walker was in there. I think Doug
Speaker 3: Flutie was in there.
Speaker 4: I mean like a bunch of Yeah, a bunch of
Speaker 4: players who had been big Heisman candidates in the early
Speaker 4: eighties went to the USFL because they were paying more
Speaker 4: and the NFL was in like a period where they
Speaker 4: were not.
Speaker 3: That's what we had. The strikes eighty four strike.
Speaker 2: Anywhere interesting, I'm curious. Well, thank you for the aluintment
Speaker 2: eighty three nineteen eighty three Alfred. He made a super
Speaker 2: large purchase. It was one that gets us talking about
Speaker 2: art and crime today.
Speaker 3: So we're here, Yes, we've come, We've arrived.
Speaker 2: Tamman. He bought Southeby's auction house. WHOA just bought the
Speaker 2: whole thing?
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: It was founded. Southeby's founded in seventeen forty four in
Speaker 2: London by a bookseller named Samuel Baker. You know I
Speaker 2: love booksellers, Yes, and I love biblio Dix.
Speaker 3: Yes, you even love Sotheby's.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I don't really.
Speaker 3: I feel like I was on a run.
Speaker 2: It was good. Let's pretend so you know what was
Speaker 2: sold at auction In the early days of the library,
Speaker 2: Napoleon took with him into exile.
Speaker 3: Oh damn his elbow Library.
Speaker 2: In seventeen sixty seven, the business became known as Baker
Speaker 2: and Lee after George Lee became a partner, and then
Speaker 2: it was renamed Lee and Southeby in seventeen seventy eight
Speaker 2: after Baker died and then Lee's nephew John Sotheby inherited
Speaker 2: his uncle share it went through a shuffle of names. Lee,
Speaker 2: Southeby and Wilkinson, Southeby, Wilkinson and Hodge, Sotheby and Company
Speaker 2: Messrs Southeby. That's when they're trying to get fancy, Sotheby
Speaker 2: and Wilkinson, Southerby, Macavon Way and Southeby's in company always Southby.
Speaker 2: I wonder why they Soytheby.
Speaker 3: I guess so. I like Boonham and Bottom.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: That's a good under the houses.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just think in general this sounds good under
Speaker 2: this Southeby family. The business branched out from books to prints, metals, coins.
Speaker 2: They didn't get into fine art until the sale of
Speaker 2: a Franz Hall's painting in nineteen thirteen. Oh wow, crazy,
Speaker 2: I thought it would have been much earlier.
Speaker 3: They show up like just around Cubism.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Today though they're synonymous with fine art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's their thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They in nineteen seventy seven is when they became
Speaker 2: a UK public company, and then in nineteen eighty, you know,
Speaker 2: the economy wasn't so hot. No sales, sales are tanking.
Speaker 2: They moved their North American headquarters from Madison Avenue it
Speaker 2: was like a high flying one, to a former cigar
Speaker 2: factory on York Avenue and then they closed the Madison
Speaker 2: Avenue galleries, they sold their Los Angeles galleries, moved all
Speaker 2: West Coast auctions to New York. So they're just consolidating.
Speaker 2: They're really struggling. And they were down to just twenty
Speaker 2: million dollars in assets for this huge thing. So it's
Speaker 2: poor babies, only twenty minutes. Oh, so they needed to sell.
Speaker 2: People came calling. There was a pair of businessmen who
Speaker 2: offered to buy Southeby's for one hundred million dollars, but
Speaker 2: management thought they were vulgar. So then enter Alfred Todman.
Speaker 2: He smelled blood in the water, so he made his move.
Speaker 2: So remember his pal Max Fisher, Yes, the Detroit financier.
Speaker 2: So they teamed up, and they also teamed up with
Speaker 2: a third guy, a guy called Hank the Deuce. They
Speaker 2: straight up bought and privatized Southeby's.
Speaker 3: Now there was Hank the Deuce like a junior, and
Speaker 3: it was like Hank the two who.
Speaker 2: In the wide world of sports is Hank the Deuce?
Speaker 3: Who is Hank the Deuce?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Henry Ford the Second, Oh, the son of Edsel,
Speaker 2: grandson of Henry the o. G Oh wow, so together
Speaker 2: shout out for big shout out. So the three captains
Speaker 2: of industry, they sweet talked the Southeby's folks into a deal.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And they loved how the men really appreciated and understood art.
