5 Eccentric Gentlemen of the 1920s

Ladies and Gentlemen,

do you sometimes not know whether you are coming or going? Do you often have the feeling that the world has gone mad or even you yourself? Don't worry, you are not alone in this. There has truly been no shortage of crazy people in the history of mankind, and even in the infamous 1920s there were quite a few eccentrics. Curious now? Then let's take a closer look at five particularly dazzling specimens.

Paul Léautaud (1872 – 1956)

The first oddball I would like to introduce to you is the Parisian journalist and writer Paul Léautaud. Left to his own devices from an early age, he developed into an autodidact who was most passionate about classical literature. He wrote theatre reviews for the Mercure de France for many years and was thus able to meet well-known personalities such as Paul Valéry, André Gide and Stéphane Mallarmé, but he actually dreamed of a life as a freelance writer. In his spare time, Léautaud was also a diligent diarist; from 1893 to 1956, he kept the Literary Diary, which comprises more than 3000 pages.

Throughout his life, the writer distinguished himself by his strong dislike of various things: politics (Léautaud never voted), religion (he liked to attend masses to convince the faithful of the ridiculousness of the church afterwards) and most of his fellow human beings. He particularly disliked children, one quote from him being, "When the child appears, I take my hat and go away." But as much as Léautaud disliked people, he loved animals. In his diary, he regularly noted the number of animals that were currently living with him in his small Paris flat. temporarily, there were 38 cats, 9 dogs, a guenon and various turtles, which regularly got him into trouble with his landlord.

Towards the end of his life, he increasingly took on the appearance of a clochard. In constant need of money due to his many animals, Léautaud treated himself to very little food (he mainly subsisted on bread, cheese and boiled potatoes). To save on electricity costs, he used candles and paraffin lamps. At the beginning of the 1950s, he achieved a little fame through his radio interviews with Robert Mallet, but he did not make the big breakthrough. Léautaud died in 1956 at the age of 84.

W.C. Fields (1880 – 1946)

Born William Claude Dukenfield in Pennsylvania, Fields grew up in a simple working-class family. After only five years, he had to leave school to help out in his parents' vegetable business. But the relationship between father and son was always marked by tension, so that Fields was already earning his own money at the age of 13. He discovered his talent for juggling early on and was soon able to appear regularly in vaudeville shows under the stage name W.C. Fields, where he performed in the role of the Eccentric Juggler and was at times advertised as the World's Best Juggler.

Between 1915 and 1921 he performed with the famous Ziegfeld Follies. In the following years Fields was drawn more and more to Hollywood where he took part in numerous comedies. Mostly in the role of the egoistic-misanthropic family father who is not averse to alcohol, he appeared in over 40 films.

Fields is not only remembered for his juggling and acting talent, however. Like Paul Léautaud, Fields was an atheist and wanted an orphanage to be founded after his death "where no religion of any sort is to be preached", but this was never put into practice. He was also known for his fear of theft and his distrust of bankers. This led Fields to open countless bank accounts all over the US, into which he only ever deposited small sums. He never carried large amounts of cash with him. After his death, a suitcase full of chequebooks from numerous banks was found, most of them unused.

Howard Hughes (1905 – 1976)

The American entrepreneur, pilot and film producer went down in history in many different ways. At the age of 18, he became the sole heir of the Hughes Tool Company, which made millions a year just by producing equipment for oil exploration. But Hughes left the management of the company to others and moved to Hollywood to try his luck as a producer and director. He quickly became feared for his pedantry, sending directors pages of memos with notes on the most incidental details, so that completing a film under him could become a nerve-wracking ordeal.

In addition to the film business, Hughes was known to have a great passion for flying. In 1936, he founded the Hughes Aircraft Corporation, which developed aircraft that Hughes then tested himself as a pilot. In the following years, he set several speed records, and in 1938 he was the first to manage a non-stop flight around the world in 91 hours. In the 1940s, Hughes crashed his plane, surviving with severe injuries to his head and back from which he never fully recovered. He remained dependent on painkillers for the rest of his life.

