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Golden Years · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Clara Gazoul was a person of many interests. She was
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  Speaker 1: born in September of eighteen oh three in France. Although
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  Speaker 1: she was of Spanish descent, her parents were both painters,
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  Speaker 1: and her father was also a prominent teacher at a
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  Speaker 1: local polytechnic school until he became secretary of the Academy
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  Speaker 1: of Painting and Sculpture. The family was successful and Clara
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  Speaker 1: grew up quite comfortable. When she wasn't learning new languages
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  Speaker 1: or travel in England, she was digging into more eccentric topics,
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  Speaker 1: such as magic. Clara eventually graduated from secondary school, having
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  Speaker 1: focused mostly on classical languages, but once she entered university
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  Speaker 1: she pivoted to law. Her goal was to secure a
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  Speaker 1: position within the royal administration, and in eighteen twenty two
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  Speaker 1: she got one step closer by passing her exams and
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  Speaker 1: earning her law license, but there was still one thing
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  Speaker 1: bothering her at the back of her mind. It was
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  Speaker 1: her other passion, literature. Clara loved to read both local
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  Speaker 1: and foreign authors, and even went as far as to
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  Speaker 1: begin translating certain works into her native tongue. Pretty soon,
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  Speaker 1: Clara found herself inside prominent literary circles, rubbing elbows with
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  Speaker 1: the likes of writer and politician Chateaubriand and Henrie Bail
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  Speaker 1: otherwise known as Stendahl. By eighteen twenty three, she moved
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  Speaker 1: on from translating other people's work to writing her own.
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  Speaker 1: Her first pieces were plays, including a political show titled
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  Speaker 1: Cromwell and a six part compendium called teyech de Clara gazoul.
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  Speaker 1: It was a biding satire on the state of the
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  Speaker 1: current socio political climate in the country, and became a
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  Speaker 1: hit among her fellow writers, so much so that they
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  Speaker 1: sang its praises publicly. Clara was now a big deal
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  Speaker 1: in the literary world and continued to publish all kinds
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  Speaker 1: of pieces, including short stories, novels, and novellas, many of
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  Speaker 1: which were based on her extensive travels throughout Europe. One
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  Speaker 1: of these stories involved a new character, a young Romani
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  Speaker 1: woman who charms a Spanish cavalry officer after robbing him.
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  Speaker 1: This tale had been told to her one of her
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  Speaker 1: visits with the Countess of Montejo in Spain. In the
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  Speaker 1: original story, the woman is not Romani, but Clara had
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  Speaker 1: been studying their language in culture while in Spain and
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  Speaker 1: felt the change made it more interesting. Around the same time,
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  Speaker 1: she took a series of jobs within the government, much
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  Speaker 1: like her literary contemporaries. This eventually led her to the
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  Speaker 1: appointment as Inspector General of Historical Monuments in eighteen thirty three,
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  Speaker 1: a position she held for over twenty years. But even
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  Speaker 1: though she was it work preserving and restoring old structures
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  Speaker 1: of historical importance, she never stopped writing. During this period,
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  Speaker 1: Clara wrote three of her best known novellas, Lavenus Deal
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty seven, Columbia in eighteen forty, and a
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  Speaker 1: third story based on the character first introduced years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: the one about the Spanish soldier and Romani woman whose
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  Speaker 1: name was Carmen now Carmen, was not a huge success
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  Speaker 1: upon its publication, not when compared with the other two novellas.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, Clara didn't get to experience its success at all,
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  Speaker 1: as she died several years before it found a new audience.
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  Speaker 1: But the world wouldn't know Clara Gazool, at least not
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  Speaker 1: as the story's true author. You see, Clara, a Spanish actress,
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  Speaker 1: was actually the main character of Tiatra de Clara Gazool,
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  Speaker 1: the six part play that had put its real author
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  Speaker 1: on the map. In reality, it had been written by
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  Speaker 1: a french Man named Prosper Marrimi, who had been born
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  Speaker 1: to artist parents, had learned a number of languages in school,
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  Speaker 1: and had worked as France's Inspector General of his life
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  Speaker 1: historical monuments for over two decades. In a way, Marrimi
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  Speaker 1: had perpetuated a kind of hoax on the public by
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  Speaker 1: listing the character Clara as the playwright. His novella Carmen
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't gain popularity until eighteen seventy five, when a new
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  Speaker 1: opera by a French composer, George Bizet debuted based on
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  Speaker 1: Marrami's work. Even today, Bezay's Carmen tends to overshadow its
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  Speaker 1: source material, But without Marram's captivating story, we wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: one of the greatest operas ever composed. One aspect of
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  Speaker 1: the book, however, still leaves some readers perplexed. Today. The
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  Speaker 1: original edition of the story features an illustration of the
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  Speaker 1: purported author, Clara Gazoul, opposite the title page. But if
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  Speaker 1: Prosper Marrami a man wrote the book, then whose picture
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  Speaker 1: is that? As it turns out, it's Prosper Marrimi dressed
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  Speaker 1: in drag. There's some of our favorite movies. One's about
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  Speaker 1: daring criminals, elaborate schemes, and of course, mind bending heists.
