# "This Once Belonged to Jack Nicholson": the Tod Michael Volpe Story

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 24 Feb 2026, 1 h 10 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/77560a75-0197-4cdc-8b4e-b3fa01546db4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

He was a charming art dealer, a man who climbed to the highest heights of the Hollywood elite. Once there, he conned 'em all for fun and profit. That is, until it all came crashing down. Come for the art crimes, stay for the unhinged documentary he later starred in and somehow was even wilder than his cons. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton. Nice to see him, my friend.
[0:06] Speaker 3: How you been, you know, fair in a Midland. How
[0:09] Speaker 3: are you.
[0:10] Speaker 2: I'm enjoying February, yeah, are you? Yeah? It's the shortest month.
[0:14] Speaker 2: So I'm like, I we're.
[0:15] Speaker 3: Gonna get through this, you know, power through.
[0:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know down. So I got a question for you. Yes,
[0:21] Speaker 2: you know it's ridiculous, Yes, I do. First, it seems
[0:24] Speaker 2: to say yes.
[0:25] Speaker 4: First, I need to acknowledge that it was Esther uh
[0:28] Speaker 4: Esther on Instagram who sent us a thing about monkeys
[0:34] Speaker 4: putting grass up their butts.
[0:36] Speaker 3: It's like a fashion statement.
[0:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're back with more animals.
[0:39] Speaker 3: But I finally found it a.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Winter of dark animal butts.
[0:46] Speaker 4: So heinous. Anyway, it's so anous. No, but you know
[0:51] Speaker 4: it is ridiculous.
[0:52] Speaker 2: No, I do not.
[0:53] Speaker 4: I have a question that's ridiculous. No, No, what's your
[0:56] Speaker 4: favorite condiment?
[0:58] Speaker 2: My favorite condiment? Yeah, I don't even think like that.
[1:02] Speaker 4: Let's talk to my refrigerator is like all condiments.
[1:05] Speaker 5: I know.
[1:06] Speaker 2: So neither one of us can answer this question. Apparently
[1:09] Speaker 2: my favorite condiment. For lack of a I'm just gonna
[1:12] Speaker 2: go for the first one. I can think of Russian
[1:14] Speaker 2: hot mustard.
[1:15] Speaker 4: Okay, I'd say mustard in general would be my if
[1:18] Speaker 4: you were to ask.
[1:18] Speaker 2: Me, I put on more things. What's yours, Elizabeth?
[1:21] Speaker 3: Must mustard mustard. I like mendocino mustard.
[1:26] Speaker 2: Okay, some of those sweet hot mustard.
[1:28] Speaker 3: Yeah. What's your third thing?
[1:31] Speaker 2: Horse radish?
[1:34] Speaker 3: You don't like mayo?
[1:36] Speaker 2: No? I mean I used to eat miracle whip like
[1:38] Speaker 2: sometimes if I made, like, you know, leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches,
[1:42] Speaker 2: because my mother would have it around.
[1:44] Speaker 3: But it's not like real, man, No, it's fake.
[1:46] Speaker 2: It's like the margarine to butter for mayonnaisees butter. And
[1:50] Speaker 2: then you know, people like you who've made food for
[1:52] Speaker 2: me with mayo have taught me that I don't absolutely
[1:55] Speaker 2: hate mayo. I still just don't reach for it.
[1:57] Speaker 3: Right, I got you?
[1:58] Speaker 2: What about you? What's your third favorite? Elizabeth?
[2:01] Speaker 3: I don't know.
[2:01] Speaker 4: Maybe chili crisp. Here's my question? What are your feelings
[2:04] Speaker 4: on ketchup?
[2:06] Speaker 2: I consider ketchup an underrated spice. Oh okay, I'm not
[2:11] Speaker 2: a seven year old boy, but I do like it.
[2:14] Speaker 2: It's a I like all red sauce if it's a
[2:16] Speaker 2: red sauce. I probably like it.
[2:17] Speaker 4: Well, then have I got something for you? And I
[2:20] Speaker 4: gotta tell you I am so this isn't a mashup.
[2:23] Speaker 2: It's not. No, your face says it is.
[2:25] Speaker 4: I just have a devilish look on my face all
[2:27] Speaker 4: the time. It's not a mashup. I have to tell
[2:29] Speaker 4: you that I signed you up for an alert on
[2:34] Speaker 4: this that when it drops you can get it. It's
[2:38] Speaker 4: a Hein's keg chup. Many rude dudes have told us
[2:42] Speaker 4: about this. It's a keg of ketchup from Hines.
[2:46] Speaker 2: When would you ever need? Are you going to like
[2:48] Speaker 2: a Buffalo Bills game and.
[2:49] Speaker 4: You're going to like pre game and you're one hundred
[2:51] Speaker 4: and fourteen ounces of rich, thick Heinz ketchup, one hundred
[2:55] Speaker 4: and fourteen ounces in a sleek aluminum keg design, completely
[3:00] Speaker 4: of precision pouring tap. Okay, So it's just basically it's
[3:04] Speaker 4: got like the little pump top. Like if you go
[3:05] Speaker 4: to some like Burger Giants, they have you still the
[3:08] Speaker 4: little paper cups and they have someone here slathering it
[3:11] Speaker 4: on chicken strips, which I don't know are you supposed to?
