November 14, 2019 • 42 mins
Bertha Heyman was a notorious con artist with a robust rap sheet and a penchant for bilking well-to-do, otherwise shrewd men. Listen in to learn how Bertha's life of crime led her, oddly enough, into showbiz.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well well, well,
(00:28):
looks like it's time for another con job. Welcome to
Ridiculous History. I'm Ben. He's in a long conn or
a short con. It's a big con. It's a you know.
As a matter of fact, I didn't bring this up
with you guys yet, but I have a question for you,
super producer, Casey Pegrum. I'm listening. Do you guys think
(00:49):
that we do stories about con artists often enough that
we should get a sound cue for like a con job?
And if so, what would it be? Well, there's the
there's the class sick done done done, which seems like
a dastardly kind of sound effect, you know, like a
snidely whiplash type figure. There's a money sound to, like
a change register or something, you know, a stack these
(01:17):
sound effects. Baby, sure, uh yeah. Cons Today's episodes about
particularly uh dastardly um and effective con artist who went
by the nickname Big Bertha. You know, it comes to
my mind when I think of Big Bertha. I don't
know circuses, well, circuses, but I don't know case if
you remember this, but arcades of my youth, there was
(01:38):
a machine called Big Bertha, or you throw like a
ball into this like puppety large woman's mouth, kind of
a cob and very bizarre. And I never played it
because it just didn't seem like much fun. Yeah, it's
all coming back to me. It was always in the
back of the arcade, actually the ski ball machines, because
it was one of those big, you know, robotic type machines.
(01:59):
You guys have messed up childhood. Well that's accurate, but yeah,
that's what I think of. And I was not aware
of the legacy of Bertha Hayman. Yes, So nowadays the
term big Bertha is used to describe an example of
a piece of equipment. Right. In World War One, there
was this huge cannon that the German forces used, Uh,
(02:23):
this would destroy otherwise invincible forts, and it was called
big Bertha. And now there are some other things named
big Bertha. Right, the world's largest earth moving machine is
called big Bertha, like a back ho uh times a million, yeah,
a mega dozer. And in the eighteen hundreds, big Bertha
(02:45):
specifically described this woman who is known as the Confidence
Queen or Bertha Hayman. She was born Bertha Schlessinger in
Prussia and She came to the US in eighteen seventy eight.
We're getting a lot of the US from a interesting
book by a guy named Thomas Byrne, Professional Criminals of America.
(03:06):
She married twice, once in New York and then again
in Wisconsin, and her name Hayman comes from her second husband,
John Hayman. According to all the reports of the time,
she was not you know, your stereotypical beauty queen or supermodel,
but she was incredibly intensely charismatic. Yeah, it's true, ben Um.
(03:29):
She played on people's uh baser, you know, qualities like
hubris and greed and just general awfulness kinda. So it's
interesting she almost becomes something of like a folk hero
in my mind anyway, where she kind of gives people
their come upance, because if you're exhibiting those behaviors and
maybe you deserve to have your your pocket lightened a
(03:51):
little bit. Yeah, there's this, there's this very American romanticization
of con artists, you know what I mean. We like
the mav Rick. We like the idea of somebody living
by their wits, and then especially we liked the idea
of people getting their come up. It's for following their
baser instincts. Right, being greedy gets somebody built, or you know,
(04:15):
being covetous gets someone swindled. So there's this, there's this
interesting victim blaming thing. We're like, wow, yeah, and I
lost a hundred bucks. But they deserved it, you know,
Uh so shame on them. Bertha Hayman was no exception
because people did romanticize her a little bit. And her
story is very interesting. We're not gonna spoil it yet,
but we want you to know this takes a weird
(04:37):
turn towards the end. So she first got the attention
of NYPD in the eighteen seventies. Newspapers instantly recognized that
she would be She would make for good headlines, right,
she would move some copies, and the newspapers began calling
her Big Bertha, and they had some unkind descriptions of her.
(05:00):
It is not age well, the paper was quoted and
describing her as forty years of age, decidedly ugly and
weighing two hundred and fifty pounds uh and and was
constantly taking cheap pot shots at her her weight, describing
her at times as elephantine, which I think is a
cute word. It makes me think of a small elephant,
you know, an elephantine, like a teeny elephant. But no,
(05:23):
that is not what that means. It means large, like
an elephant. Or um. They would compare her to a battleship,
and I really love this description from Alice Obscia. They
say that she was built like a tank. But what
she lacked in society approved feminine wiles, she more than
made up within charisma, and she had an m o
(05:43):
an emo that she was quite proud of. She would
claim to be a fabulously wealthy woman who was just
for one reason or another, having trouble getting to her
funds in the held up in court, held up in
a bank, et cetera. And all she would need is
a kind male stranger to lend her a little bit
(06:03):
of money, and she would use that to access her
state and then pay them back handsomely. It's kind of
like a Nigerian prince scheme or a predecessor thereof that's right.
There's one account on criminals Revised dot blog that's pretty great. Um.
In one situation, she was on the way from New
York Chicago and she struck up a conversation with the
(06:26):
train conductor and you know, sticking to this that this
ruse her go to Ruse. She convinced him that she
had lots of assets that needed management. This is kind
of a little bit of a variation on on the
basic con um but that she had assets that were
in need of management, and she literally convinced him to
quit his job and take over managing her estate. But first,
(06:48):
before you know, she could give him this amazing opportunity,
she was in need of a little bit of cash
to float her to settle some legal matters. So it's
the bait and switch, right, I mean, it's literally like, hey,
look over here, here's this great thing. And then while
you're looking over here and thinking about all the great
things that can happen to you, you're not thinking about
the fact that it's odd that this supposedly rich person
is asking you for a thousand dollar loane in cash
(07:12):
to settle some matters. I'm doing hard quote fingers right now. Yeah.
And furthermore, for her, this wasn't just a job. We
get the sense that conning people was a craft to her,
a work of art. She told a police chief in
Jersey City in eight three that she preferred to target
(07:32):
men who should know better. The moment I discover a
man's a fool, I let him drop, she said. But
I delight in getting into the confidence and pockets of
men who think they can't be skinned. It ministers to
my intellectual pride. We should also know she got arrested
tons of times, and and that's that that train conductor
story just just to wrap that up, and it gets
(07:54):
us to where we're going. The guy's name was Mr
parrin and he totally did the thing, gave her the money,
and then when they got to New York, she just
camped out in all these like luxury hotels and spent
all the money running up the bills, and then hired
a lawyer to to you know, to take her case
because she knew what was coming. But even the lawyer
(08:15):
like she, she didn't pay him either. So her own
lawyer ended up like teaming up essentially with Mr parrin
Um who was the conductor, and they took legal action
against her to recover the money that she had borrowed
and also for the unpaid uh legal fees. This arrest
um is what led her husband, John Hayman to fly
(08:38):
the coop because he was he'd had enough and what
year was that? That was eight? Yeah, perfect, because we're
building this timeline of a master criminals career because um,
this this occurred while she had been drifting around New York, right,
she was stealing watches, she was forging checks. Uh, and
then she was in and out of the penitentiary in
(09:00):
eighteen eighty one, she was leaving court because she had
been acquitted on a charge of theft when she was
arrested by New York detectives and charged with scamming New
York businessman. And then she went to prison for two years.