In the last two decades, Hughes' neurosis intensified and he isolated himself more and more. He withdrew completely from the public eye and refused to be photographed. He rented the top floor of a luxury hotel in Las Vegas to create an antiseptic refuge for himself, because microbes and bacteria terrified him. The room temperature had to be 21 degrees Celsius, to the hundredth of a degree, day and night. The few confidants he still received at the end of his life had to wear surgical masks and gloves when they visited him.

Salvador Dalí (1904 -1989)

If you look up the term "eccentric" in the dictionary, you should actually find a photo of Salvador Dalí there. The Catalan painter was somewhat different from his peers from childhood onwards. In his autobiography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí" he writes that he wanted to be a cook at the age of six and Napoleon at seven. In his early twenties, he was so convinced of his genius that he refused to take part in the final examinations at the art academy because he considered the teachers incapable of judging his works. It may come as no surprise that he was expelled from the academy as a result.

What Dalí loved at least as much as art itself were extravagant appearances. In his student years, he was often dressed in wide black robes, he had long hair with sideburns, and on his head he wore a large black felt hat. His accessories were a pipe and a stick with a gilded knob. Even in later years, Dalí was always good for a surprise. He could occasionally be seen driving around in a Rolls Royce with the back seat overloaded with cabbages. He once tried to give a lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris in a diving suit, but he had to stop early because he almost suffocated. In the 1960s he kept a tame ocelot.

As eccentric and ingenious as the Catalan's works and performances appear, the small things of everyday life were difficult for him. Luis Buñuel is said to have once given him a banknote in Paris with which Dalí was supposed to buy theatre tickets. A little later, he came back empty-handed and explained that he didn't understand the whole story about the change. Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84, but he remained true to his eccentric existence beyond death: to ensure that his mortal remains would continue to exist for at least 300 years, his body was embalmed, adorned with the crown of a marquès and wrapped in a tunic. He was buried in the crypt under the glass dome of his own museum in Figueres.

William Randolph Hearst (1863 - 1951)

The last eccentric gentleman in our series is none other than William Randolph Hearst, millionaire, publicist and politician. Lovers of classic cinema will be familiar with Citizen Kane, a film that retells the life of the big businessman with some artistic liberties. Hearst was wealthy by birth, so he was already able to take over the management of the San Francisco Examiner as a young man and was so successful that he built up a veritable press empire over the decades. By the 1920s, Hearst owned 22 daily newspapers, 15 Sunday papers, 7 magazines and several radio stations. The secret of his success was lurid sensational journalism, and it was completely irrelevant whether an article was factual or not. He paid his staff twice as much as the competition, but demanded absolute obedience and a willingness to disregard professional ethics in order to maximise sales. This went so far that he sent a journalist to Cuba during the Spanish-American war to provide further material for anti-Spanish propaganda. However, when the journalist could not find any fighting or uprisings there, Hearst wrote to him, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Hearst's character was marked by contradictions. Shyness and generosity alternated with total megalomania. In the early 1900s, he tried to become mayor of New York, governor and even president of the United States. He immersed himself in the biographies of Caesar and Napoleon for this purpose, but his attempts were unsuccessful. Characteristic of Hearst was his extreme shopping addiction, which at times took on absurd forms due to his financial means. He spent about 1 million dollars a year on antiques, jewellery, furniture and paintings. When he wanted something, there was nothing that could stop him. Once he even bought a complete Spanish cloister from the 10th century and had it dismantled stone by stone. For the transport, he bought a whole railway line and a sawmill to make the necessary boxes for the 36,000 stones. In San Simeon, California, the magnate had an estate built that had four palaces, two swimming pools and a zoo.

In the 1930s, financial ruin finally came. Hearst had already suffered massive losses as a result of the stock market crash in 1929, problems with trade unions, the growing competition of new newspapers and his shopping addiction finally sealed his fate. His possessions were so abundant that it took a year for everything from his collections to be auctioned off.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into the world of eccentrics! And the next time you don't know whether you are coming or going, you now know: you are in the best of company!

Yours,

Marleen Tigersee