Speaker 2: And they also loved how the men and offered them
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five million dollars for the joint
Speaker 2: beating out the vulgar guys offers. Love that, love that
Speaker 2: so much so. In nineteen eighty eight, Todman took Southeby's
Speaker 2: public listed the company's shares on the New York Stock Exchange,
Speaker 2: making Setheby's the oldest publicly traded company on the New
Speaker 2: York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BID the ID okay,
Speaker 2: So he he broadened out the clientele of the auction house.
Speaker 2: They went from dealing with just art dealers to luring
Speaker 2: in the wealthy. Before Sotheby's was all understated and stayed
Speaker 2: and the new one was flashy. They had marketing campaigns.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he directed this like mass mailing of catalogs.
Speaker 2: They held popular sales.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they started doing the drops. When they'd had their auctions.
Speaker 3: They put out like that whole show, right.
Speaker 2: Glossy glossy catalogs. In nineteen ninety six, they caused this
Speaker 2: huge stir because they hosted the estate sale of Jacqueline
Speaker 2: Kennedy O NASAs. That was like a big to do.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just the outward facing aspects of the
Speaker 2: business that changed. He started offering financing to customers. Really yeah.
Speaker 2: They sold insurance, They offered art education programs. They gave
Speaker 2: concessions to consignment sellers. They threw big parties for clients.
Speaker 2: They gave sellers guarantees for minimums regardless of sale prices.
Speaker 3: Really yeah.
Speaker 2: They even had a storage service like high end public
Speaker 2: storage posh pods like I bet their storage had adequate
Speaker 2: lighting and didn't feel like a training exercise for serial killers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because have you ever been in a self
Speaker 2: storage facility that didn't feel like gut bustingly creepy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The thing is it's weird, though, is I always think
Speaker 4: about people go into those feeling that way, and then
Speaker 4: I'm there and then they project that onto me, So
Speaker 4: there I am having the exact same thought they're having it.
Speaker 4: But then I get to be the villain, So I
Speaker 4: don't feel as bad anymore because now I know they're
Speaker 4: scared of me, so it's.
Speaker 3: Really not that bad for me. But I feel the
Speaker 3: way you do, and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2: Man, so flickering like a weird hum coming from some.
Speaker 3: Weird bug circling the light.
Speaker 2: You've never like black marks along the wall, dawdy wheels
Speaker 2: have hit it. But it just looks like this was
Speaker 2: someone dragged.
Speaker 3: Drag Yeah, like bodies were dragged.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we're on the same page.
Speaker 3: Are you fail me?
Speaker 2: Anyway? Southeby's they started offering like basically an entire lifestyle,
Speaker 2: how to be rich and cultured. Gone was the downsizing.
Speaker 2: He opened branches in Russia, Monte Carlo, Hong Kong, and
Speaker 2: they went beyond old masters. He introduced lines in like
Speaker 2: Victorian painting, Scandinavian art, rock and roll, memorabilly.
Speaker 3: A lot of antiques and re member billion say. That
Speaker 3: was a big growth, and then.
Speaker 2: These like looks New York City headquarters he set up.
Speaker 2: And so by nineteen eighty nine, sales for Southeby's totaled
Speaker 2: two point nine billion dollars. Dang rival auction house Christie's,
Speaker 2: had sales not too far behind a two point one billion.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, So for both of the companies, profit
Speaker 2: margins were slim and expenses were enormous though. So they're
Speaker 2: pulling in all this money, but don't forget, they're.
Speaker 4: Just like spending a lot for all these shows and
Speaker 4: all this stuff that they're doing, and they're basically grocery stores
Speaker 4: I imagine where they have a very slim.
Speaker 3: Off at margin.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. So let's let's go to nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Let's let's do it.
Speaker 3: I remember nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Three, me too, Tomman. He was busy that year. He
Speaker 2: heard that eighty one year old civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, my friend had stole her fork.
Speaker 2: He'd been she'd been robbed and beaten at her house
Speaker 2: in Detroit. Was that your friend?
Speaker 3: No? I did I did not. I didn't know you
Speaker 3: were going with that.