So she almost got away, almost got acquitted of one crime,
but was locked away for two years due to an
(09:21):
unrelated con And even when she was in jail, she
was conning people. In the early eighteen eighties, while she
was locked up on black Wells Island, Bertha befriended and
conned the guy out of his life savings about nine
hundred dollars worth. That's that's the equivalent of over twenty
(09:41):
thou dollars today. And then when she got out of jail,
she did not turn over new leaf, She did not
learn anything. She just went back to conning people and
she expands her her sphere of operations, maybe the too
much heat in New York. Our next Bertha escapade takes
(10:05):
place in San Francisco, so she basically was like on
the lamb, she had to flee the scene, she was
persona non gratto, any other numbers of hyperbolic things that
I could call her right now, but it's sure she
did turn up in San Francisco in um. And in
this particular story she actually cons a man of God,
(10:25):
which is, you know, I don't know, maybe he maybe
he did something bad, maybe he deserved this come up,
And I don't know. I think it's possible that that
is less important than it is to her, just to
you know, get paid. So when she gets to San
Francisco in eight she finds this rabbi of the Beth
(10:48):
Israel Congregation and introduces herself as Bertha Stanley and says
that she, you know, he starts with the same kind
of gimmick. I'm a widow of wealth and uh as
looking for a nice Jewish husband. Um. The rabbi's name,
by the way, was Dr aj Messing, and he and
Bertha had been acquainted from from Prussia from back in
(11:11):
the Old Country during her childhood Yeah, so she is
buttering up this guy, and she tells this rabbi that
she's inherited three grand, which is around six million dollars
more in today's cash. Uh. And she got this from
her husband, and her husband was Christian. But she told
the rabbi she wanted her next marriage to be with
(11:34):
someone of the Jewish faith. So she decided she was
going to offer one thousand dollars to anyone who could
help her find an acceptable Jewish husband. And so the
rabbi steps in and he introduces her to a fellow
named Abraham Grun And you know, again back to the charisma,
(11:56):
which she had copious amounts. I was just using with
charisma despite her Uh is what we say homely is
that is that unkind? It's better than elephantine. Oh and
Elephantina wanted to add Elephantine is not just being large,
it's also being awkward and clumsy. Someone a klutz, Yeah,
(12:18):
a big clutz. Well, she clearly wasn't a klutz at
least in terms of the way she orchestrated these uh,
balletic feats of swindle ry swindle real word it is
now um So yeah, this guy grew gruin grunman. What's
his name? Grun grunt just adding syllables to everything today. Uh,
(12:39):
falls madly in love with Bertha. She works her magic
on him and he is eating out of her hand,
in the palm of her hand wrapped around her finger
and such. Yeah. So he proposes marriage shortly after, very quickly,
very quickly, like Vegas style, quickly red flag. And he
(13:00):
also says, I'm gonna adopt this young man accompanying you,
your stepson, Willie Stanley. Wait, who she had another guy
with her? The news is a new character, is a
new audition. Yeah, will tell me about Willie. Willie Stanley
was not in fact her stepside. Okay, just put that
out there. Grind grind is you know he's head over heels,
(13:21):
he's over the moon. Have you mentioned that he's he's
pretty wealthy in his own right, and he's he's loaded.
He's a you know, even back then San Francisco. You
may remember in Deadwood that's where all the fancy men
lived within the San Francisco and Woo called them San
Francisco sea word. Uh, you check it out yourself. It's
it's a it's a delightful show. San Francisco characters characters exactly.
(13:46):
But yeah, you know, so he had quite a bit
of wealth himself. And she, of course I knew this,
I I I imagine how do you think she worked it?
You know, because she couldn't determine who the rabbi would
set her up with. Well, this is this is interesting
because she can have more influence than maybe the rabbi
would perceive. You know, there's always some valid reason, And
(14:09):
if you're manipulating people's emotions, then you can always set
up these emotional boundaries where no, I'm not okay with
this guy because of a tragedy that happened, and it
would be ungentlemanly and unseemly for you to ask me
anymore about it. Not only that, I mean, you know,
if you're asking a rabbi who you know from Childhoo
(14:29):
to set you up with a um, a gentleman suitor,
you know he the understanding would be would be someone
who could take care of you, someone who could provide
you know, who would be a candidate for marriage. Right. Also,
Abraham Grunn, I don't know if we mentioned this part,
was the brother in law of the rabbi. He was
the brother in law of a j. Messing. Oh, the
(14:51):
plot thickens, so as you say, man, as we've said,
Bertha has absolutely charmed the pants off of Sam Francisco
society through her her boy Grunt, and finds herself at
the very top of the heap there in the Beth
Israel congregation and she does something that he's key in
(15:14):
a lot of confidence scams. She gives some money to
the congregation as a gift, and I'm a I'm a dummy.
She was posing as a very wealthy woman, so of
course she would be set up with a very wealthy man,
one of one of her station, right. And then so
she gives him a check for one dollars and she
says there's much much more to come. So people love
(15:36):
this new mysterious widow Stanley, right. She also this this
is where he gets interesting. She also tells her fiance Grun,
you know, my stepson Willie is just kind of against
this marriage. Um, could you do something? Could you talk
to him? And so Grunt gives Willie five bucks, essentially
(15:57):
pays them off, and then Willie says, okay, also, Mr Grun,
let me see all those jewels that you have that
you're going to give to my mom. I'd like to
reset them in a way that she would appreciate. It
will be a surprise from you and I and so.
Abraham Grunn says, Okay, yeah, sounds good. It sounds nice.
(16:17):
You know, it sounds like she's thoughtful thinking of others.
You know, it sounds like Willie and Grunn have buried
the hatchet. You're you're making a surprise for mom, exactly exactly.
She's really presenting that like doting wife kind of image
very successfully. Then, of course, William Bertha take off, they
(16:37):
fly the coope. Do we know much more about Willie?
It was she She was just like her new partner,
kind of in crime. But yeah, young enough to to
appear to be her nephew. It's interesting because we don't
know a ton about the guy called Willie Stanley. We
do know that he may have been the same person
as Dr je Combs. You may have assumed differ and
(17:00):
identities depending on the con you know what I mean.
So maybe they had a working relationship, maybe they were related. Yeah,
the record isn't entirely clear on that, but we do
know that he was himself a confidence man. I guess
they leaked up. Yeah, absolutely, and they absolutely leaked up
together when they flew the coup from San Francisco to
Los Angeles, only after lightning Mr Grunn's load of precious jewels.
(17:27):
And then, of course that check bounced right As reported
by the San Francisco Examiner, Abraham Grun becomes suspicious when
that check, that one dollar Checkbirtha wrote to the congregation bounces.
He visits Isaiah Le's Isaiah Lees at the time in
San Francisco's Captain of Detectives Le's Here's grunt out listens
(17:47):
to the story, notes important details, and something about this
con seems familiar to him. So he reaches for a book,
and in this book he turns to photograph number one
two and he shows it to Abraham Grun. Is this
the woman you're describing, he asked. Grunt is dumbfounded. He
is in shock, and he slowly nods something to the
(18:11):
tune of yes, that's that's my fiance. The book you
see was Professional Criminals of America, the book we mentioned
earlier by Thomas F. Burns, who was, by the way,
the chief of detectives in New York City. The description
that Grun found read Bertha Hayman, alias Big Bertha confidence queen.
(18:31):
And can you imagine you're about to get married to
this person, right, You've you've adopted their step son, and
now you're learning that she has a rap sheet longer
than the Mississippi, that she has been in and out
of jail, and that you have been completely played. Yeah,
that's not a good day. Now, what would why would
(18:53):
what would you do? Ben? How would you feel? Would
you have? Like? What what do you think would be
going through your head in that situation? What revenge? Oh?
If I'm one of those people, gosh, you know, I
guess you'd have to be It's embarrassing. Sure, it's humiliating, right,
but you would have to be happy that you did
(19:13):
not actually lose your entire four just lost bucks and
some jewels and some jewels. Yeah, no, it's true. And
the embarrassing part is is key, I think because uh,
not only this was a con that his whole friend
group and upper echelon of the community that he was
a member of would have been aware of. Probably not
a good look. Everyone's gonna think he's a sucker now,
(19:35):
right right. Yeah, it's a shame. And of course, uh
grunt follows up with the police and the San Francisco
police issue a warrant for Bertha's arrest. The heat gets
to her and Willie. They leave l A, but they
get captured in Texas. Right, that's right? And she uh this.
(19:56):
This San Francisco Examiner piece describes her reaction as being outraged, innocence,
righteous indignation is of what I like to say, um,
And she really became kind of a darling in the
public eye because of you know, kind of like Bonnie
and Clyde. You know again that that whole idea of
that victim blaming they were talking about where people worship
(20:18):
batties because they they looked at as like Robin Hood
esque figures, even though they're really kind of just center
from themselves. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is where we
see a very interesting twist. Bertha becomes a celebrity of
sorts when they are arrested in Texas. Bertha is acquitted
(20:40):
and Willie is found guilty in a trial that is
surrounded by the paparazzi and lookye lose and so on.
