It was rumored that there was more than a few
suicide because of him."
"He sounds like a monster."
"On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, he founded an
orphanage in New Guinea and a hospital in Bombay, and he
gave millions to charity-anonymously. No one ever knew
what to expect next."
"How did he become so wealthy?"
"How's your Greek mythology?"
"I'm a little rusty."
"You know the story of Oedipus?"
George nodded. "He killed his father to get his mother."
"Right. Well, that was Robert Stanley. The only
difference is that he killed his father to get his mother's
vote."
George was staring at him. "What?"
Harold leaned forward. "In the early thirties, Robert's
father had a grocery store here in Los Angeles. It did so well
that he opened a second one, and pretty soon he had a
small chain of grocery stores. When Robert finished college,
his father brought him into the business as a partner and
put him on the board of directors. As I said, Robert was
ambitious. He had big dreams. Instead of buying meat from
packing houses, he wanted the chain to raise its own
livestock. He wanted it to buy land and grow its own
vegetables, can its own goods. His father disagrees, and
they fought a lot.
"Then Robert had his biggest brainstorm of all. He told
his father he wanted the company to build a chain of
supermarkets that sold everything from automobiles to
furniture to life insurance, at a discount, and charge
customers a membership fee. Robert's father thought he
was crazy, and he turned down the idea. However, Robert
didn't intend to let anything get in his way. He decided he
had to get rid of the old man. He persuaded his father to
take a long vacation, and while he was away, Robert went to
work charming the board of directors.
"He was a brilliant salesman and he sold them on his
concept. He persuaded his aunt and uncle, who were on the
board, to vote for him. He romanced the other members of
the board. He took them to lunch, went fox hunting with
one, golfing with another. He slept with a board member's
wife who had influence over her husband. But it was his
mother who held the largest block of stock and had the final
vote. Robert persuaded her to give it to him and to vote
against her husband."
"That's unbelievable!"
"When Robert's father returned, he learned that his
family had voted him out of the company."
"My God!"
"There's more. Robert wasn't satisfied with that. When
his father tried to get into his own office, he found that he
was barred from the building. And, remember, Robert was
only in his thirties then. His nickname around the company
was the Iceman. But credit where credit is due, George. He
single-handedly built Stanley Enterprises into one of the
biggest privately held conglomerates in the world. He
expanded the company to include timber, chemicals,
communications, electronics, and a staggering amount of
real estate. And he wound up with all the stock."
"He must have been an incredible man," George said.
"He was. To men-and to women."
"Was he married?"
Frank Harold sat there for a long time, remembering.
When he finally spoke, he said, "Robert Stanley was married
to one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Emy
Trump. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Emy
came from a very social family in Bell Air. She adored
Robert, and she tried to close her eyes to his cheating, but
one day it got to be too much for her. She had a governess
for the children, a woman named Rosa Newman. Young and
attractive. What made her even more attractive to Robert
Stanley was the fact that she refused to go to bed with him. It
drove him crazy. He wasn't used to rejection. Well, when
Robert Stanley turned on the charm, he was irresistible. He
finally got Rosa into bed. He got her pregnant, and she went
to see a doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor's son-in-law was a
columnist, and he got hold of the story and printed it.
There was one hell of a scandal. You know Los Angeles. It
was all over the newspapers. I still have clippings about it
somewhere."
"Did she get an abortion?"
Harold shook his head. "No. Robert wanted her to have
one, but she refused. They had a terrible scene. He told her
that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Of course, he
had told that to dozens of women. But Emy overheard their
conversation, and in the middle of that night she committed
suicide."
"That's awful. What happened to the governess?"
"Rosa Newman disappeared. We know that she had a
daughter she named Jennifer, at St. Joseph's Hospital in
Miami. She sent a note to Stanley, but I don't believe he
even bothered to reply. By then, he was involved with
someone new. He wasn't interested in Rosa anymore. In
general, he didn't give a shit about anybody else."
"Charming ..."
"The real tragedy is what happened later. The children
rightfully blamed their father for their mother's suicide.
They were ten, twelve, and fourteen at the time. Old enough
to feel the pain, but too young to fight their father. They
hated him. And Robert's greatest fear was that one day they
would do to him what he had done to his own father. So
he did everything he could to make sure that never
happened.