[3:16] Speaker 3: I don't think that's that works. They have this like
[3:18] Speaker 3: sexy video sexy where it's all.
[3:20] Speaker 2: Sweaty bending that one fit.
[3:23] Speaker 4: Sweaty keg and like you see the drips and then
[3:27] Speaker 4: you see like the pulsating ketchup coming out of the sky.
[3:31] Speaker 2: Lord give me patience.
[3:33] Speaker 4: Anyway, Like I said, it's so they're introducing it. You
[3:36] Speaker 4: have to sign up pours slow will go fast. Sign
[3:41] Speaker 4: up to get notified when you get your own heinz
[3:43] Speaker 4: keg chup. This is it the Heines website. Of course
[3:47] Speaker 4: I did look first name, last name, email and fill
[3:50] Speaker 4: that out for you, but I also opted out of
[3:52] Speaker 4: the marketing emails for you.
[3:54] Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to get a whole new email just so.
[3:58] Speaker 4: But you could get like a big old thing of ketchup.
[4:01] Speaker 4: It says for when one bottle's just not enough.
[4:04] Speaker 2: I think I'm going to get you a singing telegram
[4:06] Speaker 2: just because that's more by speed. I have that sent
[4:09] Speaker 2: to your house, all right.
[4:10] Speaker 3: I don't have to open my door, that's true.
[4:13] Speaker 2: I'll tell them that though, sing.
[4:15] Speaker 3: Through the door, go to the side window.
[4:17] Speaker 2: If they don't answer through the keg.
[4:19] Speaker 4: Full of ketchup. You know what that is ridiculous? All right,
[4:25] Speaker 4: you can go now, it's your turn.
[4:28] Speaker 2: At least it was a show.
[4:29] Speaker 3: Tell me what's ridiculous?
[4:31] Speaker 2: No, I got something ridiculous for you. Imagine Conning Jack Nicholson.
[4:37] Speaker 3: I think I could imagine that.
[4:38] Speaker 2: You could. Well, you don't have to imagine it, because
[4:41] Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you the story of someone who
[4:42] Speaker 2: decided that's a good idea.
[4:44] Speaker 3: All right.
[4:45] Speaker 5: Yeah, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and
[5:09] Speaker 5: outrageous capers, heights and cons.
[5:13] Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
[5:19] Speaker 2: percent ridiculous. Yes, Elizabeth Sar. You know, we cover a
[5:25] Speaker 2: lot of art crimes on here. For one, they're typically nonviolent,
[5:28] Speaker 2: which I know you like.
[5:29] Speaker 3: Love that.
[5:30] Speaker 2: They're often ambitious and unhinged, which.
[5:32] Speaker 3: I like and I love that too.
[5:34] Speaker 2: That is true. Also, they typically have the wildest tangents
[5:37] Speaker 2: in side quests, sometimes which include celebrities, which we both like.
[5:41] Speaker 3: Well, they don't go after the working class.
[5:45] Speaker 2: Or just any innocent person. That pretty much at all
[5:48] Speaker 2: for the most part, for the most part. Now this
[5:50] Speaker 2: one has all of that and then sum So meet
[5:54] Speaker 2: Todd Michael Volpa. Hi. Now, when he was born, he
[5:58] Speaker 2: was originally named Todd Mitchell Vulpa, but later he renamed himself.
[6:02] Speaker 2: He dropped one D from Todd to which he claims
[6:07] Speaker 2: was his mother's original intent. He also changed his middle
[6:10] Speaker 2: name from Yes.
[6:12] Speaker 3: His mom was originally like one D.
[6:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, who over wrote her?
[6:16] Speaker 3: The dad?
[6:17] Speaker 2: I think maybe the nurse at the hospital. She's like,
[6:19] Speaker 2: I none of that nonsense. I don't know, maybe, but
[6:23] Speaker 2: I do know. He also changed his middle name from
[6:25] Speaker 2: Mitchell to Michael. Okay, now that was not his mother's intent.
[6:29] Speaker 2: He did that for his own, very specific reason. He
[6:32] Speaker 2: was inspired, Elizabeth by the archangel Michael, who has slayed
[6:35] Speaker 2: the dragon as Saint Michael. You know that story, Saint
[6:38] Speaker 2: Michael and the Dragon. So, yeah, as he told the
[6:40] Speaker 2: New York Times, quote, that's what I thought I was
[6:43] Speaker 2: doing in the art world, slaying the dragon.
[6:46] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[6:46] Speaker 4: I thought he was gonna be like, it's all about Philip,
[6:48] Speaker 4: Michael Thomas, Jan Michael Vincent.
[6:51] Speaker 2: I know you always like that.
[6:52] Speaker 3: I love.
[6:53] Speaker 2: But we'll get back to the slang the art world later. Now.
[6:56] Speaker 2: For as for his last name, Vulpa, he kept that
[6:58] Speaker 2: one unchanged and it was fitting though, because, as he's
[7:01] Speaker 2: pointed out to The New York Times, in Italian, the
[7:03] Speaker 2: word volpa means fox, yeah, which obviously fits who he is,
[7:07] Speaker 2: because he's cunning like a fox. Now, Todd Michael Volpa
[7:11] Speaker 2: was the son of an Italian tailor. He was raised
[7:12] Speaker 2: in Yonkers, which is I check the map just above
[7:15] Speaker 2: and to the left of the bronx. Okay, so there.