The judge apparently had a tough time forcing his way
through the crowd to reach the bench. Willie goes up
to San Quentin for a bit, and Bertha's story spreads
across Sam Francisco, which leads a men named Ned Foster
(21:04):
to make an introduction. You see, Ned Foster saw an
opportunity in Bertha's strange celebrity or strange moment they would
call it in the pr bizs and he said, Hey,
you're great at you know, uh Connery or whatever, but
why not check out show biz? And so Bertha ends
up doing this is a true story, a one woman
(21:27):
show for this with this guy. He bailed her out
of jail in Texas. Yeah, he's basically like a promoter
of sorts, like a showman. Um. And they launched a
booking at the Woodwards Garden and eighteen thousand people came
to see her her story um where she kind of
(21:49):
presented herself as the victim. And uh, it's kind of
like an epic poem I guess called the Confidence Queen.
Would you like to would you bless us with a
reading man? Oh? Shell? We okay. So when vain grasping
men pants for glittering gold and find their bonanza in me,
is it wicked to show up how badly they're sold?
(22:10):
And the rogues that men can sometimes be. I think
they lost a little bit of the meter at the end.
But you see what they're doing. It's kind of romanticizing.
They're they're doing exactly what we described at the very
top of the show. Uh is selling that image even further,
which I think is almost another act of con artistry
in itself. Yes, a Creed agreed, and she gets booked
(22:34):
at the Bellow Union. So now instead of getting booked
by police, she's getting booked by promoters. And this is
a big deal because at the time that Bellow Union
is the most popular venue for music in San Francisco.
There's a great way that the San Francisco Examiner puts this.
She discovered her lack of talent was no barrier to popularity.
(22:55):
We can relate to that a little too, a little
too easily. She was paired with the of course, the
world famous UFF personal favorite. Yeah, I'm sure we're all
familiar with UFT. But just in case someone's been living
under a rock all these years, No, who could you
tell us a little bit about Utah? He was like, uh,
(23:16):
what Barbary Coast, which would be like a pirate situation, right, yeah? Uh?
And he his his stick was that he was a
human punching bag. Um, and they would do these boxing
matches that were staged and Um, she would knock him out,
you know, Mike Tyson punch out style. And then decided
to take it a step further and add a little humor.
(23:38):
Um and Foster thought it'd be really cute to cast
them in a in a version of Romeo and Juliet. Oh,
I should amend this real quick. The Barbary Coast that
they're referring to is a red light district in San Francisco.
Oh snap, Okay, so they they're pirates of a sort.
But the main thing we need to know about this
(24:00):
guy is that sexy pirates. Uh, you know, it depends
on what you're into. There's something out there for everyone.
In San Francisco is a big town. I mean, it's
all on the table in San Francisco. That's in the
red light district. That's what they say. What they say.
It's But the most important thing to know about this
this guy, this Barbary Coast character Ufti Goofti, is that
he literally made a living by letting people beat the
(24:24):
snot out of him for money. That's a weird. That's
a weird gig to meet you know what? That feels like.
That feels like an occupation someone would have in a
French arthouse film. Sure does. Yeah you've seen that film, Casey.
You know, I can't think of any French art house
films off the top of my head. However, there's an
unrealized harmony Korean project called Fight harm where he went
(24:47):
out on the street with like a hidden camera and
just try to go people into beating the crap out
of him. Wow. Yeah, okay, and he filmed like two
or three fights. I think he ended up in jail
one time and and then decided the film was like
impossible to complete because he was gonna be dead by
the time he finished it. Casey on the Case Always Today,
(25:09):
I learned something. Yeah, So it turns out this show
is a hit, and soon Bertha is going on tour
across the West coast, and she also has an open
invitation to any men in the audience to try to
wrestle her, and she generally knocks them out. Yeah. I
(25:33):
mean she's the heavy no pun intended, and the heel.
The heel. The heel is a bad guy in wrestling. Yeah,
that makes sense. She's you know, she's the big ticket,
so she's a little beyond. She's in a very Nietzschean way.
She is beyond the good and evil of wrestling. Oh,
(25:56):
you had to stop with these nietzsche references. Anyhow, There's
one more twist. It's not even really a twist, is it,
because it's what we kind of expected her to do.
She tells her manager that her suitcase has a false bottom,
so it's got a hidden compartment. And that compartment, she says,
contains ten thousand dollars worth of Canadian bonds and thousands
(26:19):
of dollars in jewelry. She says, will you handle the
sale for me? And they negotiate over the next few
days how to move these bonds in this jewelry. And
while they're doing that, Bertha is repeatedly borrowing just small
sums of money from her manager. From Foster. Yeah, so,
the guy that gave her a new lease on life,
(26:40):
the ability to kind of go straight, she ultimately totally
betrayed him. Yeah yeah, uh con sound cue time. So uh.
He agrees that he'll pay her six dollars US for
the trunk, but before doing so, he sneaks into her
(27:01):
room and their Foster discovers that the false bottom was
itself false. It was a fake, fake bottom. So she
burned that bridge. Looks like she burned a lot of bridges.
But to her, she said that she didn't care about
the money she made from the con jobs. She said
she gave it away to needy people. But the record
show that was also a lie. Like many card artists,
(27:25):
she just robbed everyone she could and she kept as
much as she could. And uh, you know, all through
this research, I was like, gosh, I want to see
this as a movie, and it's uh, it could well
be a possibility. One of my favorite comedians and from
one of the only podcasts that I listened to, how
did this get made? Paul sheer Um has been seriously
considering turning this into a film. Um He refers to
(27:46):
her as a badass Khan woman who was not conventionally attractive,
and then he sites The New York Times referring to
her as Bertha is a stout, gross looking woman and
it's difficult to imagine how she succeeded in ensnaring so
many victims by appear us to their confidence. Um, I
for a one would love to see Paul sheer tackle
tackle this film, agreed, and I know that we are
(28:07):
all collectively on the edge of our seats here wondering
if we can hear more about OOFTI goof who I
would like to see played by Willem Dafoe in this
in this film. Uh. He was born in Berlin. His
name was bord Art. Yeah, born in Berlin as Leonard
or leon boord Charts, that's right, and really became a
(28:29):
part of the San Francisco vaudeville scene, starting a four
where he did a freak show where he played a
kind of a stock character that you'd see in a
lot of dime museums on market streets, some of which
are still I think there actually is a coin music
a coin operated arcade machine museum in San Francisco. You
(28:50):
can go seet So. I don't know I'm geting the
name right, but he played this wild man of borneo character,
which is kind of like racist kind of Yeah, it's
a yeah, it's a great doably. Uh. They they painted
him in glue, covered him in horse hair, and then
he would grunt. After three weeks though he had to
(29:11):
be hospitalized to get the fur and the glue off.
That in this process, probably took some skin with it.
That's how he got the name Oofti Goofty. He would
regularly appear in local papers for his various antics. He
drank six bottles of beer in six minutes with a
teaspoon that he shipped himself to Sacramento in a box. Uh.
(29:32):
He was in a bunch of weird contests and then
you know, eventually he let people beat him blind for money,
and then by nine he settled in Houston, where he disappears.
It's true, um, but you know he left us with
a with a pretty fantastic story. Um, as was the
(29:53):
story of of Big Bertha. Yep, and this concludes our episode.
But not real? Is this? Are you serious? We kind
of asked for it, but no, but this happened in
the last episode. Whatever, it's time, gentlemen, whoa, whoa, whoa?
No fair? I did I did say that. Jonathan Strickland
(30:19):
a k a. The Quister two episodes in a row,
Lightning dust trick twice. How dare you welcome to ridiculous quisterry? Yes,
I'm taking it all over. Every episode will have a
quiz this segment. I can't back that up. I have
to go out of town, but I thought perhaps I
could at least join you for this subsequent episode since
(30:40):
you were so very very confident at the end of
our last meeting. Well you know, I mean, it was
nice to have a little wine. And also it turns
out the tally isn't that far off at this point.
Two down to down fntin eleven, quister, and we know
that thanks to you, Matthew. Now in a few Matthew,
(31:01):
with one that happened, Casey found that for us. So
we wanted to give you a specific shout out there, Matthew,
thank you for tallying the score. We'll try to keep
track of it, but we could only get to that
point with your help. Speaking of uh, the opposite of help,
Jonathan Strickland a k the quister, Are we doing the
(31:21):
thing again? We are? We are. I'm going to present
to you a historical scenario, whereupon at the end you
will have three minutes to decide whether I am giving
a real moment in history or if I made it up.
