At 11 oclock, with the motor still dead, McCarthy hollered, All right, boys, were gonna start drilling this son-of-a-bitch by hand. At 11:45, McCarthy used a pair of chain tongs to inch the drill bit into the mud. After a few weeks, the city forgot about it. But by 8:20 the P.A. Trevor Rees-Jones As a gas-station manager, McCarthy was by every account a force of nature. One after another, all five wells blew out. One of the last available addresses for a large, undeveloped property in the Strawberry Park area north of Steamboat Springs has been acquired by a holding company owned by billionaire venture capitalist Mark Stevens. Red ink was to be expected in any new venture, but McCarthys spending was simply out of control. No surprise there. Red and Hanna (as teens) are shown kissing tooright before Red tells Hanna he intends to marry her. McCarthy and Lamour caucused and decided to begin the broadcast anyway, with or without an audience in the Emerald Room. Despite his best intentions, billionaire Jason Stevens can't find enough time to keep his beloved Alexia a priority. In the ensuing two years, he drilled 60 more, earning a total of $1.5 millionenough to pay his creditors. In his rush to raise cash, he had pumped so much natural gas so quickly that well pressures could not be maintained, rendering wells less productive and in some cases useless. Lamour fled to her suite in tears. By the final day, they had the rig in place but couldnt get the motor running. Wealth Nugget:He launched Titos Vodka 1997 with $90,000 using 19 different credit cards. Outside, the pool shimmered with Kelly-green water. It was all he really wanted anyway. Red Stevens (James Garner) is a crusty, old billionaire who dies suddenly in an air crash. As he had done before, McCarthy begged, borrowed, and covertly borrowed most of his equipment, sending his men, all of whom worked for food and the promise of an eventual paycheck, sneaking into the woods at night to liberate pipe and barrels of drilling mud from nearby drill sites. By dusk a crowd of 3,000 had surrounded the hotel. Still, to the chagrin of those in the state who prized discretion and taste, many writers found exactly the kind of Texan they were looking for. There were too many people. He and Hughes ate a pancake breakfast by the Shamrocks pool. New revelations about how one Trump staffer helped preserve the transfer of powerfrom the forthcoming book on the Biden White House, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. His father, an itinerant oil-field worker and plumber, shuttled the family between Beaumont and Houstons rough Third Ward; at one point, young Glenn was the Howard Hughes familys paperboy. What Jason doesnt know is that absent such a proposal, Alexia has increasingly felt convicted to put her nursing skills to work in Haiti. Equitables board arm-twisted McCarthy into downsizing the Shamrock project, eliminating the apartment buildings, the shopping center, the grocery, the drugstore, and the theater, leaving only the hotel, which was fine by McCarthy. On June 30, 1949, three months after the Shamrocks opening, its board was given a fourth, updated report on McCarthys oil reserves; the valuation came in at $58 million, down $15 million from the previous report, but still enoughjustto cover his outstanding loans. With no money coming in, McCarthy was unable to pay his quarterly interest to Met Life that September. Hustling back to his land on the LaPorte highway, he began another well, only to have it ruined when rains caused an adjacent creek to overflow, flooding the site. I like it here, one was heard muttering. The aging lawyer suggests that perhaps a clue about how to respond could be found in his grandfathers journal. Red has a grandnephew, Jayson, a 24 year old man who is Considered as the black sheep of the family. But not without strings. As for Red, we see him work hard to help make money for his family in the Depression, and he shows a great deal of grit and determination to better his prospects as he grows older. And then it hit him: the Middle East. He lingered for nearly a year, finally dying, a day after his 81st birthday, on December 26, 1988. In the end, the film is a positive one with an emphasis placed on family first, and charity, as opposed to self-serving pursuits in life. Girls squealed when Dorothy Lamour emerged and kissed McCarthy on the cheek. It stars Drew Fuller, Ali Hillis, Bill Cobbs, Abigail Breslin, Brian Dennehy, and James Garner in his final live action film appearance. The plan was to announce OBriens appearance at 7:45 over the hotels public-address system, at which point the crowd would file to their tables in the ballrooms. In the years after World War II, the first great Texas oilmenH. And what was he up to? Young Reds decision to hitch a ride in an empty train car, hobo-style, was (and is) illegal. Whether they sprang from his hardscrabble beginnings, a