[7:18] Speaker 2: His family struggled economically. However, young Todd had his eyes
[7:23] Speaker 2: fixed on the horizon, and I don't mean the bronx.
[7:25] Speaker 2: He planned to make something of himself one day, something
[7:28] Speaker 2: beyond being the son of an Italian tailor. However, before
[7:31] Speaker 2: that day arrived, before he could find his future on
[7:34] Speaker 2: his own and escape being the poor son of a tailor,
[7:37] Speaker 2: he bucked social expectations and he didn't follow his dad
[7:40] Speaker 2: into the tailor industry. Instead, as a teen, he found
[7:43] Speaker 2: a different line of work that involved dressing people, though
[7:46] Speaker 2: only in his case his clients were dead. You see,
[7:49] Speaker 2: Young Todd worked as an assistant to a mortician. Oh oh,
[7:53] Speaker 2: and in Baumber's Apprentice.
[7:54] Speaker 3: That's good, you know, that's steady work totally.
[7:57] Speaker 2: I mean the lot of you. Someone dies every day,
[7:59] Speaker 2: so we're lucky. Working for a mortician taught old Todd
[8:02] Speaker 2: a ton of vital skills that would come in handy
[8:05] Speaker 2: later on. For instance, he learned how to care for
[8:08] Speaker 2: relatives of the deceased. He learned to soothe their worries
[8:12] Speaker 2: and concerns, to listen to them, to really get at
[8:14] Speaker 2: the heart of their emotions in the moment and speak
[8:16] Speaker 2: to those He also learned how, despite their grief, to
[8:20] Speaker 2: upsell them into price your purchases. Todd also learned how
[8:25] Speaker 2: to grow a business by focusing on the folks who
[8:27] Speaker 2: often get overlooked but who are also key referrals for
[8:31] Speaker 2: new customers. See being a mortician's assistant. That meant he
[8:34] Speaker 2: learned a curry favor with hospital staff, nursing home employees
[8:39] Speaker 2: beat cops of the NYPD and mob and that's not
[8:42] Speaker 2: a good one. And that is how Elizabeth once snowy
[8:46] Speaker 2: Christmas Eve, young Todd was working at a rowboat pulling
[8:49] Speaker 2: floaters out of the Hudson River, literally dragging up new business. Yes,
[8:56] Speaker 2: he had a very interesting teenage years.
[8:58] Speaker 3: Now what was that? That wasn't part of his job?
[9:01] Speaker 2: Was it finding new work? Finding bodies?
[9:03] Speaker 3: He just went around looking for bodies in the river.
[9:06] Speaker 2: Have you ever seen the movie Mother Jugs and Speed?
[9:09] Speaker 3: No?
[9:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, Well it was with rockel Welch, the guy who
[9:13] Speaker 2: played j R. On the on the Ewings? What is
[9:16] Speaker 2: it on Dallas?
[9:17] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[9:17] Speaker 2: And then Bill Cosby they play ambulance drivers, right, Larry Hagman,
[9:22] Speaker 2: it's a movie, I know, but I'm saying back then
[9:25] Speaker 2: the ambulances would compete for business, so they would both
[9:27] Speaker 2: show up to a car accident and then try to
[9:29] Speaker 2: get the person in the ambulance because it wasn't all
[9:31] Speaker 2: worked out.
[9:31] Speaker 4: But wouldn't the coroner have to claim the like, take
[9:34] Speaker 4: the body, identify the body.
[9:37] Speaker 2: Apparently if he pulled it on the boat. He telling
[9:39] Speaker 2: people chose it to a b cop. They can write
[9:41] Speaker 2: out the death.
[9:42] Speaker 3: Telling people I told this.
[9:44] Speaker 2: I don't know how it works. I wasn't in New
[9:46] Speaker 2: York in the late sixties.
[9:47] Speaker 4: He made up this story and you bought it, hooklan
[9:50] Speaker 4: and go for it.
[9:51] Speaker 3: You didn't, You didn't think critically.
[9:52] Speaker 2: I should have fact checked this. You really? On his
[9:55] Speaker 2: twenty first birthday, Elizabeth, this story comes from his memoir,
[9:59] Speaker 2: So another one. He could be him lying to me.
[10:01] Speaker 3: He's full of he's full of bull crack.
[10:04] Speaker 2: Well, he came to work with his mortician boss, and
[10:07] Speaker 2: what does he find waiting for him? If you set
[10:09] Speaker 2: a birthday gift, since it his twenty first birthday, you'd
[10:12] Speaker 2: be dead wrong. Oh, dead wrong.
[10:14] Speaker 5: Oh.
[10:15] Speaker 2: What he found was instead a corpse on the table
[10:18] Speaker 2: waiting for him, all ready to be prepped and preserved.
[10:20] Speaker 2: Only this birthday corpse was dressed in a red ribbon,
[10:23] Speaker 2: just like a gift waiting to be opened. Ew mortician's
[10:26] Speaker 2: sense of humor, I guess now this was another business lesson,
[10:29] Speaker 2: though for him he learned that working as a mortician's
[10:31] Speaker 2: assistant the importance of presentation.