Speaker 2: Here, I'm setting up my friend Sarah.
Speaker 4: He was a waiter at the House of Blues and
Speaker 4: then she came in and he loved her. He was
Speaker 4: a Black studies major. He thought she was like a
Speaker 4: the icon's icon, right, he thought, like everything she did
Speaker 4: with the INAACP office, it was amazing, huge fan at
Speaker 4: they're a good marshall. So he steals her fork, and
Speaker 4: he comes back and he's like, I got Rosa Parks Park.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all of your love for her, this is
Speaker 4: what you think. I'm going to steal her personal property.
Speaker 4: He's like, no, it was a house of bluespork.
Speaker 3: She just used it. I stole from my work.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that's fair anyway. So she said.
Speaker 3: Weird, I said fair, Okay, it was not him anyway.
Speaker 2: So she's at her home in Detroit and your friend
Speaker 2: busts in and Rob's beezer top and Alfred Toman hears
Speaker 2: about this. So this good guy son of Pontiac, Michigan,
Speaker 2: he's outraged as he moved Rosa Parks into the river
Speaker 2: Front towers. And you know who else lived there? Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, love this.
Speaker 2: Nancy Kerrigan, okay whatever. Nineteen ninety four was the year
Speaker 2: she got into the old Blama girl harding. She got
Speaker 2: need right, and this so this began. This began a
Speaker 2: friendship between the two not talking about and Nancy Kerrigan.
Speaker 2: So Tom and and Parks they become friends. In two thousand,
Speaker 2: he arranged for Parks to fly in a private plane
Speaker 2: to Montgomery, Alabama for the opening of the Troy University
Speaker 2: Rosa Parks Museum.
Speaker 3: I love this guy, he's good people.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to nineteen ninety four. What else happened
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four?
Speaker 3: The w Tank clam was on tour.
Speaker 2: No, he appointed Diana Brooks Deedie Brooks, President and CEO
Speaker 2: of Sotheby's and this would be a hinge point for
Speaker 2: the company. Oh yeah, So it's during this time time
Speaker 2: that a series of closed door meetings take place. I
Speaker 2: love those Toadman meets with Sir Anthony Tenant, chairman of Christie's.
Speaker 2: Oh so, that joint was founded in seventeen sixty six,
Speaker 2: twenty years after Southey Bees. So they're like the young upstarts.
Speaker 2: So what happens at these secret meetings Toabmen and Tenant?
Speaker 2: They ordered the company's CEOs, Diana Brooks and Christopher Daviage,
Speaker 2: to end competition between the two houses. They agreed that
Speaker 2: they're no longer going to give discounts to clients. They're gonna,
Speaker 2: you know, fix commissions, ladies and germs. We call that
Speaker 2: price fixing.
Speaker 3: I was just a going to say, I think I
Speaker 3: know what that's called. That's price fixing.
Speaker 2: Price fixing.
Speaker 4: So if those people owned just farms that sold seeds,
Speaker 4: that's price price fixing.
Speaker 2: So Brooks and Davage they come up with this plan
Speaker 2: that they're gonna they're gonna charge sellers the same amount
Speaker 2: and non negotiable fees. So this is erasing competition altogether,
Speaker 2: and it's a good way to attract consignments. The most
Speaker 2: important part of the plan, though, was to keep a
Speaker 2: lid on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to keep that quiet.
Speaker 2: They didn't want anyone to know what they were cooking.
Speaker 3: If you're running a monopoly, you don't let people know.
Speaker 2: You don't advertise it. So soon Southeby's raised the buyer
Speaker 2: commission from ten percent to fifteen percent on the first
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars of the final purchase price. Okay, six
Speaker 2: weeks later, Christie's does the same. What a coincidence, So.
Speaker 4: They've raised the commission prices, so everybody who's working to
Speaker 4: get their beek wet.