Seats and you will be able to ask me questions
to clarify things, following a rule of our betray nature,
which I will reveal to you after I do the scenario.
(31:44):
Now we talked, I have a lawful in my throat.
By the ways, it was really good for lawful, but
it's a little dry. It's a good look for you. Yeah. Anyway,
so you were talking about something of a scam artist,
a con artist. So I thought I would follow that
trend with a scenario about a pretender. Ready, I am uh,
(32:09):
let me hang on. I was sitting on the whole seat.
It's like, I'll just sit on the edge. Okay, I'm ready.
Wallachia is best known to us as the principality that
Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, ruled over in
the mid fifteenth century, but it also has the distinction
(32:30):
of being a region with the shortest rule on record.
Petru the Third has that distinction of ruling Wallachia for
only twelve minutes, leading Minute to say that he never
really was the ruler of Wallachia at all, making him
a pretender. At the time, Wallachia was in a state
(32:51):
of civil war as numerous families vied for leadership, plus
it was fending off attacks from the Ottoman Empire, and
poor Petru the Third, who was both great grandson and you,
great great nephew to Vlad the Impala inherited the position
from his father Manea the Third, who was too ill
(33:12):
to lead, But under tremendous pressure from numerous forces, Petrow
the Third abdicated the position as soon as he could
sign the document to do so. Later, loyalists would support
Petrow the Third as rightful ruler, even though Petrow showed
no signs of interest in ruling and was in fact
locked safely away in another powerful family's prison. Now, your
(33:36):
arbitrary rule is that if you wish to ask me
a question, you must preface it with blood. Begin the timer.
Oh yeah, hey on, let me get a running start,
all right, I forgot it's in the other room. You
guys really need to get back into the other studio.
And I'm not sure what happened, so alright, go go.
Uh yes, Mr Berlin, but excuse me, what what time
(34:00):
period this would be seven when this happened fifteen twenties seven?
So I wonder this is just uh, this is to
you guys. And also, Casey, I noticed that you never
back us up there in this segment. This is uh,
I mean to be fair, we we don't pull him in. Yeah,
we don't want to make him suffer the ignomy of defeat.
(34:22):
We also discovered last episode that he's semi in league
with Jonathan. That's his alter ego, plays both sides. So
the thing that's interesting here is fifteen twenty seven. Makes
me wonder how they could have as precise and estimate
is twelve minutes. You know what I mean? Jonathan made
(34:44):
a face, just amazed that you've never heard of things
like an hour glass. It's called an hour glass on
a minute glass. Bro fair enough, you know. I I'm
just I'm just posing that as an interesting thing. Perhaps
will learn about horology and the out of time on
the way here. But what do you what do you think?
I I kind of I don't know, man, I've been
(35:06):
going through this optimistic face. It was such a dull one.
I've kind of forgotten what it was about. Honestly, at
this point, it's about the It was about the pretender
to the throne, who was thought to have been technically
the ruler of Vallachia for twelve minutes, signed the checker
the twelve minutes before he signed the paper and said
he didn't want to be uh, he abdicated, but he
(35:29):
had a mob of people who still wanted him to
be the ruler. Jonathan by this this this is an
audio podcast. I want you all to know the the
just the level, the offensive level of glee on this
guy's face as he looks back and forth from us.
I know, uh it sounds m Do you want to
(35:52):
just say true? It's probably wrong? I don't know. Probably
you know what we should just do. Let's just rock
paper scissor and just go with you know who's true
and who's false. I'll be true again, it doesn't matter,
all right, one to three shooting, alright, we're going false.
Then this takes all the fun out of it. When
(36:13):
you're literally leaving it up to chats. I mean, why
am I even coming in here? All right? No, no, no,
give us what's what's the Well, you're technically correct, which correct.
That's why you're mad because it's twelve and you're not
even using your freaking faculties. So Ben, you gotta get
(36:39):
better at rock paper scissors, because you're always wrong, Jonathan,
to be fair, unless we knew this story specifically, what
are we mean? It is up to I don't know,
like how you have to use you have to use
you we did. No, no, no, you're too good at this, sir,
flip a coin. All right, well, let me let me
give you. Let me give you some some real history,
(37:00):
because I like to. So there is no Petro the third.
There was a Petru the second, but there was no
Petro the third. There was no Mania the third. There
was a Mania the second, but there was no Mania
the third. None of that was real. However, there is
the story of a dauphin in France who technically was
(37:20):
the regent of France for all of twenty minutes before
he abdicated the throne. So that was what I based
it off of. He has uh the record of the
shortest reign, and that's only assuming that you count it
as being a legitimate reign, and a lot of people don't,
because he essentially abdicated shortly after his father had also
abdicated the throne. So it was the Revolution of eighteen thirty,
(37:44):
as I recall. But that was that was the basis
from which I drew inspiration. And yes, who, So why
did you add the vampire bidden? Because that was I
was trying to think of a kingdom that you probably
wouldn't know anything about. Oh well, so I went with Wallachia,
which and then said the one thing that anybody knows
(38:05):
about exactly because you know it's a real place and
you know it's a real person, so that that anchors
it in reality. Yeah, and you know, there were an
awful If you look at the list of people who
ruled that principality, it goes back and forth fifty times
in a twenty years span among two or three different families,
(38:26):
most of whom are related to one another through blood
or marriage at least once or twice. So yeah, that
was why bloodlines, uh, which is weird because even during
these periods of just robust and ferocious incests, people knew
without being geneticist, people knew that there were disadvantages to that. Right.
(38:50):
It certainly manifested itself quite clearly in a few very
notable historic cases, the Habsburgs in particular. Yeah, the last
of the Habsburgs was Wow, what a jaw? I what
was it? He's like, I am the king and I
want putting or something like that. Uh. So that there
was a character on A thirty Rock that was based
(39:12):
off of that, yes, played by Paul Rubens a k Ape,
the little kind of weedy guy was based off of
the actual historical Habsburgs, although that was obviously centuries earlier.
You're no fun, We're We're a lot of yeah, one
one down. Also, it occurs to me that in setting
(39:34):
out this this strange what you call the most cringe
worthy segment and podcasting uh and setting on the strange endeavor,
we never had a milestone to play toward. It's just
this game that will continue, not entirely consensually, because I like,
this is the first time you showed up in consecutive episodes.
(39:55):
I do love the idea of being able to vanquish
you by exceeding your number by one, and then perhaps
you'll just vanish in a puff of smoke, perhaps or
come back with a new segment. First, I refuse to
be vanquished by people who are effectively drunken, blindfolded and
firing arrows blindly and just happening to hit the target. Okay, look,
(40:17):
it's just like your opinion, man, Maybe maybe we didn't. Okay,
I'll be honest. Maybe I don't seem as a hundred
percent committed to the idea of competition. I might be
phoning it in a little with the rock paper scissors,
with that, but that's just because you know, the competition
(40:38):
is just an excuse to hang out and learn more history.
In my opinion, to be fair, Rock Paper Sister has
been part of the equation since the beginning. So no,
I remember once in a while you too both agree
on something, which is much more fun for me because
either it means that you you you arrived at the
right answer, which case oh I lose boo, or you
more amusingly choose the wrong answer and then I get
(41:02):
to do my little dance. Yeah I know, man, I've
seen your blog. I know about the dance. Yeah, I've
got this whole gift thing on Facebook now called the
Orange Injustice. Well, thank you so much for coming on
the show again. Jonathan Strickland a k a. The quiz Jerch,
see you next week. Come on, man, I mean I'm
(41:24):
gonna be on a boat. You guys are safe. Oh yeah,
but are you well that that really isn't up to me,
is it. No? I'll tell you something, man, You need
to be careful with La Bush. Like the hand that
one hand heels and the other harms. This guy is
no joke. Is he a pirate on the side? We
don't really know. And the other hook hurts really well.
(41:46):
Our friendship with Casey pegramyk La Bush is based primarily
on us not asking questions about his double or trebled lives.
But thanks to Casey, thanks to you, Thanks to Gabe Louzier,
research assistant, Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Thanks to Christopher Hasciotas here in Spirit, thanks to Eve's
Jeff Code, and uh all of the ridiculous historians out
(42:08):
there in podcast land, and it most importantly Ben, thanks
to you, Bud. Thanks to you Pal. Also thanks to
people who have the last name Hayman. I think it's
just such a cool last name. Hey Man. Agreed, See
you next time. Books Blessed For more podcasts for my
(42:33):
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well well, well,
(00:28):
looks like it's time for another con job. Welcome to
Ridiculous History. I'm Ben. He's in a long conn or
a short con. It's a big con. It's a you know.
