Latest / Operation Midnight Climax / Nicolas Cage, Y2K, and History's Most Unlikely Art Heist

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Nicolas Cage, Y2K, and History's Most Unlikely Art Heist · Operation Midnight Climax

0:15
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Very Special Episodes. My name is Jason English.
0:19
Speaker 1: Our show is taking a little break this summer as
0:21
Speaker 1: we reload for the fall. Dana has recorded three episodes
0:26
Speaker 1: this week. Saren's off on a reporting trip in San Francisco.
0:29
Speaker 1: There's lots of good stuff happening under the surface. This week,
0:34
Speaker 1: we thought we'd resurface an older show that this team
0:37
Speaker 1: made back in twenty twenty three. If you're a newer
0:41
Speaker 1: Very Special listener, perhaps you haven't heard it. It's called
0:44
Speaker 1: Stealing Superman. Dana hosted, Jake Rosson wrote it, Josh and
0:49
Speaker 1: John edited and made it sound pretty. It starts at
0:52
Speaker 1: Nick Cage's y two k New Year's Eve party, where
0:56
Speaker 1: his priceless comics are stolen, and we take it through
1:01
Speaker 1: is decade long quests to get them back. It's a
1:04
Speaker 1: wild story, probably even wild by Nick Cage story standards.
1:08
Speaker 1: And if you like it, there are eight more episodes
1:11
Speaker 1: waiting for you in the Stealing Superman feed. We'll link
1:15
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes. If you already listen
1:18
Speaker 1: and binge this one, you need a different recommendation, you
1:22
Speaker 1: can email us Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com.
1:26
Speaker 1: We will find something else for you. Tell us what
1:28
Speaker 1: kind of podcast you like, and we'll send you some recommendations.
1:32
Speaker 1: All right, let's toss it out to Dana.
1:43
Speaker 2: It's early January two thousand and Stephen Fischler is sitting
1:47
Speaker 2: in his office. You probably don't know the name unless
1:50
Speaker 2: you've ever been in the market for expensive comic books,
1:54
Speaker 2: very very expensive comic books. Titles that sell for millions
2:00
Speaker 2: of dollars. Comics that once cost ten cents got thrown
2:04
Speaker 2: away or left to us, and then go on to
2:07
Speaker 2: fetch an incredibly high price for their rarity. Fischler was
2:12
Speaker 2: and still is among the most well known brokers of
2:15
Speaker 2: such books. He's been collecting since he was five years old,
2:19
Speaker 2: a kid in Brooklyn, after stacks of superheroes. If you
2:23
Speaker 2: want a particular title in a particular condition, he can
2:27
Speaker 2: probably find it. And that's what Stephen was doing today,
2:31
Speaker 2: making deals for collectors from his place of business, Metropolis
2:36
Speaker 2: Collectibles in New York City, overflowing with rare books, first
2:41
Speaker 2: appearances of Spider Man, Captain America Archie, many looking like
2:46
Speaker 2: they just came off a newsstand, even though they're decades old.
2:51
Speaker 2: This is the kind of place that even when the
2:53
Speaker 2: comics are sealed in plastic. They give off that distinctive
2:57
Speaker 2: smell of old, cheap paper. Well maybe not so cheap anymore.
3:03
Speaker 2: But today isn't going to be a normal day for Stephen.
3:07
Speaker 2: It's going to be the beginning of a situation, an
3:10
Speaker 2: obsession really, that will take up a good deal of
3:14
Speaker 2: his time, something that will one day have police instructing
3:19
Speaker 2: him on what to do in the event of a shootout,
3:23
Speaker 2: that kind of situation. And it begins, like many stories do,
3:29
Speaker 2: with a phone call.
3:33
Speaker 3: Nick called me very upset and said to me that
3:38
Speaker 3: somebody stole some of his comic books and was really
3:41
Speaker 3: in a panic. I must have been, I don't know
3:43
Speaker 3: about noon my time, and I sort of asked him
3:46
Speaker 3: to sort of slow down so I can understand what
3:48
Speaker 3: went on, and he gave me, you know, an account
3:52
Speaker 3: of what went on as best he could.
3:54
Speaker 2: Nick is Nicholas Cage, the star of huge movies like
3:59
Speaker 2: Face Off, Off, con Air and The Rock, an Oscar winner,
4:04
Speaker 2: a man who ate a live cockroach in Vampire's Kiss
4:07
Speaker 2: because he knew it would draw attention. He didn't win
4:11
Speaker 2: the oscar for that one that was leaving Las Vegas.
4:15
Speaker 2: Cage is talking quickly in that distinctive twang that makes
4:19
Speaker 2: his sentences sound like melodies. He's calling because Stephen is
4:24
Speaker 2: his dealer, his comic book dealer.
4:28
Speaker 3: Well, it started many, many years ago. A friend of
4:32
Speaker 3: mine who was a friend and a comic collector, Miguel ferrerpurrently,
4:37
Speaker 3: was on some movie set with Nick Cage. This is
4:41
Speaker 3: in the eighties when he was not as well known,
4:44
Speaker 3: and they got into a conversation about comic books. And
4:51
Speaker 3: probably a month later, I'm at seeing Nick at a
4:54
Speaker 3: hotel he was living at Cool I think the hotel
4:57
Speaker 3: Ross Moore, and there he was a his crew cut.
5:01
Speaker 3: And this was after Like Valley Girl, I believe Indiet
5:05
Speaker 3: a giant fish tank in his apartment at the hotel
5:08
Speaker 3: with a shark in it. And that's where I first
5:12
Speaker 3: met him and started dealing with him way way back.
5:16
Speaker 2: Since then, Cage has bought hundreds of comics from Stephen.
5:21
Speaker 2: And now Cage is trying to explain that the worst
5:24
Speaker 2: possible thing that could happen to a comic collector has happened.
5:29
Speaker 2: His most valuable books have turned up missing, and not
5:33
Speaker 2: just valuable books, the most valuable book, the most sought
5:39
Speaker 2: after issue of them all, the Mona Lisa of comics.
5:44
Speaker 2: Action Comics number one, the first appearance of a superhero,
5:49
Speaker 2: the first appearance of the Man of Steel, Superman, the
5:55
Speaker 2: most well preserved copy available, a comic so rare that
6:00
Speaker 2: even a rusty staple or some page flex from one
6:04
Speaker 2: can sell for hundreds of dollars to collectors desperate for
6:09
Speaker 2: even a small dose of its magic. Superman, the embodiment
6:14
Speaker 2: of morality and virtue stolen. Stephen takes a deep breath.
6:19
Speaker 2: He asks one of the world's most famous actors to
6:23
Speaker 2: tell him exactly what happened.
6:28
Speaker 3: Nick told me that there was some sort of party
6:31
Speaker 3: and that they disappeared during the party.
6:33
Speaker 4: That was at his house.