[10:34] Speaker 4: But I mean, like, what if you you find out
[10:36] Speaker 4: that that's you know, that's your uncle and.
[10:39] Speaker 2: That he's been not to a mortician.
[10:41] Speaker 4: Ain't no, I know, But like if I you know,
[10:43] Speaker 4: you said you go in there, you.
[10:45] Speaker 2: Well, hopefully nowhere from the family sees this. This is
[10:47] Speaker 2: all back of the house. This is like on a
[10:50] Speaker 2: table now. But back then you had so many places
[10:54] Speaker 2: no one would ever see.
[10:55] Speaker 3: You could get away with so much back.
[10:57] Speaker 2: Oh my god, the Panopticon was so far from coming
[10:59] Speaker 2: into being. People didn't have to worry. There's a long
[11:01] Speaker 2: they're like, you know, the old idea of being a
[11:03] Speaker 2: back room. There were back rooms everywhere.
[11:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So this.
[11:06] Speaker 2: Is going down in a back room. I like it anyway,
[11:08] Speaker 2: all of this would serve him well in the art world.
[11:11] Speaker 2: These lessons he learned as being in Ambalmber's Apprentice and
[11:14] Speaker 2: that Elizabeth was the world he dreamed of one day joining. Now,
[11:18] Speaker 2: he of course cast about and being a tailor's son,
[11:20] Speaker 2: and he looked for a role model, someone he could
[11:22] Speaker 2: be like, because if you can see it, you can
[11:24] Speaker 2: be it. So he's like going to need somebody who
[11:25] Speaker 2: I was like, that's why I want to be like.
[11:27] Speaker 2: His role model that he picked was an art dealer,
[11:30] Speaker 2: and that's what I'd like to be one day. And
[11:32] Speaker 2: this art dealer was a man named Joseph duven He
[11:35] Speaker 2: was one of the most famous, I'm talking world famous
[11:39] Speaker 2: and unscrupulous art dealers of the early twentieth century. Oh wow,
[11:43] Speaker 2: oh yeah. Duvine was British. He was technically I should
[11:46] Speaker 2: I guess give his status. He was the first Baron
[11:49] Speaker 2: Duvene if you're keeping score. He was the son of
[11:52] Speaker 2: an art dealer himself, and he was educated in the UK,
[11:55] Speaker 2: and then he kind of was. He turned Loose's talents
[11:57] Speaker 2: on America. You see, Duvine used his British pedigree to
[12:01] Speaker 2: schmooze and manipulate the nouveau riche Americans looking to buy
[12:04] Speaker 2: great art.
[12:05] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it got an accent.
[12:07] Speaker 2: Oh my completely. And his clients is like a who's
[12:10] Speaker 2: who list of robber barons and American oligarchs. His client
[12:13] Speaker 2: list included names like JP Morgan, William Randolph Hurst, John D. Rockefeller,
[12:18] Speaker 2: Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick. I mean, like you throw
[12:21] Speaker 2: a dart at a board of Robert barons.
[12:24] Speaker 3: That's the gallery.
[12:25] Speaker 4: I did not come across editor.
[12:30] Speaker 2: Possibly, but he was more of an art dealer than
[12:31] Speaker 2: a gallerist. So being an art dealer, he would ship
[12:35] Speaker 2: European masterpieces across the Atlantic over to America. And doing
[12:38] Speaker 2: this he makes a huge fortune. Right, He's providing respectability
[12:42] Speaker 2: to the robber barons and their new wealth, and the
[12:45] Speaker 2: art that he sold them would become basically the key
[12:47] Speaker 2: pieces of America's great museums. Sure so. Duvene, however, was
[12:52] Speaker 2: known to have a let's say, less respectful attitude towards
[12:55] Speaker 2: the masterpieces than one would expect or hope for from
[12:58] Speaker 2: a highly regarded art For instance, Devine would often pay
[13:02] Speaker 2: to restore the masterpieces. So can we like shine that up.
[13:05] Speaker 2: So he would tell the restorers, baby, scrape off all
[13:08] Speaker 2: that old yellowed varnish and apply a slick, new high
[13:11] Speaker 2: gloss finish for the Americans. God, So that way the
[13:13] Speaker 2: artwork would show up and be all glistening and gleaming. Yeah,
[13:16] Speaker 2: and I mean, like, you know, really, who wants a
[13:18] Speaker 2: dusty old masterpiece for them? Ount they're spending on this,
[13:21] Speaker 2: not America's newly minted robber barons. Now, It's also alleged
[13:25] Speaker 2: that Duvene would often sell the now vareish American industrialist
[13:29] Speaker 2: fake masterpieces it because you know who among them could
[13:32] Speaker 2: tell a fraud from the real thing.
[13:34] Speaker 3: True.
[13:34] Speaker 2: So, one key to Divine's success in the art world
[13:37] Speaker 2: was that he understood human behavior. He could manipulate it
[13:40] Speaker 2: like the practice fingers of a pianist playing a steinway right.
