Fifth in a series of posts following events occurring in 1932. The events are taken from my book: (Part one) (Part two) (Part three) (Part four)
Smith Reynolds, Libby Holman’s Husband, Suicide; Kills Self After Party at Carolina Home
On the same day that news of the shooting of Chicago Cub shortstop, Bill Jurges, broke and the acquittal of accused murderer, Mrs. Elvira Enid Barney, in London made the international news, another wealthy woman was reported to have been involved in the shooting death of her even wealthier husband. All major newspapers carried the juicy story. The Chicago Daily Tribune had the story on page five under the above headline.
Libby Holman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 23, 1904, as Rachel Florence Workum Holzman. Her father, Alfred, was a prominent Cincinnati lawyer. Because of anti-German prejudice as a result of World War I, her father changed the family name to Holman. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1923, Holman left for New York in 1924 to pursue an acting career.
She first lived in the women’s dormitory at the YWCA while taking acting classes. When her money was running short, she took a job after classes that paid particularly well for the few evening hours that were required. She hired on with Pearl Polly Adler, author and pimp.
As pogroms in Russia increasingly threatened her Jewish family, Pearl Adler’s father sent her along with a cousin to America. The cousin turned back, and Adler found herself alone in New York at thirteen. She became acquainted with theater people. A gentleman who made his living in the sex for hire trade set Polly up as one of his pimps. By the time she met Libby Holman, Adler had branched out and become a sole proprietor.
Adler arranged Libby Holman’s shift schedule to accommodate her acting classes. She later recalled of Holman: "Every afternoon she would arrive after her classes, carrying her schoolbooks, wearing the short skirts, oxfords and beret that were the thing among coeds, and settle down to work...She was "pleasant, smiling, and matter-of-fact about her method of earning a living, and no matter what amount of money was offered her after her deadline of eleven o'clock [the curfew of the YWCA], her answer was always 'No.'"[6]
Libby Holman quickly made friends and acquaintances among the Broadway theater and entertainment crowd and gained a reputation as someone who was unusually bold and “game for anything.” Her first theater job was as a cast member of the road company of The Fool.
Statue of Libby
Her Broadway debut was in the play The Sapphire Ring in 1925 at the Selwyn Theatre, which closed after 13 performances. She was billed as Elizabeth Holman. Her big break came while she was appearing with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen in the 1929 Broadway revue The Little Show, in which she first sang the blues number "Moanin' Low" by Ralph Rainger, which earned her a dozen curtain calls on opening night, drew raves from the critics and became her signature song.[8] Also in that show, she sang the Kay Swift and Paul James song, "Can't We Be Friends?". She became known as the “premier torch singer” of Broadway.
Libby became a favorite topic of the town gossips and the tabloid press. Clifton Webb had given her the nickname The Statue of Libby and there would be more salacious nicknames to come.
In the industry, press, and among friends, Holman was known for her bold personality. She was the frequent subject of contemporary gossip columns,[16] and became known in the press as "the dark purple menace."[17]Memories of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues detail the stage manner and individuality she was known for.
Holman met Zachary Smith Reynolds, in April 1930, after a performance of The Little Show in Baltimore. Reynolds was a private pilot, owned a Savoia-Marchetti S.56 and was one of the heirs to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune. He went by Smith Reynolds. Reynolds was six or seven years younger than Holman (depending on the source) who aready had a scandalous reputation for dating younger men as well as women. At twenty, Reynolds was already married in a shotgun wedding, then quickly divorced from Anne Ludlow Cannon, Cannon Mills textiles heiress. They were together long enough to have a baby daughter together.
Immediately obsessed with Holman, Reynolds pursued her in his airplane around the world as she toured professionally, gaining Reynolds the nickname Smitty, the traveling bear. Despite the tempestuosness of the relationship and the fact that Reynolds was not well-liked by Libby’s friends and family, the couple ended up marrying.