Speaker 2: Essentially exactly exactly. So in nineteen ninety five, Christie's went
Speaker 2: first on the collusion train, and they instituted a sliding
Speaker 2: scale for fees. Not too long after that, Southeby's does
Speaker 2: the same same scale, people start to notice. Some of
Speaker 2: the people that noticed worked for the US Department of Justice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So nineteen ninety seven, an investigation began. Prosecutors
Speaker 2: would eventually determine that sellers were cheated for as much
Speaker 2: as four hundred million dollars in commissions. Wow. The Justice
Speaker 2: departments pro went public with a big announcement. Christie's had
Speaker 2: agreed to co oper in exchange for conditional immunity from
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution. Christie's did pikes. So Christie's CEO, Christopher Davidge,
Speaker 2: he confirmed that they had participated in anti competitive practices
Speaker 2: and price fixing. He's like, yeah, we did it.
Speaker 3: So wait, are they just trying to snitch first?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yes, so some of these they start to panic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course they should. They're holding the bag. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Diana Brooks CEO, and Tubman both resigned as he resigns
Speaker 2: his chair, she resigns the CEO. Talbman, though stuck around
Speaker 2: as the company's controlling shareholder. Okay, so of course he
Speaker 2: said he had no idea what was going on. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: but you know, he said, I know who did. Though.
Speaker 2: CEO Diana Brooks lays it all.
Speaker 3: At her feet he's driving the bush totally.
Speaker 2: So friends, friends of Tubman, they thought that he'd been
Speaker 2: pulled into something way above his head. He's a good
Speaker 2: dude and he knows real estate development. But the art
Speaker 2: world it's wild, full of sharks, no goodnicks. I do
Speaker 2: believe that Taubman could hold his own in pretty much
Speaker 2: any scenario.
Speaker 3: Though, nds like a man amongst men.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess he's the one who knows. So
Speaker 2: after a four year investigation, there was a confession. Diana
Speaker 2: Brooks confirmed that there had been a price fixing scheme
Speaker 2: with her counterpart at Christie's, all of it engineered by Tubman,
Speaker 2: the chairman and the chairman of Christie's, Sir Anthony tennant
Speaker 2: So Christie's CEO, Christopher Davidge. He also confessed and sold
Speaker 2: his boss up the river.
Speaker 3: Oh nice.
Speaker 2: So prosecutors offered to reduce Brooks's punishment if she pled
Speaker 2: guilty and implicated Taubman. She agrees. So as promised, we
Speaker 2: have art and we have crime. Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we'll see how Alfred Taubman fared
Speaker 2: in the legal system.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering how he dodges.
Speaker 2: This zaren Hey. Hey over here. When we left off,
Speaker 2: Southeby's chairman al Taubman and CEO Diana Brooks had colluded
Speaker 2: with former chairman of Christie's, Sir Anthony Tennant, to fix
Speaker 2: commission rates charged to buyers and sellers. This was, according
Speaker 2: to the FEDS, a violation of the Sherman Anti Trust
Speaker 2: Act of eighteen ninety. Yeah, you know, and that was
Speaker 2: put in exactly, they want a safeguard against secret agreements
Speaker 2: to set prices that you know, just wouldn't cut it
Speaker 2: in a competitive market. And the thought was that this
Speaker 2: would prevent monopolies, as you said, and then save customers
Speaker 2: from inflated costs.
Speaker 4: It's basically trust busting, is the old Roosevelt exactly.
Speaker 2: So Brooks she cooperates with the government, but it didn't
Speaker 2: keep her out of jail. So she gets convicted and
Speaker 2: fined three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She's ordered to
Speaker 2: serve one thousand hours of community service, and she gets
Speaker 2: sentenced to three years probation. So I mean, she gets
Speaker 2: out of jail, but she doesn't get out of punishment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So she spent the first six months in home detention
Speaker 2: and her term ended in you know, end of two
Speaker 2: thousand and two. Talbman admitted to meeting with Tenant, you know,
Speaker 2: the Christie's guys, like sure, but he said there was
Speaker 2: no agreement, no collusion. He said that Brooks lied in
Speaker 2: order to get a reduced sentence.
Speaker 4: And there's no recordings or receipts, and the only other
Speaker 4: person who's backing her is David.
Speaker 2: There's there's there are schedules and diaries that show all
Speaker 2: the meetings, but there's no recording.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, it just says this person was in the
Speaker 3: room or exactly.
Speaker 2: And the Feds really come on twelve times like why
Speaker 2: are they meeting? And so that's one of the like
Speaker 2: the arguments that they had. Talbvin had friends in high
Speaker 2: places and that's what happens when you're rich.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, the right.