[13:44] Speaker 2: He knew how to create height, He knew how to
[13:46] Speaker 2: satisfy desires sometimes, like, for instance, he would bribe the
[13:50] Speaker 2: house staff of a robber baron to learn what it
[13:52] Speaker 2: was that they were truly coveting, and then he would
[13:54] Speaker 2: just show up with that Oh my God, that makes
[13:56] Speaker 2: the sales process far easily and far more lucrative. So
[14:00] Speaker 2: Devine was this art dealer and full on scoundrel, right,
[14:03] Speaker 2: but his presentation was impeccable, and as such he became
[14:07] Speaker 2: the ideal role model for an unscrupulous wannabe art dealer
[14:10] Speaker 2: like Todd Michael Volpan.
[14:12] Speaker 3: Playing generations later.
[14:13] Speaker 2: Right, Yes, he's like doing this in the twenties, and
[14:15] Speaker 2: now Todd Michael Volpa is basically working in the late sixties.
[14:19] Speaker 2: In fact, in nineteen sixty eight he officially goes into
[14:21] Speaker 2: business as an art dealer. He and his cousin Vance Jordan,
[14:24] Speaker 2: they purchased this old dilapidated warehouse in the Soho neighborhood
[14:28] Speaker 2: of New York. And this, by the way, was long
[14:30] Speaker 2: before Soho was cool. It's real estate highly valuable. This
[14:34] Speaker 2: is when edgy artists and galleries were just first pouring
[14:37] Speaker 2: into the area to take advantage of the cheap rents
[14:39] Speaker 2: of the old industrial building, and they were turning that
[14:41] Speaker 2: hood into the Soho we'd recognize today. So the Jordan
[14:45] Speaker 2: Volpa Gallery, it opened for business at four fifty seven
[14:48] Speaker 2: West Broadway at Houston Street, Okay, right now, thus the
[14:53] Speaker 2: Solo Yeah, So there they offered artwork to the latest
[14:56] Speaker 2: generation of new money Americans. Looking to buy status and respectability.
[15:00] Speaker 2: He's like, oh, I can find me some industrialist types, now, Elizabeth.
[15:04] Speaker 2: The Jordan Volpa Gallery collection, it first began with a
[15:08] Speaker 2: simple recliner chair, just a chair chair, you see. Vulpa
[15:12] Speaker 2: he was visiting a friend and he saw this recliner.
[15:15] Speaker 2: It was old, but it also had this quality that
[15:17] Speaker 2: was unmistakable. So also curiously, it bore this three word
[15:21] Speaker 2: phrase that the designer slashed like furniture builder etched into it.
[15:25] Speaker 2: And the phrase was alse ick khan, which means the
[15:29] Speaker 2: best I can do. Now. That furniture maker's name was
[15:33] Speaker 2: Gustav Stickley, and he was so charmed by this that
[15:36] Speaker 2: Vulpa bought the sticky recliner from his friend for seventy
[15:39] Speaker 2: five dollars. Now, to give you a little backstory on
[15:41] Speaker 2: Gustav Stickley, He's this furniture maker who'd very much gone
[15:45] Speaker 2: his own way during the Victorian era, back when opulent
[15:48] Speaker 2: design was all the rage. Stickley preferred simple design, so
[15:51] Speaker 2: what some would call Puritan style. Anyway, Stickley's recliner was
[15:56] Speaker 2: the start of a collection of arts and craft furniture
[15:59] Speaker 2: that would set the Jordan Volpa Gallery on its road
[16:01] Speaker 2: to success in the nineteen seventies and also changed the
[16:04] Speaker 2: art world. Yeah, because for the next decade, these two
[16:08] Speaker 2: cousins they popularized what came to be called mission art pieces,
[16:11] Speaker 2: which I love, I know you do now. They also
[16:14] Speaker 2: made their name as dealers of arts and craft furniture.
[16:17] Speaker 2: They made that the hip thing in the seventies. And
[16:19] Speaker 2: this is where Vulpa's fox like understanding of human nature
[16:22] Speaker 2: and his earnest imitation of the British art dealer Devine
[16:25] Speaker 2: they merged to create his business model for his gallery.
[16:29] Speaker 2: No Volpa was particularly good at marketing. He would come
[16:31] Speaker 2: up with ingenious displays that played up the arts appeal.
[16:34] Speaker 2: In a very short time, his gallery made a name
[16:37] Speaker 2: for itself as the next big thing in the New
[16:39] Speaker 2: York arts scene. That's at this point taking off, right, Yeah,
[16:42] Speaker 2: not since the fifties had New York had been as
[16:43] Speaker 2: cool as it was in the seventies. And Stickley's furniture
[16:46] Speaker 2: becomes the new must have item for any self respecting
[16:49] Speaker 2: collector in the nineteen seventies New York arts scene. So, Elizabeth,
[16:53] Speaker 2: you would see, like when a buyer would walk into
[16:55] Speaker 2: the Jordan Volpa gallery, they'd be met with what looked
[16:57] Speaker 2: to be basically artifacts from this disappear era of like
[17:01] Speaker 2: undervalued American art. Right, this really like simple furniture and
[17:05] Speaker 2: would then use dramatic lighting to cast these the art
[17:10] Speaker 2: and turn them into like not just a hand fashioned recliner,
[17:13] Speaker 2: but this simple yet unique artistic statement. People loved his presentations.