desire to eclipse his father-in-law, or something else altogether, McCarthy burned to rise above the Hunts and Cullens and Richardsons atop the Texas pyramid, to own titanic refineries and office towers and continent-spanning pipelines. L. Hunt, Hugh Roy Cullen, Sid Richardson, and Clint Murchisonhad emerged as a handful of the richest individuals in America, and no one knew it. While sleeping in a park, he encounters a woman, Alexia, and her outspoken daughter, Emily. No one outside the oil business had heard of Glenn McCarthy. man Johnny Meyer. In May 1950, McCarthy hammered out a deal in which Metropolitan ponied up an additional $6 million in cash in exchange for liens on his New Ulm field. And they are if Jason can ever find the time to actually propose to her amid his never-ending responsibilities running the Stevens Foundation. Red Stephens Louis "Red" Edmund Stephens (May 10, 1930 - April 6, 2003) was an American football offensive lineman in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins. If McCarthy didnt drill by then, he couldnt drill at all. At Christmas, as Red is in a hotel room alone working on a big oil deal, we hear part of the song Angels We Have Heard on High., Several times, Red offers variations on this vow: Someday, I swear to heaven Im going to be a billionaire. Someone else says, Theres more oil in Texas than God knows what to do with.. From Everett Collection; digital colorization by Lorna Clark. In the second scene, Jason is at the Texas ranch of his grandfather's friend Gus. Just three weeks after the disclosure of his government-loan request, he reaped the ultimate American accolade: the cover of Time magazine. Of course, Walmart heiress Alice Walton reached the tippy top of Texas financial titans. Wealth Nugget:He and this three older siblings inherited a stake in their father Dan Duncans pipeline firm, Enterprise. Another technician chimed in: All theyre getting is swearing on the line!, Meanwhile, a stream of tipsy Texans began taking shortcuts across the Emerald Rooms stage to find their tables. McCarthy would still run things, but under the watchful eye of a comptroller Equitable brought in to oversee his finances. Red Stevens : Our lives should be lived not avoiding problems but welcoming them as challenges that will strengthen us so that we can be victorious in the future. No one, not even themselves. The evening was a coming-out party not just for McCarthy but for Texas Oil itself. Frank Lloyd Wright, attending a convention in Houston that week, took the tour, and emerged in a daze. Up in the penthouse a bagpiper serenaded the last visitors as they took the elevators down after midnight. All during the 1940s, however, Texas called to her. The opening alone was costing him $1.5 million. It's a rough road to get to that point, and I'm not sure it was executed as well as it could have been, but the point still gets across. Around Houston he had become a human tornado of postwar progress, donating land for a new airport, holding press conferences to announce charitable gifts, riding a horse in the rodeo parade, lobbying to bring the city a professional baseball or football team. The Ultimate Life picks up three years later. Its like you were somewhere elsenot in Houston at all.. Another of them, the swaggering, combustible Glenn McCarthy, would emerge as the symbol of a new Texas. He was still a living legend. One of Clint Murchisons closest friends, the Dallas oilman E. E. Buddy Fogelson, wed Greer Garson at his New Mexico ranch in 1949. My kids are a mess. The Joe Millionaire season finale is finally here, and as bachelor Steven McBee tries to choose between Annie and Calah, he admits the latter is still a wild card. McCarthy insisted he couldnt pay unless allowed to develop New Ulm. Weve all been in radio a long time, Gardner mused, but who has ever seen anything like this!. Following an accident, Red has a Christmastime epiphany and rethinks his values. Its executives had opened their first oil lending office in Dallas just weeks before, in May 1945. Source of wealth: Information technology,CEO of SHI Technology. He went on to hit a string of strong producers outside Beaumont, earning him nearly $2 million, enough to build his dream home, a 7,000-square-foot columned southern mansion just south of downtown Houston. Wealth Nugget:He offered disco lessons to help pay his way through college. Source of wealth: Dell computers, self-made. Overall, The Ultimate Life is a pretty bold title for a pretty bold . McCarthy sold for an $8,000 profit. From the start, Red was determined not to let his fathers impoverished fate become his own. Fly it around. [citation needed] Two sequels, The Ultimate Life and The Ultimate Legacy, were released in 2013 and 2015 respectively.