Speaker 2: So a character witness called to testify to his good
Speaker 2: character was a US Court of Appeals judge who was
Speaker 2: a close friend.
Speaker 3: Do I know this name?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: And so the trial it went on for sixteen days.
Speaker 2: In the end, he was convicted on the charges of
Speaker 2: anti trust violations. His attorney said, quote, we're of course
Speaker 2: very disappointed in the verdict and we'll review all of
Speaker 2: our options and decide what we will do next.
Speaker 3: That is the most lawyer answer ever.
Speaker 2: Completely So. Christopher Tennyson, who was a longtime personal spokesman
Speaker 2: for Tbmans, said quote, we're all stunned. This is an ordeal.
Speaker 2: It's been two years for him, and unfortunately it continues.
Speaker 2: So he gets fined seven point five million dollars shazam.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. He was also sentenced to a year and
Speaker 2: a day in prison.
Speaker 3: But I say, oh wow, to me, that would be
Speaker 3: a lot. To him, that's not that much money, right.
Speaker 2: It's like pocket change. Yeah. He's seventy seven years old
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 3: That's what I was wondering. How old is he?
Speaker 2: Diabetic?
Speaker 3: He's worried about legacy, imagine completely.
Speaker 2: So the legal drama wasn't just coming from the Feds.
Speaker 2: He also had suits filed by shareholders. Oh yeah, company
Speaker 2: stock tumbled of course when word gets out about the
Speaker 2: price fixing. He's settled those suits to the tune of
Speaker 2: thirty million dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh that's lesson, I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then remember Christie's is wrapped up in this too,
Speaker 2: so Talbman's counterpart tenant. He's also indicted but he's a
Speaker 2: British citizen and the UK does an extradite for civil
Speaker 2: matters and as such he never stood trial. Wow, so
Speaker 2: Christie's and Sotheby's there fined five hundred and twelve million
Speaker 2: dollars to settle civil claims outside of the shareholders. Talbman
Speaker 2: paid one hundred and fifty six million dollars of Southeby's
Speaker 2: share out of his own pocket.
Speaker 3: See I knew it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Southeby's has find another forty five million on top
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: They're just throwing numbers. Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just like, no more money, more money, you
Speaker 2: pay more. William Ruprict, president of Southeby's at the time,
Speaker 2: issued a statement quote, while we feel for mister Taubman
Speaker 2: and his family, it is time for the company to
Speaker 2: move on. Oh yeah, cold blooded, Oh so Taubman. He
Speaker 2: did ten months of his ticket at the Federal Medical
Speaker 2: Center in Rochester, Minnesota, and he was released in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three. Throughout it all, he claimed his innocence quote,
Speaker 2: I lost a chunk of my life, my good name,
Speaker 2: and around twenty seven pounds.
Speaker 3: When he got out, such a greatest generation.
Speaker 2: He had to report to a halfway house to complete
Speaker 2: a sentence. Zaren closure eyes, I was wondering. I know,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's June of two
Speaker 2: thousand and three. Twenty one Questions by fifty Cent featuring
Speaker 2: Nate Dog is at the top of the charts. Two Fast,
Speaker 2: Too Furious is out in theaters.
Speaker 3: Love It.
Speaker 2: Amelia Vega of the Dominican Republic just won the Miss
Speaker 2: Universe contest in Panama City, Panama. Sammy Sosa of Baseball's
Speaker 2: Chicago Cubs is ejected from a game after he's found
Speaker 2: to have used a cork bat whatever. Martha Stewart's indicted
Speaker 2: Metallica's Saint Anger album is released. Syndicated comic Strip Garfield
Speaker 2: celebrates his twenty fifth anniversary. The largest hailstone ever recorded
Speaker 2: falls in Aurora, Nebraska. Ou Zaren, you are living your
Speaker 2: best life. That's what's happening. So you're a caterer working
Speaker 2: at an event at a large estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Okay,
Speaker 2: and you also happen to be a psychic who can
Speaker 2: see the future. Yeah, like this, So you heard that
Speaker 2: the owner of the house, al Taubman, just got out
Speaker 2: of jail. One of the valet parking guys told you
Speaker 2: that the dude had been checking out all of his
Speaker 2: houses up and down the East Coast since getting out
Speaker 2: from Southampton, New York, to his place in Manhattan, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan,
Speaker 2: and then finally here in Palm Beach. So he got
Speaker 2: in two nights ago, was what you heard. Guests are
Speaker 2: coming in decked out in designer suits and dresses, facelifts
Speaker 2: for days. So you walk around the party with a
Speaker 2: tray of bouschetta. Gentle music tinkles in the background, and
Speaker 2: the guest chatter and chuckle. You hear talk of tennis games,
Speaker 2: golf caddies, traffic jams on private jet runways. Since you
Speaker 2: read pretty much every magazine you can get your hands on,
Speaker 2: you recognize a lot of these folks. You swap out
Speaker 2: trays and pick up one laden with little toast top
Speaker 2: with obscene amounts of caviar. You offer one to a gentleman.