As a matter of fact, I didn't bring this up
with you guys yet, but I have a question for you,
super producer, Casey Pegrum. I'm listening. Do you guys think
(00:49):
that we do stories about con artists often enough that
we should get a sound cue for like a con job?
And if so, what would it be? Well, there's the
there's the class sick done done done, which seems like
a dastardly kind of sound effect, you know, like a
snidely whiplash type figure. There's a money sound to, like
a change register or something, you know, a stack these
(01:17):
sound effects. Baby, sure, uh yeah. Cons Today's episodes about
particularly uh dastardly um and effective con artist who went
by the nickname Big Bertha. You know, it comes to
my mind when I think of Big Bertha. I don't
know circuses, well, circuses, but I don't know case if
you remember this, but arcades of my youth, there was
(01:38):
a machine called Big Bertha, or you throw like a
ball into this like puppety large woman's mouth, kind of
a cob and very bizarre. And I never played it
because it just didn't seem like much fun. Yeah, it's
all coming back to me. It was always in the
back of the arcade, actually the ski ball machines, because
it was one of those big, you know, robotic type machines.
(01:59):
You guys have messed up childhood. Well that's accurate, but yeah,
that's what I think of. And I was not aware
of the legacy of Bertha Hayman. Yes, So nowadays the
term big Bertha is used to describe an example of
a piece of equipment. Right. In World War One, there
was this huge cannon that the German forces used, Uh,
(02:23):
this would destroy otherwise invincible forts, and it was called
big Bertha. And now there are some other things named
big Bertha. Right, the world's largest earth moving machine is
called big Bertha, like a back ho uh times a million, yeah,
a mega dozer. And in the eighteen hundreds, big Bertha
(02:45):
specifically described this woman who is known as the Confidence
Queen or Bertha Hayman. She was born Bertha Schlessinger in
Prussia and She came to the US in eighteen seventy eight.
We're getting a lot of the US from a interesting
book by a guy named Thomas Byrne, Professional Criminals of America.
(03:06):
She married twice, once in New York and then again
in Wisconsin, and her name Hayman comes from her second husband,
John Hayman. According to all the reports of the time,
she was not you know, your stereotypical beauty queen or supermodel,
but she was incredibly intensely charismatic. Yeah, it's true, ben Um.
(03:29):
She played on people's uh baser, you know, qualities like
hubris and greed and just general awfulness kinda. So it's
interesting she almost becomes something of like a folk hero
in my mind anyway, where she kind of gives people
their come upance, because if you're exhibiting those behaviors and
maybe you deserve to have your your pocket lightened a
(03:51):
little bit. Yeah, there's this, there's this very American romanticization
of con artists, you know what I mean. We like
the mav Rick. We like the idea of somebody living
by their wits, and then especially we liked the idea
of people getting their come up. It's for following their
baser instincts. Right, being greedy gets somebody built, or you know,
(04:15):
being covetous gets someone swindled. So there's this, there's this
interesting victim blaming thing. We're like, wow, yeah, and I
lost a hundred bucks. But they deserved it, you know,
Uh so shame on them. Bertha Hayman was no exception
because people did romanticize her a little bit. And her
story is very interesting. We're not gonna spoil it yet,
but we want you to know this takes a weird
(04:37):
turn towards the end. So she first got the attention
of NYPD in the eighteen seventies. Newspapers instantly recognized that
she would be She would make for good headlines, right,
she would move some copies, and the newspapers began calling
her Big Bertha, and they had some unkind descriptions of her.
(05:00):
It is not age well, the paper was quoted and
describing her as forty years of age, decidedly ugly and
weighing two hundred and fifty pounds uh and and was
constantly taking cheap pot shots at her her weight, describing
her at times as elephantine, which I think is a
cute word. It makes me think of a small elephant,
you know, an elephantine, like a teeny elephant. But no,
(05:23):
that is not what that means. It means large, like
an elephant. Or um. They would compare her to a battleship,
and I really love this description from Alice Obscia. They
say that she was built like a tank. But what
she lacked in society approved feminine wiles, she more than
made up within charisma, and she had an m o
(05:43):
an emo that she was quite proud of. She would
claim to be a fabulously wealthy woman who was just
for one reason or another, having trouble getting to her
funds in the held up in court, held up in
a bank, et cetera. And all she would need is
a kind male stranger to lend her a little bit
(06:03):
of money, and she would use that to access her
state and then pay them back handsomely. It's kind of
like a Nigerian prince scheme or a predecessor thereof that's right.
There's one account on criminals Revised dot blog that's pretty great. Um.
In one situation, she was on the way from New
York Chicago and she struck up a conversation with the
(06:26):
train conductor and you know, sticking to this that this
ruse her go to Ruse. She convinced him that she
had lots of assets that needed management. This is kind
of a little bit of a variation on on the
basic con um but that she had assets that were
in need of management, and she literally convinced him to
quit his job and take over managing her estate. But first,
(06:48):
before you know, she could give him this amazing opportunity,
she was in need of a little bit of cash
to float her to settle some legal matters. So it's
the bait and switch, right, I mean, it's literally like, hey,
look over here, here's this great thing. And then while
you're looking over here and thinking about all the great
things that can happen to you, you're not thinking about
the fact that it's odd that this supposedly rich person
is asking you for a thousand dollar loane in cash
(07:12):
to settle some matters. I'm doing hard quote fingers right now. Yeah.
And furthermore, for her, this wasn't just a job. We
get the sense that conning people was a craft to her,
a work of art. She told a police chief in
Jersey City in eight three that she preferred to target
(07:32):
men who should know better. The moment I discover a
man's a fool, I let him drop, she said. But
I delight in getting into the confidence and pockets of
men who think they can't be skinned. It ministers to
my intellectual pride. We should also know she got arrested
tons of times, and and that's that that train conductor
story just just to wrap that up, and it gets
(07:54):
us to where we're going. The guy's name was Mr
parrin and he totally did the thing, gave her the money,
and then when they got to New York, she just
camped out in all these like luxury hotels and spent
all the money running up the bills, and then hired
a lawyer to to you know, to take her case
because she knew what was coming. But even the lawyer
(08:15):
like she, she didn't pay him either. So her own
lawyer ended up like teaming up essentially with Mr parrin
Um who was the conductor, and they took legal action
against her to recover the money that she had borrowed
and also for the unpaid uh legal fees. This arrest
um is what led her husband, John Hayman to fly
(08:38):
the coop because he was he'd had enough and what
year was that? That was eight? Yeah, perfect, because we're
building this timeline of a master criminals career because um,
this this occurred while she had been drifting around New York, right,
she was stealing watches, she was forging checks. Uh, and
then she was in and out of the penitentiary in
(09:00):
eighteen eighty one, she was leaving court because she had
been acquitted on a charge of theft when she was
arrested by New York detectives and charged with scamming New
York businessman. And then she went to prison for two years.