[3][4]. Floodlights crisscrossed the night sky, just as McCarthy had dreamed they would. Wells had been completed and put on McCarthys books when it was doubtful they would ever produce commercial amounts of oil or gas. The first hint of impending change came on a cool, windy afternoon in February 1948, when Hunt, wearing an off-the-rack tan gabardine suit and gray fedora, emerged from the Mercantile National Bank building onto the sidewalk along Commerce Street in downtown Dallas. Wealth Nugget:He and his wife Anne have donated $50 million to Duke and $50 million to Stanford. It carried an early mention of the term that would come to define the Big Four and their brethren: the Big Rich. When a dumbfounded NBC producer told one matron she was interrupting the broadcast, the woman snatched the microphone from Lamour. For a long time the only indication he was even alive came in the odd stories that floated up from South America every few months, none of which, as with the case of an Ecuadoran doctor he attacked in a drunken rage on a flight to La Paz, suggested Glenn McCarthy was going gentle into that night. Published Mar 10, 2022. To me this symbolizes the future greatness of Houston. OBrien told the crowd, The eyes of the other 47 states are upon Texas and this project. The crowd cheered lustily, and grew so riotous that the actual groundbreaking had to be eliminated when McCarthy and OBrien were mobbed as they went for their shovels. He had a script ready to film, The Green Promise, the story of a young girls struggle to save her familys farm. A hobo who helps Red as a teen talks to him about the importance of expressing gratitude to God. The newspapers hailed him as a Texas giant even as they tried to explain to younger readers who he had been. Dinah Shore and Mel Torm sang in the Cork Club; Frank Sinatra was booked. Her name was Edna Ferber. The lawyer asks Red how it feels to finally have reached his goal: Not a stitch different, Red replies. When he reached Ervay Street, he stopped for a red light. When McCarthy proposed spending $14,000 to fly in a planeload of Hollywood stars for the Shamrocks third-anniversary celebration, Mendel said no. The Ultimate Life opens three years later, with Jason (Logan Bartholomew) trying to manage his grandfathers foundation, beat back a lawsuit by greedy relatives and save his relationship with Alexia, the nurse he met in the first film. Red Stevens Bechir Sylvain Young Hamilton Elizabeth Ann Bennett Hanna Stevens Dane Northcutt Gus Caldwell J.R. Adduci Roughneck (as James 'JR' Adduci) Joshua Brady Jay Stevens Linda Britt Executive Secretary David Carpenter Farmer Christian Casper Maitre'd Tyler Chase Prepster Director Michael Landon Jr. When McCarthy couldnt pay his rigs rental fee, the owner secured an injunction preventing its use. Directed by Michael Landon Jr., The Ultimate Life is hampered by a predictable story, stereotypical characters and wooden acting. 2023 Cond Nast. Glenn not only held himself and the two others securely, Mr. Anderson said, sputtering, he then maneuvered the lowering of all three to the ground. McCarthy had suffered friction burns on both hands, sliding down the derrick to safety. All through the early months of 1950, McCarthy endured a series of make-or-break meetings with his creditors in Houston and New York. Strawberry Park Ranch was put on the market in 2020 with a listing price of $18.5 million. Your fortune is your wife, your kids and all the little Stevens who might come along. Jason does get around to at least trying to pop the question, but at the very moment of emotional impact, hes served legal notice that his role as the head of the Stevens Foundation is being challenged by one of Reds sons, Billy, whom the old oilman didnt deem a fit heir. By the time he gave up, he had lost $1.5 million and was heavily in debt. When a Chicago technician phoned the ballroom in exasperation, listeners heard his Houston counterparts voice: I cant hear you! Unfortunately, the plant didnt work. Wealth Nugget:She opened theCrystal Bridges Museum of American Artin Bentonville, Arkansas, where she was born. We've updated our Privacy Policy to support new EU data protection law. Wealth Nugget:He is teaming up with architect Norman Foster on a Dallas skyscraper. Making matters worse, his greedy extended family sues him. When Jason's grandfather, billionaire businessman Red Stevens (James Garner) dies, Jason shows up at the reading of the will, perhaps expecting another handout. He tells them that from now on, he and Hanna are going to live differently, that theyre going to stop living for themselves and do some good.. As the self-absorbed grandson of billionaire oil baron Red Stevens, Jason Stevens lacks nothingexcept purpose. His deeds, McCarthy knew, had to match the look. He sold some neighboring leases and managed to raise enough for one last wildcat, but this too came in dry. In those frantic final weeks, no detail seemed too small for McCarthys notice. He mailed gold-filigreed invitations to every movie star and C.E.O. a