[17:18] Speaker 2: This Taylor's son, this former mortician's assistant. He knew how
[17:21] Speaker 2: to set a scene and create a memorable display. In fact,
[17:25] Speaker 2: his gallery shows the lighting style he used, his presentation
[17:28] Speaker 2: aesthetic all of that. It's still hip and popular to
[17:31] Speaker 2: this day. You will find imitators aping it all around
[17:34] Speaker 2: the world today. Oh yeah, he like set the mode
[17:37] Speaker 2: now as a result Vulpa's you know I arresting displays.
[17:40] Speaker 2: Thanks to those, the doors of the Jordan Volpa Gallery
[17:43] Speaker 2: become this portal for art world icons and celebrities. Like
[17:47] Speaker 2: on any given day you might see artists like Andy
[17:50] Speaker 2: Warhol or Robert Maplethorpe just perusing the scene. Or you
[17:54] Speaker 2: might find famous buyers like Malcolm Forbes Forbes Magazine, or
[17:58] Speaker 2: Mario Cuomo of New York Politicans marry out anyway. One
[18:03] Speaker 2: day in walks, the actor Jack Nicholson and It's hard
[18:06] Speaker 2: to convey to young folks today how cool Jack Nicholson
[18:09] Speaker 2: was in the nineteen seventies. But imagine the coolest straight
[18:13] Speaker 2: male celebrity you can think of, Yeah, and then double it.
[18:16] Speaker 2: That's how cool he was. I did find I was
[18:18] Speaker 2: looking for quotes about this, but I've found mostly like
[18:21] Speaker 2: movie reviews, and they would kind of hint at like, oh,
[18:22] Speaker 2: he's the new brand. All this stuff was like, how
[18:25] Speaker 2: do we convey it? I found a writer from Time
[18:27] Speaker 2: magazine who once wrote of Jack Nicholson the quote, more
[18:31] Speaker 2: than any other actor alive, Jack happily looms like some
[18:35] Speaker 2: trickster colossus over the entire Hollywood landscape, and no one
[18:39] Speaker 2: anywhere begrudges him his dominion.
[18:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, you're gonna sell it.
[18:44] Speaker 4: So falling around with Angelica Houston totally and they're just
[18:48] Speaker 4: like And he was such a phenomenal actor.
[18:52] Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure he still could pull it out
[18:54] Speaker 3: if he had to.
[18:55] Speaker 2: And also he did all the things of like having
[18:57] Speaker 2: a little hint of danger, a bunch of sexiness in
[18:59] Speaker 2: a re for an attitude, but also he could do
[19:01] Speaker 2: his job, so he was competent. He wasn't relying on
[19:04] Speaker 2: any of those.
[19:04] Speaker 3: And I like that. He now is just like, to
[19:06] Speaker 3: hell with everything, I just do what I want.
[19:08] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, kind of always that way. So imagine this
[19:12] Speaker 2: same trickster colossus striding into one of the Hippis New
[19:15] Speaker 2: art galleries and soho to shop for some stickly furniture,
[19:18] Speaker 2: and Jack likes what he sees, so he buys some art.
[19:21] Speaker 2: Then later on Jack wants to buy some more art,
[19:23] Speaker 2: and suddenly the Jordan Volpa Gallery has the coolest man
[19:26] Speaker 2: in Hollywood, if not the world, regularly swinging by. Yeah,
[19:29] Speaker 2: this alone was huge for the gallery, but this Elizabeth
[19:32] Speaker 2: was just the beginning for Todd Michael Volpa. As he
[19:35] Speaker 2: recalled and I quote, I was the center of the
[19:38] Speaker 2: American art world in New York for ten years. My
[19:41] Speaker 2: first relationship was with Jack Nicholson. He started buying and
[19:45] Speaker 2: selling art. Eventually I became his dealer, and that became
[19:50] Speaker 2: the beginning of his crime career. Oh no, take a
[19:53] Speaker 2: little break, and when we get back Elizabeth, Todd Michael
[19:56] Speaker 2: Volpa goes to Hollywood. Oh boy, and we're back Elizabeth. Okay,
[20:20] Speaker 2: So where were we? All right? It's the nineteen seventies,
[20:23] Speaker 2: late nineteen seventies, The Jordan Volpa gallery is at the
[20:26] Speaker 2: center of this new energy that's revitalizing the New York
[20:29] Speaker 2: arts scene. He's making mad money for himself, one of
[20:32] Speaker 2: the owners. This gallery has rich New Yorkers buying flea
[20:36] Speaker 2: market fines for top dollar. And this all starts to
[20:39] Speaker 2: attract members of the new Hollywood acting scene, namely and
[20:42] Speaker 2: most notably Jack Nicholson. And this is when the dam
[20:46] Speaker 2: bursts for Volpa. In his memoir entitled Framed Todd, Michael
[20:51] Speaker 2: Volpa tells his own story as best as he can
[20:53] Speaker 2: remember it, and his memoirs is filled with all these
[20:56] Speaker 2: like wild anecdotes, especially from his time selling art to
[20:58] Speaker 2: celebrities obviously, and there's this one story of him selling
[21:01] Speaker 2: a stickly rocking chair to Harvey Kayitel. Oh wow, yes,
[21:05] Speaker 2: And being Harvey Kayel, he doesn't just breeze in and
[21:07] Speaker 2: buy a chair. No, Instead, he has twelve different stickly
[21:11] Speaker 2: rocking chairs sent to his apartment in the West Village.