So she almost got away, almost got acquitted of one crime,
but was locked away for two years due to an
(09:21):
unrelated con And even when she was in jail, she
was conning people. In the early eighteen eighties, while she
was locked up on black Wells Island, Bertha befriended and
conned the guy out of his life savings about nine
hundred dollars worth. That's that's the equivalent of over twenty
(09:41):
thou dollars today. And then when she got out of jail,
she did not turn over new leaf, She did not
learn anything. She just went back to conning people and
she expands her her sphere of operations, maybe the too
much heat in New York. Our next Bertha escapade takes
(10:05):
place in San Francisco, so she basically was like on
the lamb, she had to flee the scene, she was
persona non gratto, any other numbers of hyperbolic things that
I could call her right now, but it's sure she
did turn up in San Francisco in um. And in
this particular story she actually cons a man of God,
(10:25):
which is, you know, I don't know, maybe he maybe
he did something bad, maybe he deserved this come up,
And I don't know. I think it's possible that that
is less important than it is to her, just to
you know, get paid. So when she gets to San
Francisco in eight she finds this rabbi of the Beth
(10:48):
Israel Congregation and introduces herself as Bertha Stanley and says
that she, you know, he starts with the same kind
of gimmick. I'm a widow of wealth and uh as
looking for a nice Jewish husband. Um. The rabbi's name,
by the way, was Dr aj Messing, and he and
Bertha had been acquainted from from Prussia from back in
(11:11):
the Old Country during her childhood Yeah, so she is
buttering up this guy, and she tells this rabbi that
she's inherited three grand, which is around six million dollars
more in today's cash. Uh. And she got this from
her husband, and her husband was Christian. But she told
the rabbi she wanted her next marriage to be with
(11:34):
someone of the Jewish faith. So she decided she was
going to offer one thousand dollars to anyone who could
help her find an acceptable Jewish husband. And so the
rabbi steps in and he introduces her to a fellow
named Abraham Grun And you know, again back to the charisma,
(11:56):
which she had copious amounts. I was just using with
charisma despite her Uh is what we say homely is
that is that unkind? It's better than elephantine. Oh and
Elephantina wanted to add Elephantine is not just being large,
it's also being awkward and clumsy. Someone a klutz, Yeah,
(12:18):
a big clutz. Well, she clearly wasn't a klutz at
least in terms of the way she orchestrated these uh,
balletic feats of swindle ry swindle real word it is
now um So yeah, this guy grew gruin grunman. What's
his name? Grun grunt just adding syllables to everything today. Uh,
(12:39):
falls madly in love with Bertha. She works her magic
on him and he is eating out of her hand,
in the palm of her hand wrapped around her finger
and such. Yeah. So he proposes marriage shortly after, very quickly,
very quickly, like Vegas style, quickly red flag. And he
(13:00):
also says, I'm gonna adopt this young man accompanying you,
your stepson, Willie Stanley. Wait, who she had another guy
with her? The news is a new character, is a
new audition. Yeah, will tell me about Willie. Willie Stanley
was not in fact her stepside. Okay, just put that
out there. Grind grind is you know he's head over heels,
(13:21):
he's over the moon. Have you mentioned that he's he's
pretty wealthy in his own right, and he's he's loaded.
He's a you know, even back then San Francisco. You
may remember in Deadwood that's where all the fancy men
lived within the San Francisco and Woo called them San
Francisco sea word. Uh, you check it out yourself. It's
it's a it's a delightful show. San Francisco characters characters exactly.
(13:46):
But yeah, you know, so he had quite a bit
of wealth himself. And she, of course I knew this,
I I I imagine how do you think she worked it?
You know, because she couldn't determine who the rabbi would
set her up with. Well, this is this is interesting
because she can have more influence than maybe the rabbi
would perceive. You know, there's always some valid reason, And
(14:09):
if you're manipulating people's emotions, then you can always set
up these emotional boundaries where no, I'm not okay with
this guy because of a tragedy that happened, and it
would be ungentlemanly and unseemly for you to ask me
anymore about it. Not only that, I mean, you know,
if you're asking a rabbi who you know from Childhoo
(14:29):
to set you up with a um, a gentleman suitor,
you know he the understanding would be would be someone
who could take care of you, someone who could provide
you know, who would be a candidate for marriage. Right. Also,
Abraham Grunn, I don't know if we mentioned this part,
was the brother in law of the rabbi. He was
the brother in law of a j. Messing. Oh, the
(14:51):
plot thickens, so as you say, man, as we've said,
Bertha has absolutely charmed the pants off of Sam Francisco
society through her her boy Grunt, and finds herself at
the very top of the heap there in the Beth
Israel congregation and she does something that he's key in
(15:14):
a lot of confidence scams. She gives some money to
the congregation as a gift, and I'm a I'm a dummy.
She was posing as a very wealthy woman, so of
course she would be set up with a very wealthy man,
one of one of her station, right. And then so
she gives him a check for one dollars and she
says there's much much more to come. So people love
(15:36):
this new mysterious widow Stanley, right. She also this this
is where he gets interesting. She also tells her fiance Grun,
you know, my stepson Willie is just kind of against
this marriage. Um, could you do something? Could you talk
to him? And so Grunt gives Willie five bucks, essentially
(15:57):
pays them off, and then Willie says, okay, also, Mr Grun,
let me see all those jewels that you have that
you're going to give to my mom. I'd like to
reset them in a way that she would appreciate. It
will be a surprise from you and I and so.
Abraham Grunn says, Okay, yeah, sounds good. It sounds nice.
(16:17):
You know, it sounds like she's thoughtful thinking of others.
You know, it sounds like Willie and Grunn have buried
the hatchet. You're you're making a surprise for mom, exactly exactly.
She's really presenting that like doting wife kind of image
very successfully. Then, of course, William Bertha take off, they
(16:37):
fly the coope. Do we know much more about Willie?
It was she She was just like her new partner,
kind of in crime. But yeah, young enough to to
appear to be her nephew. It's interesting because we don't
know a ton about the guy called Willie Stanley. We
do know that he may have been the same person
as Dr je Combs. You may have assumed differ and
(17:00):
identities depending on the con you know what I mean.
So maybe they had a working relationship, maybe they were related. Yeah,
the record isn't entirely clear on that, but we do
know that he was himself a confidence man. I guess
they leaked up. Yeah, absolutely, and they absolutely leaked up
together when they flew the coup from San Francisco to
Los Angeles, only after lightning Mr Grunn's load of precious jewels.
(17:27):
And then, of course that check bounced right As reported
by the San Francisco Examiner, Abraham Grun becomes suspicious when
that check, that one dollar Checkbirtha wrote to the congregation bounces.
He visits Isaiah Le's Isaiah Lees at the time in
San Francisco's Captain of Detectives Le's Here's grunt out listens
(17:47):
to the story, notes important details, and something about this
con seems familiar to him. So he reaches for a book,
and in this book he turns to photograph number one
two and he shows it to Abraham Grun. Is this
the woman you're describing, he asked. Grunt is dumbfounded. He
is in shock, and he slowly nods something to the
(18:11):
tune of yes, that's that's my fiance. The book you
see was Professional Criminals of America, the book we mentioned
earlier by Thomas F. Burns, who was, by the way,
the chief of detectives in New York City. The description
that Grun found read Bertha Hayman, alias Big Bertha confidence queen.
(18:31):
And can you imagine you're about to get married to
this person, right, You've you've adopted their step son, and
now you're learning that she has a rap sheet longer
than the Mississippi, that she has been in and out
of jail, and that you have been completely played. Yeah,
that's not a good day. Now, what would why would
(18:53):
what would you do? Ben? How would you feel? Would
you have? Like? What what do you think would be
going through your head in that situation? What revenge? Oh?
If I'm one of those people, gosh, you know, I
guess you'd have to be It's embarrassing. Sure, it's humiliating, right,
but you would have to be happy that you did
(19:13):
not actually lose your entire four just lost bucks and
some jewels and some jewels. Yeah, no, it's true. And
the embarrassing part is is key, I think because uh,
not only this was a con that his whole friend
group and upper echelon of the community that he was
a member of would have been aware of. Probably not
a good look. Everyone's gonna think he's a sucker now,
(19:35):
right right. Yeah, it's a shame. And of course, uh
grunt follows up with the police and the San Francisco
police issue a warrant for Bertha's arrest. The heat gets
to her and Willie. They leave l A, but they
get captured in Texas. Right, that's right? And she uh this.
(19:56):
This San Francisco Examiner piece describes her reaction as being outraged, innocence,
righteous indignation is of what I like to say, um,
And she really became kind of a darling in the
public eye because of you know, kind of like Bonnie
and Clyde. You know again that that whole idea of
that victim blaming they were talking about where people worship
(20:18):
batties because they they looked at as like Robin Hood
esque figures, even though they're really kind of just center
from themselves. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is where we
see a very interesting twist. Bertha becomes a celebrity of
sorts when they are arrested in Texas. Bertha is acquitted
(20:40):
and Willie is found guilty in a trial that is
surrounded by the paparazzi and lookye lose and so on.