6:36
Speaker 2: A party, a heist, a frantic phone call, and as
6:41
Speaker 2: Cage talks, Stephen realizes it gets worse. Action number one
6:46
Speaker 2: is missing, and so is Detective Comics number twenty seven,
6:51
Speaker 2: that was the first appearance of Batman. Someone has run
6:55
Speaker 2: off with half the Justice League from right under the
6:58
Speaker 2: nose of a Hollywood superstar, and that's about all Stephen
7:02
Speaker 2: can get because Cage, in his indomitable cage fashion, is
7:07
Speaker 2: too upset to offer too many details on what will
7:11
Speaker 2: shape up to be the most unlikely art heist of
7:15
Speaker 2: all time. Wo For iHeartRadio, I'm Dana Schwartz. This is
7:26
Speaker 2: Stealing Superman, an iHeart original podcast. Now on my long
7:31
Speaker 2: running podcast Noble Blood, I tell the true stories of
7:34
Speaker 2: historical royals, but occasionally I like to cover a different
7:38
Speaker 2: kind of royalty, Hollywood Royalty. Last fall we brought you Haleywood,
7:44
Speaker 2: a podcast about Bruce Willis buying up a town in
7:47
Speaker 2: Idaho in the nineteen nineties and the friends and enemies
7:51
Speaker 2: he made along the way. This year's tale involves a
7:54
Speaker 2: brazen comic book heist Nicholas Cage and y two K.
7:59
Speaker 2: Let's get at It. Episode one, Beads of Sweat. We
8:08
Speaker 2: need to turn the pages back a little. A few
8:11
Speaker 2: days prior to a house party at three sixty three
8:16
Speaker 2: Copa de Loro Road in bel Air, California, the residents
8:21
Speaker 2: of Nicholas Coppola, known to most people by his stage
8:25
Speaker 2: name Nicholas Cage. New Year's Eve nineteen ninety nine was
8:31
Speaker 2: something special, something peculiar. Remember why two K When people
8:37
Speaker 2: believed that computers wouldn't be able to understand the year
8:40
Speaker 2: two thousand and that it might cripple our infrastructure. Well
8:44
Speaker 2: if The people in attendance at Cage's house were worried
8:47
Speaker 2: about it. They didn't act like it, and if this
8:51
Speaker 2: was the end of the world, Cage was going to
8:54
Speaker 2: make sure they had one hell of a good time
8:56
Speaker 2: on their way out. The scale of a Nicholas Cage
9:06
Speaker 2: party is hard to fathom. You'd have celebrities, actors, producers, directors, agents.
9:13
Speaker 2: Fresh food was laid out on buffet tables made from
9:16
Speaker 2: solid blocks of ice. Giant nutcrackers standing ten feet tall
9:22
Speaker 2: flanked the main entrance. Fake snow was blowing out of machines.
9:28
Speaker 2: Lighting professionals made sure everything looked perfect. At one party,
9:35
Speaker 2: someone brought Cage a pony as a gift. It would
9:38
Speaker 2: be found wandering around the yard the next morning. It
9:43
Speaker 2: was as though Cage were always starring in a party
9:46
Speaker 2: being directed by David Lynch.
9:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, he had amazing parties.
9:51
Speaker 6: I once got a cigar from Jack Nicholson, who was
9:56
Speaker 6: very intoxicated and gave me a cigar to give to
9:59
Speaker 6: my father.
10:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was there. I was there, and we were
10:02
Speaker 5: all there, all the staffs and.
10:04
Speaker 6: All the people, and I met some really amazing people
10:07
Speaker 6: and I had a great time.
10:10
Speaker 2: That's Jen Bosworth Ramirez. Jen worked for Cage in the
10:14
Speaker 2: two thousands, and no, she didn't steal the comics, No
10:18
Speaker 2: I did.
10:19
Speaker 5: Can you imagine?
10:20
Speaker 2: Jen was hired by Cage himself, who conducted the job
10:24
Speaker 2: interview with one of his ears blown off.
10:27
Speaker 6: Okay, And so then I get into this trailer, a
10:30
Speaker 6: small trailer. Wasn't like a fancy he must have been
10:33
Speaker 6: in the makeup trailer or something.
10:35
Speaker 7: I don't know, but it wasn't like a big honey wagon.
10:37
Speaker 7: It was like small.
10:38
Speaker 6: And I'm like, oh my god, I'm sitting across from
10:40
Speaker 6: this movie star. Also, he doesn't look like himself because
10:44
Speaker 6: he literally his ear is blown off. He has my
10:47
Speaker 6: resume faxed in his hand that they had fax to
10:50
Speaker 6: his trailer to the base camp or something, and I'm like,
10:53
Speaker 6: twenty four, I don't know what's happening. Oh and then
10:56
Speaker 6: I said, I said, oh my god, your ear. I
10:58
Speaker 6: remember being really startled because the prosthetics were so good
11:02
Speaker 6: in Win Tucker's that's a John Wulfilm I think.
11:04
Speaker 5: Anyway, the prosthetics were really good. And I said, oh
11:06
Speaker 5: my god, your ear goes. Yeah, that's not real, Like
11:09
Speaker 5: that's a prosthetic. And I was like Oh, okay, it
11:13
Speaker 5: was so awkward. The whole thing was so weird, so weird.
11:16
Speaker 5: I left. I didn't know if I had the Jabbernack.
11:18
Speaker 5: I had no clue what was happening.
11:22
Speaker 2: Jen worked for Cage's production company, Saturn Films. Some perks
11:27
Speaker 2: were parties, like this one in Cage's grand residence, over
11:34
Speaker 2: eleven thousand square feet sitting on one acre in one
11:38
Speaker 2: of the country's most prestigious neighborhoods. Walk inside the house
11:42
Speaker 2: and you're greeted with a different kind of splendor. A
11:47
Speaker 2: real estate agent and architectural historian named Brett Parsons, who
11:52
Speaker 2: once toured the house, described the style as frat house,
11:56
Speaker 2: bordello or quote early American Adams family. Those sound like insults,
12:04
Speaker 2: and well maybe they were. But however you felt about it,
12:08
Speaker 2: it was undoubtedly a reflection of its owner. Originally built
12:13
Speaker 2: by famed architect Gerard Colcord in nineteen forty, it was
12:17
Speaker 2: once owned by Dean Martin and later Tom Jones, who
12:21
Speaker 2: sold it to Cage in nineteen ninety eight. Cage would
12:25
Speaker 2: make some improvements or changes, at least purple curtains hung
12:31
Speaker 2: from windows. A vintage nineteen fifty five Jaguar car had
12:36
Speaker 2: been painstakingly disassembled and put back together in one room
12:41
Speaker 2: until the pungent smell of oil overcame visitors and it
12:44
Speaker 2: had to go. There were even people who swore they
12:48
Speaker 2: saw shrunken heads.
12:50
Speaker 6: Oh you know, I never knew that. I never saw
12:53
Speaker 6: the shrunk and heads I heard about that. That doesn't
12:55
Speaker 6: shock me either.