[21:14] Speaker 3: And this is Kaell in like the seventies eighties, Yeah.
[21:16] Speaker 2: Ate seventies, early eighties. So Harvey Kayel then plops down
[21:19] Speaker 2: in each one and he test rides it and he
[21:22] Speaker 2: wants to clock if he likes the rhythm of the
[21:24] Speaker 2: chair's rock, and he does this in the most Harvey
[21:27] Speaker 2: Kitel way possible, all furrowed brow and like grunts of appreciation. Finally,
[21:32] Speaker 2: he finds, of the dozen sticklies, that one stickly rocking
[21:36] Speaker 2: chair that he likes the rhythm of its rock, and
[21:38] Speaker 2: he buys that one.
[21:39] Speaker 3: Wow.
[21:39] Speaker 2: Now this is kind of his key to success, Todd
[21:42] Speaker 2: Michael Volpa treats his Hollywood actor clients in the way
[21:44] Speaker 2: that they like to be indulged. Yeah, so this eventually
[21:48] Speaker 2: leads to him moving out to Hollywood so he can
[21:50] Speaker 2: be their on call art dealer. Huh yeah. Unlike New
[21:54] Speaker 2: York buyers who want like one precious o Jet day art,
[21:57] Speaker 2: the Hollywood types like say Barbari Streisand who was a
[21:59] Speaker 2: client of his, they want to curate an aesthetic. So
[22:02] Speaker 2: that means they buy art objects by the dozens, by
[22:05] Speaker 2: the score.
[22:06] Speaker 3: Right, it's a fun job.
[22:07] Speaker 2: Completely, can you imagine that? So again, they would have
[22:11] Speaker 2: like they would keep the art for like, you know,
[22:12] Speaker 2: maybe seven ten years or so, and then they want
[22:15] Speaker 2: the art faed or the trend switches up or they
[22:17] Speaker 2: get that seven year itch. Once the star goes tired
[22:19] Speaker 2: of the objects around their house. They sell them all, yeah,
[22:22] Speaker 2: and then they buy more. This is a perfect arrangement
[22:24] Speaker 2: for an art dealer like Vulple because he gets them
[22:26] Speaker 2: coming and going right. I'll buy more stuff for you,
[22:30] Speaker 2: I'll sell the old stuff. And he's getting a commission
[22:32] Speaker 2: on all of it right now. As Todd Michael Volpa
[22:34] Speaker 2: tells it, eventually, the producer of Tim Burton's Batman, Joel Silver,
[22:39] Speaker 2: Oh yeah right, he's the one who convinces him to
[22:42] Speaker 2: move out to Hollywood, not Jack Nicholson. According to Volpa,
[22:45] Speaker 2: Joel Silver and I became very close friends. He brought
[22:48] Speaker 2: me to Hollywood, introduced me to a lot of very
[22:50] Speaker 2: important people in the art world, people like Terry Semmel
[22:53] Speaker 2: and Bob Daily and Bruce Willis. And I ended up
[22:57] Speaker 2: selling art to all these people. My life was one
[23:00] Speaker 2: full the pinnacle of my life, Elizabeth. In case you're
[23:03] Speaker 2: curious or confused, Terry Semmel, Bob Daily, these may not
[23:07] Speaker 2: be familiar names, but Terry Semmeel was the president and
[23:10] Speaker 2: chief operating officer of Warner Brothers back in the eighties
[23:13] Speaker 2: and eventually in the nineties, So he's there for like,
[23:15] Speaker 2: you know, making the first Batman and saved Warner Brothers.
[23:19] Speaker 2: He becomes the chairman, a co chairman of Warner Brothers,
[23:21] Speaker 2: with Bob Daily the other co chairman. That's why he
[23:25] Speaker 2: was so excited to sell them.
[23:26] Speaker 3: And that's the thing is if you hear these like marquee.
[23:28] Speaker 4: Names of Nicholson and Bruce Wheelis, but then it's the
[23:33] Speaker 4: real money guys are the ones that you don't hear their.
[23:37] Speaker 3: Names, you're not familiar with it. They're the heads of studios, and.
[23:40] Speaker 2: They're given gifts to the people, you know, not just
[23:43] Speaker 2: for themselves. They'll buy Jack Nicholson.
[23:45] Speaker 3: A chair or whatever exactly.
[23:48] Speaker 2: So these are the say you point out, these are
[23:49] Speaker 2: sort of wealthy folks. They need an art dealer on call,
[23:52] Speaker 2: someone who knows the good stuff right and is happy
[23:54] Speaker 2: to be that for them. Now, he first helps the
[23:57] Speaker 2: producer Joel Silver decorate his newly built Man with all
[24:00] Speaker 2: expensive art right. As Joel Silver told The New York Times,
[24:04] Speaker 2: he was extremely helpful to me when I first began collecting,
[24:07] Speaker 2: and so Silver he would fly to New York visit
[24:09] Speaker 2: the Jordan Volpa Gallery and as he would later tell
[24:12] Speaker 2: The New York Times, it was like going to a
[24:14] Speaker 2: museum where everything was for sale. Most of the very
[24:16] Speaker 2: great objects went through his hands.
[24:19] Speaker 4: Now, it's so crazy how Joel Silver sounds like Hermit
[24:22] Speaker 4: front It's not weird.