The Mistress Of Menace
On July 5, 1932, Smith Reynolds threw a 21st birthday party for his friend Charles Gideon Hill Jr. Hill was a first cousin of Anne Cannon, Reynolds’ divorced wife, and a childhood friend. The afternoon party session was mainly held in a boathouse on private Lake Katherine on Reynolda the R.J. Reynolds 1,000 acre Estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Reynolds would land and take off in his airplane from the vast front lawn of the main house.
From The Charlotte Observer of 7 July 1932:
Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds entertained at an informal dinner party last night and their guests left the home about midnight. Reynolds asked Ab Walker, an intimate friend, to spend the night. Miss Blanche Yeager (actually, Blanche Yurka, American stage and film actress and director) of New York, who was visiting Mrs. Reynolds, was also in the home.
Walker said he was on the first floor and was closing the house when he heard the shot and then heard Mrs. Reynolds scream. He rushed upstairs, found Reynolds lying on the sleeping porch unconscious with a pistol wound in his head and carried him to a hospital. Reynolds died there at dawn without regaining consciousness….
Although Dr. W.N. Dalton, coroner for Forsyth county, said late today that he was recording the death of Zachary Smith Reynolds as a suicide and that the investigation was practically closed so far as his office is concerned, Sherriff J. Transou Scott said he is continuing his investigation.
The sheriff said that according to information furnished to him at the Reynolds home, Mrs. Smith Reynolds, who before her marriage was Libby Holman, New York night club and musical dancer, was on the sleeping porch with her husband when he was fatally shot about 1 o’clock this morning.
By the next day, The Charlotte Observer reported significant changes to the suicide narrative. It turned out that Libby was not in her bedroom when the shot was fired on the sleeping porch, as was previously reported. In fact, she was on the porch, herself, in bed with her husband. Bloody fingerprints were found on the doorknob of the door to the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom.
It was further reported that Libby Holman was under a doctor’s care after her traumatic experience. She was sedated with opiates and was in seclusion. The doctor had not yet decided if she was well enough to attend Reynolds’ funeral, scheduled for the next day. Meanwhile, Holman’s parents arrived by train from Cincinnati to attend the funeral and to console their daughter.
The Saturday, July 9, 1932, edition of The Observer led with a startlling front page banner headline:
Apparently on verge of breakdown, Libby Holman Reynolds was quoted as tellling a coroner’s jury in a secret session tonight that she had no recollection of her husband’s death, except for a brief “flash” in which he called her name, and then she heard a pistol shot….
“She said her mind was an absolute blank from the time she went to bed Monday night,” this official said, “until some time Wednesday afternoon, except for a brief ‘flash’ when she saw Smith Reynolds with a pistol, heard him call her by name, ‘Libby,’ and then heard a shot”….
After attending her husband’s funeral in a state of near-collapse, the young widow was reported to have approached a breakdown. She gave her testimony while lying in bed, with eyes half closed.
The coroner’s inquest concluded that the cause of Reynold’s death was a gunshot fired by person or persons unknown.
Upon hearing more rumors concerning the happenings on the fateful night, Sherriff Scott was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of things. He refused to accept a suicide verdict and continued his investigation. The rumors included the fact that there had been a growing rift in the marriage and that Holman and Walker were having an affair. By witness accounts, an obviously inebriated Holman had argued with Reynolds during the festivities, with Holman storming off and disappearing for a time. There had been heavy drinking all around of corn whiskey and home brewed near beer. According to party goers, Holman was so drunk that Reynolds had to help her up the stairs when they finally retired for the evening.
Lavender Libby
In 1929, Holman had met Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, a DuPont family heiress, who was married at the time—to a man. They became lovers (known as a Boston marriage then), a relationship that would continue off and on for the rest of their lives. “Although friends observed Holman to be a ball breaker with men, she was tender and intimate in her same-sex relationships.”[22]
After much legal maneuvering and influence peddling, Libby Holman, along with Reynold’s best friend, Ab Walker, were indicted for the murder of Smith Reynolds. A grand jury handed down an indictment reading that Holman and Albert Ab Walker "did unlawfully, willfully, feloniously, premeditatedly of their malice or forethought wound and murder Z. Smith Reynolds."