Speaker 2: He turns and thanks you. You recognize him as Barry Diller, billionaire,
Speaker 2: founder of Fox Broadcasting Company, USA Network and member of
Speaker 2: the Television Hall of Fame. Yeah, his wife, fashion designer
Speaker 2: Diane von Furstenberg, declines your offer. Of caviare you. You
Speaker 2: close your eyes and you see that Diller will, almost
Speaker 2: two decades later, be accused of insider trading. Birds of
Speaker 2: a feather You figure right here and see it. You
Speaker 2: circle around the room and pass none other than Disney
Speaker 2: CEO Michael Eisner Abe Big Mike. He is telling someone
Speaker 2: about his son berex aspirations to be a full length
Speaker 2: film director. He's apparently trying to get a project called
Speaker 2: Sahara off the ground. Said his son is in talks
Speaker 2: with Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, and William H. Macy. Since
Speaker 2: you can see the future, you know that Sahara will
Speaker 2: be thought to be one of the biggest financial failures
Speaker 2: in Hollywood history.
Speaker 3: Got a fun movie on a plane?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you keep that to yourself and you move on.
Speaker 2: The cavier tray has emptied see. You head back to
Speaker 2: the kitchen and pick up a plate of figs draped
Speaker 2: with purstudo and drizzled with honey. You make your way
Speaker 2: out to the broad outdoor seating area and head for
Speaker 2: the first person you see, an elderly man perched on
Speaker 2: an overstuffed chair. As you approach, you see that it's
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger. Whoa, You veer away and head in the
Speaker 2: opposite direction. No epicurean delights for war criminals, You say
Speaker 2: to yourself. You feel a tap on your shoulder. A
Speaker 2: man asks if you have any ketchup to put on
Speaker 2: the orders. You turn to face him, and there he
Speaker 2: is Donald Trump. You close your eyes to see the
Speaker 2: future and drop your tray with a clatter. No way,
Speaker 2: you gasp. You're quickly ushered away and out of Alfred
Speaker 2: Toubin's Welcome Back to Highish Society party of his time inside.
Speaker 2: Tbman said, I'm out and I'm not bitter. I believe
Speaker 2: in the system. It's still the greatest system in the world.
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing to say, but I still don't
Speaker 2: know what I did. Supposedly I wouldn't break the law
Speaker 2: for anything in the world. I never have, and people
Speaker 2: that know me believe me. Okay, So apparently he used
Speaker 2: to be a real bruiser, total fighter, like very aggressive,
Speaker 2: and after he got out he was like kinder, softer, gentler,
Speaker 2: and he didn't just survive prison. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: his company Tubman Centers survived a hostile takeover bid by
Speaker 2: a property group the largest mall owner in the nation.