12:55
Speaker 7: I mean he had dinosaur bones. I think.
13:01
Speaker 2: Model trains were running above diners in the breakfast room
13:05
Speaker 2: and throughout the house were bronze wallsconces light fixtures, but
13:10
Speaker 2: not ordinary light fixtures. These were fixtures sculpted out of
13:16
Speaker 2: a cast made from Nicholas Cage's arm, his muscled appendages
13:20
Speaker 2: illuminating the home.
13:22
Speaker 5: The bel Air House, it's my recollection.
13:25
Speaker 6: It's a huge gothic mansion, meaning there's probably like ten
13:28
Speaker 6: bedrooms in there. I mostly hung out in the living area.
13:33
Speaker 6: It was like a I think probably a three story situation.
13:36
Speaker 6: Outside it looked like a regular you know, if I
13:39
Speaker 6: recall correctly, like a brick mansion that you'd see in
13:42
Speaker 6: bel Air. But inside he had it decorated like super
13:45
Speaker 6: gothicky and dark and ornate at points and not my style,
13:49
Speaker 6: Like that's not my jam. But it was like a castle.
13:51
Speaker 6: That's what I could sort of say. It reminds me
13:53
Speaker 6: of a castle. A lot of rooms, a lot of
13:55
Speaker 6: twists and turns. It was not an open floor plant.
13:59
Speaker 6: Let's just say, you know what I mean, there's a
14:01
Speaker 6: pool that. I didn't spend a ton of time there,
14:03
Speaker 6: but I do remember being like whoa, I remember purple drapes.
14:07
Speaker 2: As guests wandered through the home, they would have noticed
14:11
Speaker 2: something else. Lining the walls on the second floor were
14:14
Speaker 2: comic books. Lots of comic books, the first appearance of
14:20
Speaker 2: Captain America and Green Lantern and The Justice Society, comics
14:24
Speaker 2: from the Golden Age of the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties,
14:29
Speaker 2: science fiction comics, and horror comics. Skeletons peering out at
14:34
Speaker 2: the reader, and scantily clad women gasping at probing alien marauders.
14:40
Speaker 2: Any comic book fan would have taken one look and
14:43
Speaker 2: seethed with envy.
14:46
Speaker 3: At least hundred scattered throughout the housewoods one book in
14:50
Speaker 3: each frame.
14:52
Speaker 2: As you can probably imagine, Cage didn't just pin the
14:55
Speaker 2: comics to the wall. This was an ornate display. Each
15:00
Speaker 2: frame was nineteen and a half inches long by sixteen
15:04
Speaker 2: and a half inches wide. Each was made of stained maple.
15:09
Speaker 2: Each had a small lock that could only be opened
15:12
Speaker 2: with a key, and each was connected to a pressure
15:15
Speaker 2: censor alarm. If someone had the key and were to
15:19
Speaker 2: open the frame and remove the comic inside, Cage's security
15:23
Speaker 2: staff would be immediately notified. You couldn't easily pill for
15:27
Speaker 2: any of these books unless, well, hang on, we're almost there,
15:32
Speaker 2: but let's finish the tour. The hub of Cage's collection
15:36
Speaker 2: was in what he called a smoking lounge. It was
15:40
Speaker 2: originally a secret room used by Dean Martin, and accessible
15:46
Speaker 2: only if you knew how to get in from an
15:48
Speaker 2: adjoining bathroom through a panel door that pops open. It's
15:54
Speaker 2: kind of a clandestine deal. A spiral staircase curved up
15:59
Speaker 2: and its tight, so tight Cage had to bring up
16:02
Speaker 2: the furniture in pieces. This secret smoking room was, like
16:08
Speaker 2: other parts of the house, decorated heavily in purple, purple furniture,
16:14
Speaker 2: purple walls, a purple carpet with gold accents, A spiral
16:19
Speaker 2: staircase leading to the roof, carpeted in well, you get it.
16:24
Speaker 2: It was in this small room that Cage went to unwind,
16:29
Speaker 2: a respite from fame or even from hosting duties. It's
16:33
Speaker 2: a small, intimate room and the walls were lined with
16:37
Speaker 2: his most valuable comics. Hanging in one wall frame was
16:43
Speaker 2: Detective Comics Number twenty seven, dated May nineteen thirty nine.
16:50
Speaker 2: The cover captures its protagonist in the thick of it. Batman,
16:54
Speaker 2: a strange, masked vigilante readers have never seen before, is
16:59
Speaker 2: swooping into frame to put a criminal in a chokehold.
17:03
Speaker 2: As Batman cuts off the hood's corroded artery. He's hanging
17:07
Speaker 2: from a supported building outside of you. In the lower
17:11
Speaker 2: left corner, two crooks look on, one is armed. Both
17:16
Speaker 2: seem unsure of what to do about the man with
17:18
Speaker 2: violent tendencies dressed as a bat It's advertising sixty four
17:23
Speaker 2: pages of action. Once upon a time. It was ten
17:27
Speaker 2: cents in two thousand. It's thought to be worth up
17:31
Speaker 2: to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It's actually why
17:36
Speaker 2: Cage went to Fishler in the first place.
17:40
Speaker 3: He wanted a Detective twenty seven, so that's what the
17:43
Speaker 3: conversation focused on. I had brought him a twenty seven
17:46
Speaker 3: to look at, but it had too much restoration that
17:48
Speaker 3: particular copy. But that was the first meeting his interest
17:52
Speaker 3: in a Detective Comics twenty seven.
17:55
Speaker 2: But that was really just a warm up. As desirable
17:58
Speaker 2: a book as Detective Umber twenty seven was and is,
18:02
Speaker 2: it's always taken second place in the comic book hierarchy
18:06
Speaker 2: to its bigger brother, the birth of the superhero genre,
18:11
Speaker 2: the comic that would change popular culture forever. Action Comics
18:20
Speaker 2: number one, dated June nineteen thirty eight, but actually released
18:25
Speaker 2: a little earlier. You've probably seen the cover. It's part
18:29
Speaker 2: of our cultural iconography by this point. They're Superman hefting
18:34
Speaker 2: a car clear over his head. His costume isn't much
18:37
Speaker 2: different from the one he sports today. Less refined, sure,
18:41
Speaker 2: but the red cape, boots, and s insignia are all
18:45
Speaker 2: there Bystanders are fleeing from the scene, terrified of this
18:55
Speaker 2: man with super strength. In the lower left corner is
18:58
Speaker 2: a man who is positive hysterical. His hands are clasped
19:03
Speaker 2: to his face like the figure in Edward Monk's the screen.
19:07
Speaker 2: He's running away. Maybe he's part of the crew inside
19:10
Speaker 2: the car the crooked Superman is trying to bring to justice.