tough, but fair man a multi-billionaire one of the best men that Theodore J. Hamilton ever knew he put stipulations on who his money should go to he gave no one cash for their inheritance he wanted Jason to learn some things and prove that he had learned them before he put him in charge of his foundation A spectacular entrance, one columnist termed it. This movie is a goo prequel to The Ultimate Legacy therefore I recommend seeing it for that reason alone. Ad Choices, In the late 1940s, the press informed an astonished America that some of its wealthiest citizens were a group of oilmen that included H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Hugh Roy Cullen. Afterward, Lee married Gene Tierney. When Metropolitan ordered a new estimate of McCarthys oil and gas reserves, it was stunned to find they were down by almost two-thirds in several key fields. He had contracted with the National Broadcasting Company to air Pat OBriens opening remarks to a nationwide radio audience at eight oclock, live from the Emerald Room. Inspired by Andrew Carnegie, Red (Drew Waters), who grows up dirt poor in Depression-era Louisiana, is determined to be a billionaire. To McCarthys delight, the child star Natalie Wood agreed to play the lead. The Equitable, meanwhile, slowly broke apart his empire. Wealth Nugget:: He ownsChub Cayisland in the Bahamas. Not just any hotel: the worlds finest hotel, built for the new Texas, a mammoth, ornate structure to surpass the Waldorf-Astorias and Ritzes and Hiltons, the largest building between New York and Los Angeles, a glorious symbol not just of his own mushrooming power and confidence but of Texass as well. Most Americans, a San Antonio columnist wrote, think of Houston as a cluster of mud huts around the Shamrock Hotel, in the cellars of which people hide from the sticky climate, emerging at long intervals to scatter $1000 bills to the four winds., The morning after the hotels unveiling, McCarthy opened the doors for guests. In their place came a look equal parts Houston and Hollywood: dark sunglasses, leopard-patterned ascots, gleaming leather jackets, a diamond the size of a dime on his pinkie. King, and "Crazy" by Patsy Cline. All told, McCarthy had tried three wells and had precisely nothing to show for itexcept a painful education in oil. But the movie was only the beginning. The plant was to strip liquefied petroleum gases out of natural gas and, using a technology called the Bloodworth Process, convert them into methanol for use as an anti-freeze additive. The ensuing discussion ended when Rummans called McCarthy a liar, at which point the new King of Texas leapt onto his desktop and, as Rummans stood before him, kicked his guest in the chest, then launched himself onto Rummans and began pounding him with his fists. Miller, however, couldnt cope with Moss and his hard-living oilman buddies, whose lives were a series of drinking binges wrapped around evenings at nightspots like Ciros, in Hollywood, and the Cipango Club, in Dallas. Red Stevens : Jason, any process worth going through will get tougher before it gets easier. Engineers spent months tinkering with equipment, but could never figure out why. But when he discovers his late grandfather's journal, he is transported back to Red Stevens' incredible world. But, Red has planned for his death carefully. He dropped out of high school, but later leveraged his gridiron prowess into brief stays at Rice Institute (now Rice University) and Texas A&M, where he was expelled for hazing. Meanwhile, someone stole Mayor Oscar Holcombes chair, forcing him and his wife to sit in a hallway for two solid hours. But he was damned if he was going to be a glorified greeter at his own hotel. So Jason plunges into the dramatic backstory of Red Stevens, starting when he was just a poor 15-year-old in Baton Rouge, La., in 1941. He and Faustine put most of their savings into the discovery welland lost it all when the well churned up nothing but saltwater. For Warner Mendel, it was the job from hell. Cue more melodrama and cue Alexias exit to Haiti. Hunt headed on, thinking the man was taking a picture of the building behind him. At precisely 8:30 radio listeners around the country heard Lamour welcome them to the gala opening of the Shamrock Hotel. I want my dinner table!. Tools The Ultimate Gift is a 2006 American drama film directed by Michael O. Sajbel from a screenplay written by Cheryl McKay, which is based on the best selling novel by Jim Stovall, who cameos in the film. But McCarthy was a man with dreamsvast, historic, world-altering dreams. Facing bankruptcy, McCarthy was forced once again to drill wells for other operators. It stars Drew Fuller, Ali Hillis, Bill Cobbs, Abigail Breslin, Brian Dennehy, and James Garner in his final live action film appearance. It was the worst mob scene I ever witnessed, he fumed afterward.

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