A bond, normally not permitted under North Carolina law in a capital murder case, was set at $25,000 ($557,830.29 today). Louisa Carpenter paid Libby’s bail. Carpenter’s cross-dressing led locals to believe that she was a man. After the legal formalities were disposed of in about an hour, Carpenter whisked Holman out-of-town in a fast car and hid her at various of her properties, including her Delmarva estate near Easton, Maryland.
In the end, the similarities with the Jurges case continued. As Chicago Cub shortstop Bill Jurges declined to prosecute his unrequited lover, thus letting Violet Popovich off the hook, so did the Reynolds family eventually decide not to prosecute Libby Holman. Smith Reynold’s family never liked Holman. Now, they just wanted all of the negative publicity to end. They exercised their considerable influence to arrange to have the charges quietly dropped. The first degree murder case never went to trial.
Holman’s career never completely recovered. She did not have a happy life. Her drinking and drug use took its toll on her. She ended up committing suicide in 1971.
Five years later on February 8, 1976, Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, died in a plane crash near her Maryland estate. She was alone in the plane that she was piloting.
In discussions with friends later in life, Libby Holman said that she was so drunk the night of Reynold’s death that she could not remember a thing about the shooting. She could have shot him, she said, then again, he could have committed suicide.
Carpenter, fictionalized as Louise DePonte, plays an important role in my book. She travels to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympics where, as in real life, she joins in the fun with members of the Sewing Circle, the group of closeted bisexual Hollywood starlets that allegedly included Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Claudette Colbert, and Katharine Hepburn.
Female Privilege
There was a raft of cases that year that featured women in crimes of passion in which they were suspects in the killings of their spouse or lover. Inevitably, the women were acquitted despite incriminating evidence against them. That prompted a female Chicago Tribune writer to speculate that women had an emotional advantage when it came to such things. Juries were reluctant to believe that a woman would be capable of such grusome crimes.
In my book, the Trib column prompts a discussion between protagonists Otto Pohl, 16 going on 17-year-old paper boy for the Tribune before becoming a runner for a member of the Chicago Outfit, and his girlfriend, Amanda, who was two years older, the daughter of a well-to-do surgeon.
“Yeah, Holman’s lawyer argued the same thing about a struggle over the gun until she suddenly went into a coma when that story didn't fit the evidence. Didn’t Mrs. Barney faint in the Old Bailey courtroom?” Otto asked.
“Yes, and just for emphasis, so did her mother. It gave them a ready excuse not to answer questions from the press. Reporters did not believe her story and made that clear in their reporting.”
“Amazing that she got off. What do you suppose will happen with Libby Holman and Val Polansky?”
“I hate to admit this,” Amanda said, “but I think women, especially women of means, have an advantage in these situations. People don't want to believe that a woman is capable of committing these crimes that seem so outlandish. There is a tendency to believe that the man either committed the crime or goaded the woman into doing it.”
“So, Jurges’s behavior made Val shoot him?”
“Or it was an accident. Val and Libby Holman will never be convicted. They have about as much chance of going to jail as Al Capone has of going to heaven.”
“So, with this advantage that you say women have…” Otto said, then paused.
“Yes, and…?” Amanda said after impatiently waiting for Otto to complete his sentence.
“Well, I guess…I was wondering. Do you think you could kill me? Surely, you would get away with it. Rich father. Best lawyers.”
“And what would I inherit for my trouble. Your paper route?”
Retterer, R.C.. 1932 Chicago: Bombs, Beer Wars and Cubs Baseball (p. 61). Kindle Edition.
The elephant in the room in the Smith Reynolds case, was how much of the youth’s rumored $15 million share of the late R.J. Reynold’s estate, said to be worth $150,000,000, Libby might inherit. Because of secretiveness of the Reynolds and Holman families in regard to financial details, there was much speculation as to the amount she finally received.
However, a Washington Post story concludes in a book review of Libby Holman: Body and Soul by Hamilton Darby Perry, “A good deal of Reynolds money eventually came Holman's way, but the most important settlement of her husband's estate was the contribution of more than $7 million toward the establishment of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.”
Some speculated that the contribution was made in order to keep money out of Libby Holman’s hands as much as it was given out of pure charity.