19:14
Speaker 2: Maybe he's not involved. Either way, he's got beads of
19:18
Speaker 2: sweat running down his forehead. Seeing Superman for the first
19:22
Speaker 2: time has to be stressful. Nowadays people are happy to
19:26
Speaker 2: see him, They wave and clap. Not this crew, They
19:30
Speaker 2: were scared. Two hundred thousand copies of this comic book
19:34
Speaker 2: were printed in nineteen thirty eight. Fewer than one hundred
19:39
Speaker 2: copies are believed to still exist, and even fewer in
19:42
Speaker 2: good condition. Cage's copy is considered one of the most
19:47
Speaker 2: well preserved. With bright colors and an intact cover, Superman
19:53
Speaker 2: is still a deep red and blue. The pages inside
19:57
Speaker 2: are a creamy white. On a scale of one to ten,
20:01
Speaker 2: it's an easy nine. A comic over sixty years old
20:05
Speaker 2: to survive, to endure and look this good is remarkable.
20:11
Speaker 2: Unlike some comics that get restored, this Action number one
20:16
Speaker 2: hasn't had any work done.
20:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is now much later, probably around I'm going
20:23
Speaker 3: to say nineteen ninety six or so. And he had
20:27
Speaker 3: an interest in buying an Action one in high grade.
20:30
Speaker 3: I knew a collector who had one, and I was
20:33
Speaker 3: able to It was sort of a difficult deal, but
20:36
Speaker 3: I was able to put the deal together, and that
20:38
Speaker 3: was the book that Nick ended up with. It was
20:41
Speaker 3: just the mechanics of giving me the book, and I
20:44
Speaker 3: think the collector was enamored of selling it to Nick.
20:47
Speaker 3: And I met with Nick without the collector there, but
20:50
Speaker 3: I put Nick on the phone with this collector then
20:54
Speaker 3: the deal went through. He just kind of wanted to
20:56
Speaker 3: meet him, just to be honest, But Nick really did
20:59
Speaker 3: value it. Was very excited about buying this book as
21:02
Speaker 3: well he should, and I thought it would be sort
21:04
Speaker 3: of a fun deal to pull off selling it to him.
21:07
Speaker 2: Cage paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for Action
21:11
Speaker 2: Number One in nineteen ninety seven. That was a record
21:15
Speaker 2: for a comic book sale at the time, but three
21:18
Speaker 2: years later it's likely worth more, perhaps as much as
21:21
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars. It's the crown jewel of Cage's collection.
21:27
Speaker 2: It would be the centerpiece of any comic book collection today.
21:32
Speaker 2: Right now, copies of both of these comics are worth
21:35
Speaker 2: two to three million each, if not more. They've only
21:40
Speaker 2: appreciated in value, but Cage appreciated them then in two thousand,
21:45
Speaker 2: before comic book movies became the only thing playing in multiplexes,
21:50
Speaker 2: he grew up reading comics. He took his stage name
21:53
Speaker 2: Cage partly after Luke Cage, the seventies Marvel comic hero
21:58
Speaker 2: with impenetrable skins in a good superhero for an actor
22:02
Speaker 2: who didn't always find kindness coming from critics. But the
22:07
Speaker 2: comics were something else for Nicholas Cage two. Like the
22:11
Speaker 2: House itself, they were monuments to Cage's success. From turns
22:16
Speaker 2: as strange characters in Moonstruck and Raising Arizona to winning
22:20
Speaker 2: an Oscar to becoming an action star, Cage had navigated
22:24
Speaker 2: Hollywood successfully, and he arrived at a time when the
22:28
Speaker 2: industry was paying record salaries. After the Academy Awards win,
22:34
Speaker 2: Cage's quote for a movie went from four million dollars
22:38
Speaker 2: to seven million dollars. Years before, Cage had asked the
22:43
Speaker 2: director of a small film he was going to make
22:46
Speaker 2: a cameo in Never on Tuesday if the man could
22:49
Speaker 2: buy him an Action Comics number one instead of paying him.
22:53
Speaker 2: The director couldn't afford to, but now Cage could afford
22:57
Speaker 2: to buy his own copy, and so he did.
23:01
Speaker 3: He loved his book.
23:02
Speaker 2: I mean this actual one met a lot to him,
23:04
Speaker 2: which brings us to Stephen Fischler's phone ringing and Nicholas
23:09
Speaker 2: Cage telling him his comics were no longer bare. It
23:22
Speaker 2: was a few days before Stephen could make it out
23:25
Speaker 2: to California, but he did. Stephen, of course, wasn't in
23:29
Speaker 2: law enforcement, but he was one of the few people
23:32
Speaker 2: in Caju's circle who could understand the enormity of what
23:36
Speaker 2: had happened. Saying it was just a comic book theft
23:39
Speaker 2: was like saying a museum heist only resulted in some
23:43
Speaker 2: plaster going missing.
23:45
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure as soon as he realized that
23:47
Speaker 3: they're missing, he called me. It seemed like, you know,
23:51
Speaker 3: on the spot. He called me because I was this
23:53
Speaker 3: comic guy, so this is about a comic. He wanted,
23:58
Speaker 3: I guess, advice, and that's what I gave him, and
24:01
Speaker 3: I offered to come out to help, which is what
24:03
Speaker 3: I did. Then maybe a week or two.
24:06
Speaker 2: According to Stephen, it had taken a day or two,
24:09
Speaker 2: perhaps longer, for Cage to realize the comics were missing.
24:13
Speaker 2: A maid had been in the smoking room and noticed
24:16
Speaker 2: that three of the frames were empty, and something else
24:20
Speaker 2: that was curious. Those lockable frames hadn't been forcibly opened.
24:27
Speaker 3: So my brain went, oh, it's maybe misplaced. Maybe they
24:32
Speaker 3: were put somewhere. I went there it was described. I
24:36
Speaker 3: saw that I had sold nick these shadow box frames
24:40
Speaker 3: that the books were located in, and the Action one
24:42
Speaker 3: in Detective twenty seven were in the shadow box frames.
24:46
Speaker 3: And there are the frames with the label on it
24:48
Speaker 3: Action Won with nothing in it. So the frames were
24:51
Speaker 3: opened and taken. But I went through. He had two
24:54
Speaker 3: safes there. I went through the safes and I went, huh,
24:58
Speaker 3: this may be actually stolen.
24:59
Speaker 2: Them weren't just loose inside their frames. They were each
25:03
Speaker 2: in protective hard plastic sleeves. It's called a fortress, and
25:09
Speaker 2: it's used by serious collectors to make sure comics didn't
25:12
Speaker 2: get bent, ripped, or otherwise damaged. Each fortress was held
25:17
Speaker 2: together in two pieces by screws. If a thief wanted
25:21
Speaker 2: to take the naked books, they would have needed to
25:24
Speaker 2: spend a little bit of time unscrewing each fortress, but
25:28
Speaker 2: the fortress sleeves were entirely gone. Whoever took them would
25:32
Speaker 2: have had to deal with a little extra book as
25:34
Speaker 2: opposed to just rolling up the comics and stuffing them
25:37
Speaker 2: in a pocket, something that would have been unspeakable for
25:41
Speaker 2: a rare comic. It could also mean the thief or
25:44
Speaker 2: thieves didn't have time to remove the books from the
25:47
Speaker 2: fortress covers that they needed to move quickly.