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  Speaker 1: These are films where every character is a piece on
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  Speaker 1: a chessboard, moving across the spaces in a distinct and
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  Speaker 1: predetermined way in order to keep hidden from the watchful
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  Speaker 1: gaze of security cameras, and of course, to get into
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  Speaker 1: the vault. Maybe it's money thereafter, like in Ocean's Eleven,
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps they're after fine art, like in the Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Crown Affair. But one woman many years ago had a
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  Speaker 1: hankering for diamonds, and she didn't have a team of
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  Speaker 1: trained experts to help her either. It was just her
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  Speaker 1: and it wasn't a movie. Doris Payne, a black woman
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  Speaker 1: from slab Fork, West Virginia, was born a coal miner's
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  Speaker 1: daughter in nineteen thirty. Hers was a life fraught was struggle,
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  Speaker 1: at least when it came to standing out. After all,
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to be noticed when your four brothers and
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  Speaker 1: one sister are hogging all the attention. But not to worry,
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  Speaker 1: Doris eventually found a way to simultaneously stand apart from
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  Speaker 1: the crowd and blend in unnoticed. You see, she never
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  Speaker 1: really had a job, yet she traveled the globe, heading
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  Speaker 1: to countless exotic locations, and she managed to make a
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  Speaker 1: name for herself. You see, she became a thief, a
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  Speaker 1: jewel thief, to be exact. And it all started when
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  Speaker 1: she was a child. She'd gone into a store where
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  Speaker 1: the owner was kind enough to let her try on
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  Speaker 1: a gold watch while he went off to help a
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  Speaker 1: white customer who had entered the store. Doris left with
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  Speaker 1: the timepiece, but she knew right from wrong and later
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  Speaker 1: came back to return what she had taken. Over time,
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  Speaker 1: she developed a kind of charm to help ease people's suspicions,
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  Speaker 1: aided by her expensive taste in fashion. And that's the key.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't look like a jewel thief. She looked like
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  Speaker 1: a socialite in the beginning, she would only steal temporarily
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  Speaker 1: putting something in her purse and then handing it back
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  Speaker 1: like a fisherman tossing back his catch. As she evolved
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  Speaker 1: her Cohn, she would walk up to the counter of
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  Speaker 1: a jewel or department store with a convoluted backstory in
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  Speaker 1: her pocket, something about an inheritance or money she'd gotten
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  Speaker 1: from an insurance company, and as she distracted the salesperson
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  Speaker 1: with her tale of loss, she would sneak a ring
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  Speaker 1: or a necklace into her pocketbook and then slip out
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  Speaker 1: the shop. By the time the clerk realized what had happened,
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  Speaker 1: they would be too late she was gone. Eventually, her
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  Speaker 1: United States excursions grew tiresome, so Doris decided to try
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  Speaker 1: her luck overseas. On her first trip abroad, she traveled
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  Speaker 1: to London, followed by a quick jaunt over to Paris
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  Speaker 1: and then finally Rome. She credited her knowledge of Europe
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  Speaker 1: to her public school education and extensive study of world maps,
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  Speaker 1: but it was her informal education, specifically of gemstones and
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  Speaker 1: their quality, that helped her gain an upper edge in
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  Speaker 1: her exploits. Doris also knew to travel with a variety
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  Speaker 1: of fake names and social security numbers to throw salespeople
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  Speaker 1: and investigators off her trail. In nineteen fifty three, she
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  Speaker 1: left a jewelry store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a to
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  Speaker 1: twenty two thousand dollars diamond, and in the nineteen seventies
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  Speaker 1: in Monte Carlo, she swiped a ten carrot diamond ring
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  Speaker 1: worth half a million dollars. Honestly, Doris never met a
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  Speaker 1: band of gold or a diamond that she didn't like.
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  Speaker 1: But she didn't always get away clean. Sometimes she found
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  Speaker 1: herself being carted away in handcuffs, and once spent five
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  Speaker 1: years in prison for getting nabbed in Colorado. Her wrap
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  Speaker 1: sheet was at least twenty pages long and kept growing.
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  Speaker 1: She was finally stopped for good after stealing an emerald
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  Speaker 1: cut diamond ring from Macy's worth almost nine thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 1: Or maybe it was after her theft of a twelve
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  Speaker 1: carrot white gold ring in California. That item ran twenty
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  Speaker 1: two thousand dollars. And it also could have been after
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  Speaker 1: lifting a thirty three thousand dollars diamond ring from a
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  Speaker 1: shop in North Carolina. You see, that's the problem. The
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  Speaker 1: charges kept adding up. Doris Payne's career as a jewel
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  Speaker 1: thief has spanned sixty years. She's now ninety one years
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  Speaker 1: old and facing numerous criminal charges. But even she should
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  Speaker 1: have retired years ago, she shows no signs of slowing down.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.