Speaker 2: Simon Property Group and Westfield America that Westfield was one
Speaker 2: they wanted to take him over. Nope, didn't have it.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and five he sold his controlling interest in
Speaker 2: Southeby's for stock and one hundred and sixty eight million
Speaker 2: dollars in cash not hurting, and with that, after twenty
Speaker 2: two years, he was no longer principal owner of Southeby's. Before,
Speaker 2: throughout and after the scandal, he stayed generous. He funded
Speaker 2: research facilities for universities, healthcare facilities, libraries. He pledged one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars to the University of Michigan's a Alfred
Speaker 2: Taubman Medical Research Institute. He served as president of the
Speaker 2: Detroit Arts Commission. He paid for public policy programs at
Speaker 2: Harvard Brown University of Michigan. He was a supporter of
Speaker 2: stem cell research. He helped the Detroit Institut to the
Speaker 2: Arts reconfigure traffic flow in the museum by sharing his
Speaker 2: knowledge of how shoppers made their way through malls. So
Speaker 2: like no clocks, no windows, I guess. In his late
Speaker 2: eighties he got super into supporting adult literacy, and he
Speaker 2: gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a program called
Speaker 2: Reading Works. Free Press editor and publisher and chairman of
Speaker 2: Reading Works Paul Anger said, quote, Aside from his support,
Speaker 2: which was substantial, I never stopped marveling at his energy
Speaker 2: and his concern that others might live a better life.
Speaker 2: He never stopped looking for ways to make the community better,
Speaker 2: to make lives better, to give back and zaren Like
Speaker 2: any good criminal, he wrote a book. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, he released his autobiography, Threshold Resistance, The Extraordinary
Speaker 2: Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer.
Speaker 3: It's a good title, it's.
Speaker 2: Great, and here's part of the synopsis. Despite the twists
Speaker 2: and turns, Taubman's life and business philosophy can be summed
Speaker 2: up in one evocative phrase, threshold Resistance. Understanding and defeating
Speaker 2: that force. Breaking down the barriers between art and commerce,
Speaker 2: between shoppers and merchandise, between high culture and popular taste
Speaker 2: has been his life's work.
Speaker 4: Totally make it easier for them to say yes and
Speaker 4: harder for them to say exactly so.
Speaker 2: He died at the age of ninety one of a
Speaker 2: heart attack at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, Governor Rick Snyder said at the time, quote,
Speaker 2: his greatest legacy will be how he used his fortune
Speaker 2: to help people in Michigan and beyond. He will be
Speaker 2: long remembered not just for his retail genius, but for
Speaker 2: the lives he touched through his kindness.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: This is a man who did ten months in the clink, well, you.
Speaker 4: Know, but for what he did for Rosa Parks, He's
Speaker 4: always going to have an honor role in my.
Speaker 2: Head, exactly. So he's fascinating to me. This is my
Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway. Thanks for asking me. He's fascinating to me
Speaker 2: because he's such a good person and he's so driven
Speaker 2: and forward thinking. And I feel like he didn't There's
Speaker 2: no way I can see him getting duped on anything.
Speaker 2: So I think he knew damn well that he was
Speaker 2: doing but didn't see that it was so bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think he judged how greedy it would appear.
Speaker 2: Well, And it made me wonder about other deals that
Speaker 2: maybe no one ever found out about this.
Speaker 3: I think that's true.
Speaker 2: But anyway, he's good people. Yes, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 4: Well, so my ridiculous takeaway. Once again, thanks for Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: I did that is when I was a waiter working
Speaker 4: and a psychic, and I looked into the eyes of
Speaker 4: Hendry Kissinger for a moment. The thing that struck me
Speaker 4: was I could see that he was never going to die.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's the undead, He's the undying. The man
Speaker 4: is just darkness inside and out.
Speaker 3: So scared the heck of man. I've never forgotten it. Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry to put you in that position.
Speaker 3: I can't believe he brought me back there. I was good,
Speaker 3: that was fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. That's all I have for today.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com
Speaker 2: not dot org. We're also at ridiculous Crime on both
Speaker 2: Twitter and Instagram. I will never stop calling it Twitter.
Speaker 2: I'm not there. What do I email ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com, leave a talkback on the iHeart app
Speaker 2: reach outo. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 2: Zarah Brunette, produced and edited by chief malrat Dave Cousten.
Speaker 2: Research is by disgraced Edwardian art authenticator Marissa Brown and
Speaker 2: freelance semipro renegade auctioneer Andrea's Song Sharpened Tear. The theme
Speaker 2: song is by catering staff smoking pre rolls behind the
Speaker 2: poolhouse Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided
Speaker 2: by Bye five hundred. Executive producers are Ben Southby and
Speaker 2: Noel Christy.
Speaker 3: Dus Qui Say It one More Times.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
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