25:51
Speaker 3: It's a little bigger than the book, but if you
25:54
Speaker 3: put it in your jacket, it's not so big. It's
25:56
Speaker 3: not like taking a giant painting and taking it off
25:58
Speaker 3: the wall.
25:59
Speaker 2: Fisher noticed something else Cage had mentioned in their conversation.
26:03
Speaker 2: The thief had also made off with a third comic
26:06
Speaker 2: from a frame. It was a copy of Detective Comics
26:10
Speaker 2: Number one from nineteen thirty seven, an even older title
26:14
Speaker 2: than the big two. While certainly valuable and worth ten
26:18
Speaker 2: thousand dollars or so, it wasn't nearly as desirable. No
26:23
Speaker 2: famous heroes made an appearance in it. The stories inside
26:27
Speaker 2: lacked real staying power. You probably haven't heard of Speed
26:32
Speaker 2: Saunders and the River Patrol or Cosmo the Phantom of Disguise.
26:37
Speaker 2: Maybe the thief just saw an opportunity to take it.
26:41
Speaker 2: Maybe he saw Detective and number one and thought any
26:44
Speaker 2: issue with that title was prized, But that still wasn't
26:48
Speaker 2: the biggest news.
26:49
Speaker 3: There was an alarm in the back of each frame,
26:52
Speaker 3: and I guess the box was open, and maybe the
26:56
Speaker 3: alarm was not set for they want to be triggered
26:58
Speaker 3: when the box was open, but apparently that was the
27:00
Speaker 3: idea behind it. I saw there was a wire attached
27:03
Speaker 3: to the back of each shadow box, attached to the wall.
27:06
Speaker 3: A lot of money setting this up, but unfortunately somebody
27:10
Speaker 3: was able to open up these frames and take the
27:13
Speaker 3: books out. Probably understood these are the most valuable books.
27:17
Speaker 2: What Cage liked to do was take the books out
27:20
Speaker 2: of their wall frames and rearrange them, show them off
27:24
Speaker 2: to people. That's what collectors do, and then he'd leave
27:28
Speaker 2: them unlocked and the alarm disengaged. That's sometimes what happens
27:33
Speaker 2: when people install alarms. They become a nuisance and so
27:37
Speaker 2: they're deactivated. That meant that, at least in theory, anyone
27:43
Speaker 2: could walk up and grab a piece of comic book
27:47
Speaker 2: history and disappear into the throngs of a Nick Cage
27:53
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve party. But it would have been bold
27:57
Speaker 2: to take the books without some sort of knowledge that
28:00
Speaker 2: they were unlocked and disarmed.
28:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure what this individual knew or didn't know.
28:08
Speaker 3: I think that this individual saw Nick open up the
28:11
Speaker 3: case and show the book to somebody, and he probably
28:14
Speaker 3: went ooh and opened it up. It doesn't bring me.
28:18
Speaker 2: If that's what happened, it's not likely they would have
28:21
Speaker 2: been stopped, not at a Cage party.
28:25
Speaker 6: At one of those parties, especially, Are you kidding me?
28:28
Speaker 6: You have to understand, like everyone's drinking, it's a huge party.
28:32
Speaker 6: Everyone's trying to make business deals and get to know
28:35
Speaker 6: the famous people.
28:36
Speaker 7: Oh sure, there's so much stuff in those houses. You'd
28:39
Speaker 7: have to have security guards watching every room like a museum.
28:43
Speaker 5: No, of course.
28:44
Speaker 7: And also if there is this thing that you let
28:46
Speaker 7: people into your house you trust.
28:48
Speaker 5: The problem with that is you let two hundred people
28:50
Speaker 5: into your house, you can't trust them, all.
28:52
Speaker 7: Right, So, oh yeah, someone would be able to leave.
28:54
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me?
28:56
Speaker 2: But Stephen wasn't entirely convinced a crime had been come out,
29:00
Speaker 2: not yet. First, he diligently searched the enormous house. It
29:07
Speaker 2: was certainly possible Cage had taken the books out and
29:10
Speaker 2: set them down somewhere without remembering, Or maybe a party
29:14
Speaker 2: guest had picked them up and left them in another room.
29:18
Speaker 2: Maybe a thief considered taking them, then panicked when they
29:21
Speaker 2: ran into someone and decided to leave them behind. All
29:26
Speaker 2: were reasonable possibilities, but the more Stephen looked, the more
29:31
Speaker 2: he realized that nothing innocent had taken place.
29:34
Speaker 3: And I really, after probably spending six or seven hours
29:38
Speaker 3: in the house, said yeah, and now in understanding that
29:41
Speaker 3: this was in this case, that it's not there, nobody
29:45
Speaker 3: took it out that works for Nick and put it
29:47
Speaker 3: somewhere else, It would be unusual.
29:49
Speaker 2: He couldn't find a trace of them, not a page,
29:53
Speaker 2: not a screw, not anything. So if this was a crime,
29:57
Speaker 2: and it was looking that way, who were the suspects.
30:02
Speaker 2: It was incredibly unlikely a burglar had somehow made their
30:05
Speaker 2: way into the home undetected, forcing their way in through
30:08
Speaker 2: a window or door. It had to have been the
30:12
Speaker 2: party where dozens of people had filed through Cage's home
30:16
Speaker 2: like they were on a museum tour. To make matters worse,
30:20
Speaker 2: Cage had more than one gathering around that time. It
30:24
Speaker 2: could have been his New Year's party, or it could
30:27
Speaker 2: have been a birthday or Christmas bash. It was impossible
30:31
Speaker 2: to know the exact night the comics had disappeared, but
30:35
Speaker 2: Cage's guests were always friends or friends of friends. Robbing
30:40
Speaker 2: the actor seemed pretty out of character for wealthy, connected people,
30:45
Speaker 2: but Fischler was told that there was another possibility.
30:50
Speaker 3: There was talk of somebody who worked at the party
30:55
Speaker 3: selling some alcohol, almost like a bodyguard or somebody who
31:00
Speaker 3: worked at his house. It seemed like just for that day,
31:03
Speaker 3: it didn't seem like a regular employee. And that person
31:06
Speaker 3: was selling alcohol in the back of a car, and
31:09
Speaker 3: that alcohol seemed to have been taken out of Nick's
31:11
Speaker 3: house as well. So there was the belief that this
31:14
Speaker 3: is the thief that took.
31:16
Speaker 2: The books, A transient worker of sorts there just for
31:20
Speaker 2: the party, someone who had access to Cage's home but
31:24
Speaker 2: wasn't a friend or associate. It made sense, but nothing
31:28
Speaker 2: came of it, and nothing came of speaking with Cage's
31:32
Speaker 2: many employees, security staff, a chef, cleaning staff, drivers all
31:37
Speaker 2: had varying degrees of access to Cage's home. In theory,
31:42
Speaker 2: one of them could have used the party as a cover,
31:44
Speaker 2: a way to deepen the suspect pool to help avoid detection.