The judge apparently had a tough time forcing his way
through the crowd to reach the bench. Willie goes up
to San Quentin for a bit, and Bertha's story spreads
across Sam Francisco, which leads a men named Ned Foster
(21:04):
to make an introduction. You see, Ned Foster saw an
opportunity in Bertha's strange celebrity or strange moment they would
call it in the pr bizs and he said, Hey,
you're great at you know, uh Connery or whatever, but
why not check out show biz? And so Bertha ends
up doing this is a true story, a one woman
(21:27):
show for this with this guy. He bailed her out
of jail in Texas. Yeah, he's basically like a promoter
of sorts, like a showman. Um. And they launched a
booking at the Woodwards Garden and eighteen thousand people came
to see her her story um where she kind of
(21:49):
presented herself as the victim. And uh, it's kind of
like an epic poem I guess called the Confidence Queen.
Would you like to would you bless us with a
reading man? Oh? Shell? We okay. So when vain grasping
men pants for glittering gold and find their bonanza in me,
is it wicked to show up how badly they're sold?
(22:10):
And the rogues that men can sometimes be. I think
they lost a little bit of the meter at the end.
But you see what they're doing. It's kind of romanticizing.
They're they're doing exactly what we described at the very
top of the show. Uh is selling that image even further,
which I think is almost another act of con artistry
in itself. Yes, a Creed agreed, and she gets booked
(22:34):
at the Bellow Union. So now instead of getting booked
by police, she's getting booked by promoters. And this is
a big deal because at the time that Bellow Union
is the most popular venue for music in San Francisco.
There's a great way that the San Francisco Examiner puts this.
She discovered her lack of talent was no barrier to popularity.
(22:55):
We can relate to that a little too, a little
too easily. She was paired with the of course, the
world famous UFF personal favorite. Yeah, I'm sure we're all
familiar with UFT. But just in case someone's been living
under a rock all these years, No, who could you
tell us a little bit about Utah? He was like, uh,
(23:16):
what Barbary Coast, which would be like a pirate situation, right, yeah? Uh?
And he his his stick was that he was a
human punching bag. Um, and they would do these boxing
matches that were staged and Um, she would knock him out,
you know, Mike Tyson punch out style. And then decided
to take it a step further and add a little humor.
(23:38):
Um and Foster thought it'd be really cute to cast
them in a in a version of Romeo and Juliet. Oh,
I should amend this real quick. The Barbary Coast that
they're referring to is a red light district in San Francisco.
Oh snap, Okay, so they they're pirates of a sort.
But the main thing we need to know about this
(24:00):
guy is that sexy pirates. Uh, you know, it depends
on what you're into. There's something out there for everyone.
In San Francisco is a big town. I mean, it's
all on the table in San Francisco. That's in the
red light district. That's what they say. What they say.
It's But the most important thing to know about this
this guy, this Barbary Coast character Ufti Goofti, is that
he literally made a living by letting people beat the
(24:24):
snot out of him for money. That's a weird. That's
a weird gig to meet you know what? That feels like.
That feels like an occupation someone would have in a
French arthouse film. Sure does. Yeah you've seen that film, Casey.
You know, I can't think of any French art house
films off the top of my head. However, there's an
unrealized harmony Korean project called Fight harm where he went
(24:47):
out on the street with like a hidden camera and
just try to go people into beating the crap out
of him. Wow. Yeah, okay, and he filmed like two
or three fights. I think he ended up in jail
one time and and then decided the film was like
impossible to complete because he was gonna be dead by
the time he finished it. Casey on the Case Always Today,
(25:09):
I learned something. Yeah, So it turns out this show
is a hit, and soon Bertha is going on tour
across the West coast, and she also has an open
invitation to any men in the audience to try to
wrestle her, and she generally knocks them out. Yeah. I
(25:33):
mean she's the heavy no pun intended, and the heel.
The heel. The heel is a bad guy in wrestling. Yeah,
that makes sense. She's you know, she's the big ticket,
so she's a little beyond. She's in a very Nietzschean way.
She is beyond the good and evil of wrestling. Oh,
(25:56):
you had to stop with these nietzsche references. Anyhow, There's
one more twist. It's not even really a twist, is it,
because it's what we kind of expected her to do.
She tells her manager that her suitcase has a false bottom,
so it's got a hidden compartment. And that compartment, she says,
contains ten thousand dollars worth of Canadian bonds and thousands
(26:19):
of dollars in jewelry. She says, will you handle the
sale for me? And they negotiate over the next few
days how to move these bonds in this jewelry. And
while they're doing that, Bertha is repeatedly borrowing just small
sums of money from her manager. From Foster. Yeah, so,
the guy that gave her a new lease on life,
(26:40):
the ability to kind of go straight, she ultimately totally
betrayed him. Yeah yeah, uh con sound cue time. So uh.
He agrees that he'll pay her six dollars US for
the trunk, but before doing so, he sneaks into her
(27:01):
room and their Foster discovers that the false bottom was
itself false. It was a fake, fake bottom. So she
burned that bridge. Looks like she burned a lot of bridges.
But to her, she said that she didn't care about
the money she made from the con jobs. She said
she gave it away to needy people. But the record
show that was also a lie. Like many card artists,
(27:25):
she just robbed everyone she could and she kept as
much as she could. And uh, you know, all through
this research, I was like, gosh, I want to see
this as a movie, and it's uh, it could well
be a possibility. One of my favorite comedians and from
one of the only podcasts that I listened to, how
did this get made? Paul sheer Um has been seriously
considering turning this into a film. Um He refers to
(27:46):
her as a badass Khan woman who was not conventionally attractive,
and then he sites The New York Times referring to
her as Bertha is a stout, gross looking woman and
it's difficult to imagine how she succeeded in ensnaring so
many victims by appear us to their confidence. Um, I
for a one would love to see Paul sheer tackle
tackle this film, agreed, and I know that we are
(28:07):
all collectively on the edge of our seats here wondering
if we can hear more about OOFTI goof who I
would like to see played by Willem Dafoe in this
in this film. Uh. He was born in Berlin. His
name was bord Art. Yeah, born in Berlin as Leonard
or leon boord Charts, that's right, and really became a
(28:29):
part of the San Francisco vaudeville scene, starting a four
where he did a freak show where he played a
kind of a stock character that you'd see in a
lot of dime museums on market streets, some of which
are still I think there actually is a coin music
a coin operated arcade machine museum in San Francisco. You
(28:50):
can go seet So. I don't know I'm geting the
name right, but he played this wild man of borneo character,
which is kind of like racist kind of Yeah, it's
a yeah, it's a great doably. Uh. They they painted
him in glue, covered him in horse hair, and then
he would grunt. After three weeks though he had to
(29:11):
be hospitalized to get the fur and the glue off.
That in this process, probably took some skin with it.
That's how he got the name Oofti Goofty. He would
regularly appear in local papers for his various antics. He
drank six bottles of beer in six minutes with a
teaspoon that he shipped himself to Sacramento in a box. Uh.
(29:32):
He was in a bunch of weird contests and then
you know, eventually he let people beat him blind for money,
and then by nine he settled in Houston, where he disappears.
It's true, um, but you know he left us with
a with a pretty fantastic story. Um, as was the
(29:53):
story of of Big Bertha. Yep, and this concludes our episode.
But not real? Is this? Are you serious? We kind
of asked for it, but no, but this happened in
the last episode. Whatever, it's time, gentlemen, whoa, whoa, whoa?
No fair? I did I did say that. Jonathan Strickland
(30:19):
a k a. The Quister two episodes in a row,
Lightning dust trick twice. How dare you welcome to ridiculous quisterry? Yes,
I'm taking it all over. Every episode will have a
quiz this segment. I can't back that up. I have
to go out of town, but I thought perhaps I
could at least join you for this subsequent episode since
(30:40):
you were so very very confident at the end of
our last meeting. Well you know, I mean, it was
nice to have a little wine. And also it turns
out the tally isn't that far off at this point.
Two down to down fntin eleven, quister, and we know
that thanks to you, Matthew. Now in a few Matthew,
(31:01):
with one that happened, Casey found that for us. So
we wanted to give you a specific shout out there, Matthew,
thank you for tallying the score. We'll try to keep
track of it, but we could only get to that
point with your help. Speaking of uh, the opposite of help,
Jonathan Strickland a k the quister, Are we doing the
(31:21):
thing again? We are? We are. I'm going to present
to you a historical scenario, whereupon at the end you
will have three minutes to decide whether I am giving
a real moment in history or if I made it up.
Seats and you will be able to ask me questions
to clarify things, following a rule of our betray nature,
which I will reveal to you after I do the scenario.
(31:44):
Now we talked, I have a lawful in my throat.
By the ways, it was really good for lawful, but
it's a little dry. It's a good look for you. Yeah. Anyway,
so you were talking about something of a scam artist,
a con artist. So I thought I would follow that
trend with a scenario about a pretender. Ready, I am uh,
(32:09):
let me hang on. I was sitting on the whole seat.
It's like, I'll just sit on the edge. Okay, I'm ready.
Wallachia is best known to us as the principality that
Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, ruled over in
the mid fifteenth century, but it also has the distinction
(32:30):
of being a region with the shortest rule on record.
Petru the Third has that distinction of ruling Wallachia for
only twelve minutes, leading Minute to say that he never
really was the ruler of Wallachia at all, making him
a pretender. At the time, Wallachia was in a state
(32:51):
of civil war as numerous families vied for leadership, plus
it was fending off attacks from the Ottoman Empire, and
poor Petru the Third, who was both great grandson and you,
great great nephew to Vlad the Impala inherited the position
from his father Manea the Third, who was too ill
(33:12):
to lead, But under tremendous pressure from numerous forces, Petrow
the Third abdicated the position as soon as he could
sign the document to do so. Later, loyalists would support
Petrow the Third as rightful ruler, even though Petrow showed
no signs of interest in ruling and was in fact
locked safely away in another powerful family's prison. Now, your
(33:36):
arbitrary rule is that if you wish to ask me
a question, you must preface it with blood. Begin the timer.
Oh yeah, hey on, let me get a running start,
all right, I forgot it's in the other room. You
guys really need to get back into the other studio.
And I'm not sure what happened, so alright, go go.
Uh yes, Mr Berlin, but excuse me, what what time
(34:00):
period this would be seven when this happened fifteen twenties seven?
So I wonder this is just uh, this is to
you guys. And also, Casey, I noticed that you never
back us up there in this segment. This is uh,
I mean to be fair, we we don't pull him in. Yeah,
we don't want to make him suffer the ignomy of defeat.
(34:22):
We also discovered last episode that he's semi in league
with Jonathan. That's his alter ego, plays both sides. So
the thing that's interesting here is fifteen twenty seven. Makes
me wonder how they could have as precise and estimate
is twelve minutes. You know what I mean? Jonathan made
(34:44):
a face, just amazed that you've never heard of things
like an hour glass. It's called an hour glass on
a minute glass. Bro fair enough, you know. I I'm
just I'm just posing that as an interesting thing. Perhaps
will learn about horology and the out of time on
the way here. But what do you what do you think?
I I kind of I don't know, man, I've been
(35:06):
going through this optimistic face. It was such a dull one.
I've kind of forgotten what it was about. Honestly, at
this point, it's about the It was about the pretender
to the throne, who was thought to have been technically
the ruler of Vallachia for twelve minutes, signed the checker
the twelve minutes before he signed the paper and said
he didn't want to be uh, he abdicated, but he
(35:29):
had a mob of people who still wanted him to
be the ruler. Jonathan by this this this is an
audio podcast. I want you all to know the the
just the level, the offensive level of glee on this
guy's face as he looks back and forth from us.
I know, uh it sounds m Do you want to
(35:52):
just say true? It's probably wrong? I don't know. Probably
you know what we should just do. Let's just rock
paper scissor and just go with you know who's true
and who's false. I'll be true again, it doesn't matter,
all right, one to three shooting, alright, we're going false.
Then this takes all the fun out of it. When
(36:13):
you're literally leaving it up to chats. I mean, why
am I even coming in here? All right? No, no, no,
give us what's what's the Well, you're technically correct, which correct.
That's why you're mad because it's twelve and you're not
even using your freaking faculties. So Ben, you gotta get
(36:39):
better at rock paper scissors, because you're always wrong, Jonathan,
to be fair, unless we knew this story specifically, what
are we mean? It is up to I don't know,
like how you have to use you have to use
you we did. No, no, no, you're too good at this, sir,
flip a coin. All right, well, let me let me
give you. Let me give you some some real history,
(37:00):
because I like to. So there is no Petro the third.
There was a Petru the second, but there was no
Petro the third. There was no Mania the third. There
was a Mania the second, but there was no Mania
the third. None of that was real. However, there is
the story of a dauphin in France who technically was
(37:20):
the regent of France for all of twenty minutes before
he abdicated the throne. So that was what I based
it off of. He has uh the record of the
shortest reign, and that's only assuming that you count it
as being a legitimate reign, and a lot of people don't,
because he essentially abdicated shortly after his father had also
abdicated the throne. So it was the Revolution of eighteen thirty,
(37:44):
as I recall. But that was that was the basis
from which I drew inspiration. And yes, who, So why
did you add the vampire bidden? Because that was I
was trying to think of a kingdom that you probably
wouldn't know anything about. Oh well, so I went with Wallachia,
which and then said the one thing that anybody knows
(38:05):
about exactly because you know it's a real place and
you know it's a real person, so that that anchors
it in reality. Yeah, and you know, there were an
awful If you look at the list of people who
ruled that principality, it goes back and forth fifty times
in a twenty years span among two or three different families,
(38:26):
most of whom are related to one another through blood
or marriage at least once or twice. So yeah, that
was why bloodlines, uh, which is weird because even during
these periods of just robust and ferocious incests, people knew
without being geneticist, people knew that there were disadvantages to that. Right.
(38:50):
It certainly manifested itself quite clearly in a few very
notable historic cases, the Habsburgs in particular. Yeah, the last
of the Habsburgs was Wow, what a jaw? I what
was it? He's like, I am the king and I
want putting or something like that. Uh. So that there
was a character on A thirty Rock that was based
(39:12):
off of that, yes, played by Paul Rubens a k Ape,
the little kind of weedy guy was based off of
the actual historical Habsburgs, although that was obviously centuries earlier.
You're no fun, We're We're a lot of yeah, one
one down. Also, it occurs to me that in setting
(39:34):
out this this strange what you call the most cringe
worthy segment and podcasting uh and setting on the strange endeavor,
we never had a milestone to play toward. It's just
this game that will continue, not entirely consensually, because I like,
this is the first time you showed up in consecutive episodes.
(39:55):
I do love the idea of being able to vanquish
you by exceeding your number by one, and then perhaps
you'll just vanish in a puff of smoke, perhaps or
come back with a new segment. First, I refuse to
be vanquished by people who are effectively drunken, blindfolded and
firing arrows blindly and just happening to hit the target. Okay, look,
(40:17):
it's just like your opinion, man, Maybe maybe we didn't. Okay,
I'll be honest. Maybe I don't seem as a hundred
percent committed to the idea of competition. I might be
phoning it in a little with the rock paper scissors,
with that, but that's just because you know, the competition
(40:38):
is just an excuse to hang out and learn more history.
In my opinion, to be fair, Rock Paper Sister has
been part of the equation since the beginning. So no,
I remember once in a while you too both agree
on something, which is much more fun for me because
either it means that you you you arrived at the
right answer, which case oh I lose boo, or you
more amusingly choose the wrong answer and then I get
(41:02):
to do my little dance. Yeah I know, man, I've
seen your blog. I know about the dance. Yeah, I've
got this whole gift thing on Facebook now called the
Orange Injustice. Well, thank you so much for coming on
the show again. Jonathan Strickland a k a. The quiz Jerch,
see you next week. Come on, man, I mean I'm
(41:24):
gonna be on a boat. You guys are safe. Oh yeah,
but are you well that that really isn't up to me,
is it. No? I'll tell you something, man, You need
to be careful with La Bush. Like the hand that
one hand heels and the other harms. This guy is
no joke. Is he a pirate on the side? We
don't really know. And the other hook hurts really well.
(41:46):
Our friendship with Casey pegramyk La Bush is based primarily
on us not asking questions about his double or trebled lives.
But thanks to Casey, thanks to you, Thanks to Gabe Louzier,
research assistant, Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Thanks to Christopher Hasciotas here in Spirit, thanks to Eve's
Jeff Code, and uh all of the ridiculous historians out
(42:08):
there in podcast land, and it most importantly Ben, thanks
to you, Bud. Thanks to you Pal. Also thanks to
people who have the last name Hayman. I think it's
just such a cool last name. Hey Man. Agreed, See
you next time. Books Blessed For more podcasts for my
(42:33):
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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