31:49
Speaker 2: Or someone could have used that information and given it
31:52
Speaker 2: to a third party a kind of tip. But was
31:55
Speaker 2: it likely. Was someone really going to steal from Nick
31:59
Speaker 2: Cage and then just continue reporting for work as if
32:02
Speaker 2: nothing had happened In the gated exclusive community of bel Air.
32:08
Speaker 2: Well yeah, flash forward about a year. Movie producer Peter Guber,
32:19
Speaker 2: who also lives in bel Air, discovers he short one
32:23
Speaker 2: Picasso drawing titled fun from nineteen thirty seven, taken from
32:29
Speaker 2: his wall. A glass entry door appeared to be kicked out.
32:33
Speaker 2: Just like that, his Picasso was gone. Like Cage. Gouber
32:38
Speaker 2: had a full time staff twenty nine employees to be exact,
32:43
Speaker 2: and all were questioned. Nothing turned up, nothing until five
32:48
Speaker 2: months later, when a man named Tony walked into Christie's,
32:53
Speaker 2: the famed auction house, and asked if they'd be interested
32:56
Speaker 2: in purchasing an authentic Picasso drawing Fawn. He was going
33:02
Speaker 2: through a divorce, he said, and wanted sixty thousand dollars
33:06
Speaker 2: for it. And then Tony said something odd. He said
33:10
Speaker 2: the drawing by one of the world's most famous artists
33:14
Speaker 2: was quote ugly. The Christie's employee furrowed her brow and
33:20
Speaker 2: told Tony to hang on for just a second. On
33:23
Speaker 2: a hunch, she got online and checked out the Los
33:26
Speaker 2: Angeles Police Department's database of stolen art. There, alongside a
33:32
Speaker 2: note about Nicholas Cage's missing copy of Action Comics, Number
33:35
Speaker 2: one was a notice about the missing picasso. Tony was
33:41
Speaker 2: arrested and that wasn't as you may have guessed his
33:44
Speaker 2: real name. He was a driver for Peter Goober, who
33:48
Speaker 2: snuck into the house and smashed a window to make
33:50
Speaker 2: it look like a break in. He had seen the Picasso.
33:54
Speaker 2: He gave in to temptation. If Tony could do it, well,
33:59
Speaker 2: why not someone working for Cage, someone who knew the
34:02
Speaker 2: comics were often unlocked, unarmed and easily accessible. Was it,
34:09
Speaker 2: like Goober's drawing an inside job?
34:18
Speaker 6: But the thing to know about in his life then
34:21
Speaker 6: is that there were so many people working for him.
34:24
Speaker 5: It's fascinating.
34:25
Speaker 6: He had a staff I would say of like maybe
34:28
Speaker 6: of around fifteen twenty p.
34:29
Speaker 5: I mean, it was crazy.
34:31
Speaker 7: It's hard to keep track of everybody.
34:33
Speaker 6: There's such an enabling thing of celebrities that like, my
34:37
Speaker 6: first thing when you say about the comic is like, well,
34:39
Speaker 6: what if this is an inside job?
34:41
Speaker 7: Totally an inside job at the house.
34:44
Speaker 2: That's Jen Bosworth Ramirez. Again. Jen has some ideas about
34:49
Speaker 2: how Cage found himself in this position. First, there's the
34:53
Speaker 2: house itself, the Purple Palace.
34:55
Speaker 5: That house is huge. I don't think he still owns it.
34:57
Speaker 6: I think he lives in Vegas, but like that so
35:00
Speaker 6: big and had so much stuff in it. It was
35:02
Speaker 6: like this gothic mansion obviously in bel Air, but it
35:05
Speaker 6: also had twist and turns in that house, and he
35:08
Speaker 6: had what I believe is the first danger Will Robinson
35:12
Speaker 6: robot in the house, which I remember being really weirded
35:15
Speaker 6: out by from what was it lost in space? I
35:17
Speaker 6: think anyway, it was like a museum, so it doesn't
35:19
Speaker 6: shock me that something walked off from that house.
35:22
Speaker 5: If it did, that's what actually happened.
35:25
Speaker 2: Other sources say the robot was a replica, but still so.
35:30
Speaker 2: The Cage Museum of Modern Art is one factor, and
35:33
Speaker 2: the other is people in Cage's orbit, the employees, associates,
35:39
Speaker 2: hangers on.
35:41
Speaker 6: The other thing to note about this time, and maybe
35:43
Speaker 6: it's all times with celebrities and kind of interesting weird celebrities,
35:47
Speaker 6: is that they always have.
35:48
Speaker 5: A cast of characters around them.
35:50
Speaker 6: They sort of lect people people that are in the
35:52
Speaker 6: industry and people that are not in the industry.
35:55
Speaker 5: I could totally also see how someone.
35:57
Speaker 6: Like Nick could get involved with someone who could be
36:00
Speaker 6: a little shady, you know what I mean, because everyone's
36:02
Speaker 6: shady here in Hollywood in some way, right.
36:06
Speaker 2: And Cage had undoubtedly run into them. So you have
36:10
Speaker 2: a party at your house, there's an object worth at
36:14
Speaker 2: least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars that's small enough
36:17
Speaker 2: to fit inside of a jacket. Two of them. Actually,
36:22
Speaker 2: people can wander around freely. Employees come and go, and
36:27
Speaker 2: you're away for maybe half the year shooting movies. Would
36:31
Speaker 2: you just leave it unlocked and available for anyone to
36:35
Speaker 2: pick up? If you're Nicholas Cage, yes, yes you do.
36:41
Speaker 6: My understanding of him is that he started acting so young,
36:45
Speaker 6: and because he was from kind of a famous family,
36:48
Speaker 6: you know, the Coppolas, And because of all these things,
36:51
Speaker 6: he was sort of like protected from a lot of
36:54
Speaker 6: the harsh truths of the world that people can take
36:58
Speaker 6: advantage of you, which is something I actually have seen
37:00
Speaker 6: over and over with celebrities, but especially with Nick. I
37:03
Speaker 6: was struck by the fact that he was super earnest
37:07
Speaker 6: in a way that shocked me. It was like he
37:10
Speaker 6: wanted to believe the best in people. But more than that,
37:13
Speaker 6: I don't think he thought people would do that to him,
37:17
Speaker 6: steal from him. It's really weird because you would think
37:20
Speaker 6: that people would be like, Oh, I have money and
37:22
Speaker 6: fancy things, and I have random people in my house.
37:25
Speaker 6: This could be a big problem. I never experienced him
37:28
Speaker 6: that way. It was so interesting during that time. I
37:31
Speaker 6: remember being like, Oh, he like really takes people at
37:35
Speaker 6: their word.
37:37
Speaker 2: The famous Cage eccentricity. You probably figured we'd address this.
37:43
Speaker 2: Cage has always been perceived as slightly odd. What other
37:48
Speaker 2: actor has bought a dinosaur skull for two hundred and
37:51
Speaker 2: seventy six thousand dollars and then had to give it
37:54
Speaker 2: back when it was discovered that it was stolen from Mongolia?
37:58
Speaker 2: Who else? Has described his own acting style as no
38:02
Speaker 2: vu shamanistic? And again, we remind you of eating a
38:06
Speaker 2: live roach. So Cage is not exactly playing by any
38:11
Speaker 2: particular rule book. And it's fair to say he experienced
38:15
Speaker 2: the world in a very different way.
38:18
Speaker 6: And it was like he couldn't understand that there were
38:22
Speaker 6: consequences financially. I don't know that he knew that if
38:26
Speaker 6: you don't pay a parking meter, there's a ticket, and
38:28
Speaker 6: if you don't pay the ticket, it like increases. Because
38:31
Speaker 6: I think everyone just did things for him all the time.
38:35
Speaker 5: He didn't know certain things.
38:38
Speaker 2: But by his own admission, Cage was often interested in
38:41
Speaker 2: building up a mythology around himself. Why else by a
38:45
Speaker 2: two headed snake and share the fact that you had
38:48
Speaker 2: to feed it with a spatula between the heads to
38:51
Speaker 2: keep them separated. Why else stand up in a restaurant
38:55
Speaker 2: and throw a ketchup bottle against the wall to impress
38:58
Speaker 2: a date, Or get on a plane intercom and pretend
39:01
Speaker 2: to be an ill pilot losing control of the plane.
39:04
Speaker 2: Why else appear on a talk show in the UK
39:07
Speaker 2: and stripped down to your bare chest. Cage seemed to
39:12
Speaker 2: enjoy testing the boundaries of personality, creating his own alter ego,
39:17
Speaker 2: like Superman created Clark Kent, so that it became difficult
39:21
Speaker 2: for anyone to compare the real Cage to a part
39:24
Speaker 2: because well, who was the real Cage anyway?
39:28
Speaker 8: Well, there was this story I used to get beat
39:32
Speaker 8: up on the bustle on. I went to a correctional
39:35
Speaker 8: school for juvenile delinquents and I wasn't a big guy.
39:38
Speaker 2: I was ten years old.
39:39
Speaker 8: I got kicked out of school because I was, you know,
39:41
Speaker 8: the class clown, coming up with pranks and whatnot, fried
39:44
Speaker 8: grasshoppers and people's egg salad sandwiches, and I used to
39:49
Speaker 8: get beat up on the bus every day, and then
39:52
Speaker 8: I was Nicky Koppel. That was my name. So one
39:55
Speaker 8: day I went to school and I dressed up, put
39:58
Speaker 8: my cowboy boots on, put my black leather acting on,
40:00
Speaker 8: put my sunglasses on, and so I was Roy Richards.
40:06
Speaker 8: And if you mess around with my cousin, Nikki Koppel,
40:09
Speaker 8: I'm gonna kick your ass. So after that they never
40:11
Speaker 8: screwed around with me anymore. So that was really my
40:13
Speaker 8: first acting experience.
40:16
Speaker 2: The eccentricity probably gets exaggerated, but it's also true that Cage,
40:22
Speaker 2: like many stars, is somewhat distanced from the normal burdens
40:27
Speaker 2: of life. There was the time he bought a Bentley,
40:32
Speaker 2: a beautiful Bentley, and had it customized so that it
40:35
Speaker 2: had every available amenity you could think of. Plush seats, televisions,
40:40
Speaker 2: a stereo, a bar, luxury. When Cage got it back,
40:45
Speaker 2: you found he couldn't fit inside of it anymore. There
40:48
Speaker 2: had been too many additions. It became too opulent to
40:53
Speaker 2: contain him. It also just didn't occur to Cage that
40:56
Speaker 2: anyone would mean him any harm. By the accounts of
41:01
Speaker 2: people who worked for him, generous kind, far from the
41:06
Speaker 2: egocentric star stereotype. It probably never occurred to him that
41:11
Speaker 2: action number one could be taken, because who would want
41:14
Speaker 2: to do that to him?
41:17
Speaker 5: Too many people? Do you know what I mean?
41:19
Speaker 7: Like, why do we need all these people? I don't know.
41:22
Speaker 5: It was such a weird time.
41:23
Speaker 6: He had tons of people working for him, tons, and
41:26
Speaker 6: then that doesn't include his agents, manager, and then all
41:30
Speaker 6: of the publicists.
41:31
Speaker 7: I mean, it's a huge team of people and he's
41:35
Speaker 7: paying for all them.
41:36
Speaker 2: And you're probably wondering security footage. Nope, no cameras inside,
41:42
Speaker 2: no one guarding the doors, no one searching bags or
41:46
Speaker 2: patting people down. It was a party, not a tsa checkpoint.
41:50
Speaker 6: Being at the house and seeing sort of the grandness
41:55
Speaker 6: with which he lived in terms of how much stuff
42:00
Speaker 6: he had and collectibles, it was a whole new world
42:03
Speaker 6: to me, and I can.
42:04
Speaker 5: Easily see how that.
42:07
Speaker 6: World, as glorious as it could be and as fun,
42:10
Speaker 6: could also be a huge burden, and to keep track
42:13
Speaker 6: of everything and everybody in your life would be almost impossible.
42:19
Speaker 6: That's the story is just being at his house, You're
42:21
Speaker 6: playing pool with Tom Waits and Jack Nicholson just gave
42:25
Speaker 6: you a cigar, and this is this guy's house, and
42:27
Speaker 6: yet nobody really knows you.
42:30
Speaker 5: It's very him. It's very weird. It's a weird life.
42:33
Speaker 5: But that I think would be it. It's just being
42:34
Speaker 5: the grandness of the whole thing and all the things and.
42:37
Speaker 6: People and being like, oh, who really are these people
42:40
Speaker 6: and what are they doing here?
42:41
Speaker 5: And what are we doing here? And what is this
42:43
Speaker 5: kind of a life? It seems like I'd be very
42:45
Speaker 5: overwhelming and unmanageable.
42:47
Speaker 2: But Stephen Fischler thought he could help manage at least
42:50
Speaker 2: one part, the stolen comic part. He understood that if
42:55
Speaker 2: these books were going to surface, there was a very
42:57
Speaker 2: good chance he would hear about it. So no one
43:01
Speaker 2: went to the media, and that was on purpose.
43:05
Speaker 3: If you make it very public, then somebody's going to go, oh,
43:11
Speaker 3: it is very public. And I can't publicly sell these
43:14
Speaker 3: books because everybody knows. But if they steal them and
43:18
Speaker 3: they're not able to find references to the theft, then
43:22
Speaker 3: they may believe that nobody realized, and now they're free
43:26
Speaker 3: and clear to sell. But I think the word might
43:29
Speaker 3: have gotten around about this theft in LA.
43:32
Speaker 2: Instead of calling the Los Angeles Times Stephen picked up
43:36
Speaker 2: the phone and began dialing Los Angeles area comic book shops.
43:40
Speaker 2: He told owners that some valuable comics had been taken,
43:44
Speaker 2: but not who they had been taken from. Perhaps the thief,
43:48
Speaker 2: like with Tony and the Picasso, would be brazen or
43:51
Speaker 2: ignorant enough to just walk into Golden Apple Comics and
43:55
Speaker 2: present in Action number one with some concocted story. Were
44:00
Speaker 2: after all found an attic. Sometimes it was a long shot.
44:05
Speaker 2: And here's the thing about property crimes. Unless someone is
44:09
Speaker 2: an eyewitness to the theft, or unless someone is stupid
44:13
Speaker 2: enough to admit to being in possession of stolen property,
44:16
Speaker 2: it's not too hard to stay out of handcuffs. It's
44:20
Speaker 2: estimated that just ten percent of art thefts see the
44:24
Speaker 2: items recovered. But then, speaking to one dealer, Stephen heard
44:32
Speaker 2: something too good to be true. Yes, the store owner
44:36
Speaker 2: said someone had just called asking about the value of
44:40
Speaker 2: an Action number one and a detective number twenty seven,
44:43
Speaker 2: but he didn't leave his name, And as the days
44:46
Speaker 2: ticked by, it became clear that person wasn't going to phone.
44:51
Speaker 1: Back, clean, hang up, and try or call again, cleanse
44:55
Speaker 1: hang up.
44:56
Speaker 2: There's a working theory about art crime. When something is stolen,
45:01
Speaker 2: it will either surface immediately to get some quick cash,
45:04
Speaker 2: or in about ten years, just long enough to hope
45:08
Speaker 2: the victim has forgotten or has died, or that the
45:10
Speaker 2: cops are no longer actively investigating. It's the difference between
45:15
Speaker 2: a fast score and playing the long game. So which
45:20
Speaker 2: was it going to be? Was someone trying to move
45:23
Speaker 2: these books fast? Or were they going to go deep
45:26
Speaker 2: underground until Cage was on to other things? Was the
45:30
Speaker 2: La Shop call a sign of things to come? This
45:34
Speaker 2: is just the beginning of the story of one of
45:36
Speaker 2: the most audacious art heists in modern history. Taken from
45:41
Speaker 2: one of Hollywood's most famous actors. It moves from Los
45:45
Speaker 2: Angeles to Connecticut, to Memphis and Paris and ropes in
45:50
Speaker 2: two Billionaires. It's Nicholas Cage's own real life version of
45:55
Speaker 2: National Treasure, a search for the birth of modern popular
45:59
Speaker 2: callure and the person or persons who took it from
46:04
Speaker 2: his frat house bordello fortress of solitude. And it really
46:08
Speaker 2: begins with one question, the one that you might have
46:12
Speaker 2: caught yourself asking when we started. When Nicholas Cage called
46:17
Speaker 2: Stephen Fischler, it was the first question Stephen asked Cage.
46:22
Speaker 3: They actually told him, did you call the police yet? Not?
46:26
Speaker 3: So I said, well, get off the phone with me.
46:28
Speaker 3: Let's get the police involved.
46:30
Speaker 2: Cage hadn't phoned the police right away. It was Stephen
46:34
Speaker 2: who called.
46:35
Speaker 3: Them and then gave him the advice of all right, police,
46:40
Speaker 3: get them involved, get them over there went on. They
46:43
Speaker 3: might be able to certainly.
46:45
Speaker 2: Help, but could they This was no conventional art theft.
46:50
Speaker 2: Stephen was about to put LAPD's finance to the test
46:54
Speaker 2: when he discovered that there weren't just three comics missing,
46:59
Speaker 2: there were four. And that's when the beads of sweat
47:03
Speaker 2: really started rolling this season on Stealing Superman.
47:11
Speaker 9: The fact that he went to the dailer first rather
47:14
Speaker 9: than the police as an investigator, that would indicate to
47:17
Speaker 9: me that Nicholas Cage knew more than what he let
47:21
Speaker 9: on and he didn't want really a lot of that
47:23
Speaker 9: being my public.
47:24
Speaker 3: You hear the gossip that it could have been the butler,
47:26
Speaker 3: could have been the security guard.
47:28
Speaker 2: I just remember that showed us everything, and then in
47:31
Speaker 2: the end it was like, well, the police.
47:33
Speaker 9: Is going to come and check everything. And then Jeff
47:35
Speaker 9: and I were like, well we touched everything.
47:38
Speaker 6: Because he had said something about fingerprints, who were both like,
47:41
Speaker 6: we just touched everything. We touched the door coming into
47:45
Speaker 6: your room, and we never go up there.
47:48
Speaker 4: Cage is one of our people.
47:49
Speaker 5: He's one of my people.
47:51
Speaker 3: I understand exactly.
47:52
Speaker 5: What he must be thinking or half when that happened,
47:55
Speaker 5: how it fell to him. We all do.
47:57
Speaker 6: And then's like, that's why Mark was more pissed off
47:59
Speaker 6: and all of a sudden, because it's like, why are
48:00
Speaker 6: you bringing something around to my warehouse?
48:03
Speaker 4: Now I can go to prison for. But this is
48:05
Speaker 4: because it's so specific both the man and his interests,
48:10
Speaker 4: that it just feels like another world, right, Like it
48:13
Speaker 4: feels like fiction. Because someone targeted this very specific, very
48:19
Speaker 4: talented actor and stole something that is very specific to
48:23
Speaker 4: his interests, but that we're all aware of. As if
48:26
Speaker 4: it was a monet. That feels more relatable than if
48:31
Speaker 4: it was like, oh, someone stole a two hundred thousand
48:34
Speaker 4: dollars car from Matt Damon. That wouldn't be interesting.
48:37
Speaker 6: I think they should make a movie this and just
48:39
Speaker 6: talk about all the weirdos that worked for him and
48:41
Speaker 6: like who could have done this?
48:43
Speaker 7: And maybe it turns out that in the end he
48:45
Speaker 7: did it to himself.
48:50
Speaker 1: All right, that was Stealing Superman episode one. I'm going
48:54
Speaker 1: to go follow the story head over to the Stealing
48:57
Speaker 1: Superman Feed. We'll put a link in the show notes,
49:00
Speaker 1: and we'll be back here next week. We'll probably pick
49:03
Speaker 1: another iHeart original podcast from the archives and try to
49:06
Speaker 1: turn you onto that too. Can email us very special
49:10
Speaker 1: episodes at gmail dot com and know that we have
49:13
Speaker 1: I don't know, we have like fourteen different episodes in
49:16
Speaker 1: the works when we return publishing Live weekly. Have a
49:20
Speaker 1: good week.