[24:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, I only do Muppet voices. He also said that
[24:27] Speaker 2: Volpa had this incredible why so and then also he
[24:31] Speaker 2: quote knew where everything was and helped me put together
[24:34] Speaker 2: a wonderful collection. Now, if he asked Todd Michael Volpa
[24:39] Speaker 2: about this same period of time, as he told the
[24:41] Speaker 2: New York Times quote, if Joel said I want an
[24:44] Speaker 2: Ennis or a Benton or Barber Streisan said I want
[24:47] Speaker 2: to Perish. I love Parish. I'd go out and find
[24:49] Speaker 2: her for them. I would do these things for very
[24:51] Speaker 2: little money. If I'd see a painting for Jack for
[24:54] Speaker 2: like one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, I'd charge
[24:57] Speaker 2: him one hundred and eighty five thousand. I wouldn't charge
[24:59] Speaker 2: him three hundred fifty thousand and put the money in
[25:01] Speaker 2: a stock portfolio. Why because I wanted their friendship. I
[25:06] Speaker 2: believe that if I was good to these people, then
[25:08] Speaker 2: they would turn around and say, Okay, now it's Todd's turn.
[25:11] Speaker 2: We're going to give him a shot.
[25:13] Speaker 3: Okay.
[25:13] Speaker 2: I don't believe a word of that.
[25:14] Speaker 4: I don't, but I do believe that Barbi Streisan would
[25:17] Speaker 4: have Maxfield perish, yes, all over her house.
[25:19] Speaker 2: Right, I thought you would like that good call. No,
[25:23] Speaker 2: those are people who get a taste of it, a
[25:25] Speaker 2: real taste of it. They often want that Hollywood life
[25:28] Speaker 2: for themselves. Sure, they begin to desire that level of
[25:30] Speaker 2: global fame and that sort of power that comes with it,
[25:33] Speaker 2: wherein they can make their dreams come true up on
[25:36] Speaker 2: the silver screen. Like we will hear our various criminals
[25:39] Speaker 2: talk about how this is just like a movie or
[25:40] Speaker 2: I learned from the movie. Yes, we all know that
[25:43] Speaker 2: if it's a movie, somehow it's bigger than life, more
[25:45] Speaker 2: important than life. It's like myths have come.
[25:48] Speaker 3: To life's shared mythology and language.
[25:51] Speaker 2: Right, and this is true even today, I mean like
[25:52] Speaker 2: with like, even though movies are dying, still someone like
[25:55] Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos, right, he's like, what, the second richest man
[25:58] Speaker 2: in the world, he still wants to be cool and
[26:00] Speaker 2: have cool famous friends on his yacht. He wants to
[26:02] Speaker 2: be a star too. Yeah, right, And it's like, bro,
[26:05] Speaker 2: you can just be Jeff Bezos.
[26:07] Speaker 3: So bad at it?
[26:08] Speaker 4: Of course, for someone who's so rich, he dresses like
[26:12] Speaker 4: such a dweeb and like he's.
[26:14] Speaker 2: Paying someone else. He doesn't have taste. The stars have tastes.
[26:17] Speaker 4: See all those things though, Like on Instagram, I'll see these,
[26:20] Speaker 4: you know, they're rather rude of like you're not you're
[26:23] Speaker 4: not ugly or just poor, and it'll show like you
[26:25] Speaker 4: know someone before their fame and you know, and.
[26:28] Speaker 3: The quote unquote glow up.
[26:30] Speaker 4: But like why like Jeff Bezos wears the worst, most
[26:34] Speaker 4: ill fitting clothes.
[26:35] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and he looks like such a dingus.
[26:38] Speaker 2: And the way he walks down and poses and tries
[26:40] Speaker 2: he makes his clothes movies.
[26:41] Speaker 4: Because I think they all start taking that human growth harm.
[26:43] Speaker 4: This is all allegedly. Don't sue me, Jeff, but anyway,
[26:47] Speaker 4: I just he fascinates me because it's like he tries
[26:51] Speaker 4: so hard and misses the mark.
[26:54] Speaker 2: He's clearly is desperate to be like a star, like
[26:57] Speaker 2: on the level of George Clooney. You know, it's like, bro,
[27:00] Speaker 2: that's not your lane.
[27:02] Speaker 3: Wife is just as much like trying so hard and
[27:05] Speaker 3: missing the mark.
[27:06] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. She used to be like on the news
[27:08] Speaker 2: in La so like late at night, like at midnight
[27:10] Speaker 2: when I'd be watching the news. There she'd be and
[27:12] Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, I remember Lauren Sanchez, and that's
[27:14] Speaker 2: like I thought she was like okay at her job,
[27:17] Speaker 2: but I always she was the late night person. Yeah,
[27:19] Speaker 2: that should tell you something.
[27:20] Speaker 4: She's now apparently hired law Roach as your stylist, and
[27:23] Speaker 4: she makes his work look terrible.
[27:25] Speaker 2: I bet he hates that, but he loves the payday
[27:27] Speaker 2: though I'm sure get paid law Todd Michael Volpa, he's
[27:32] Speaker 2: no different. He also gets out to Hollywood. He's like,
[27:34] Speaker 2: I want to be a star. Eventually he was like, actually,
[27:36] Speaker 2: more than that, he's like, what I really want to
[27:38] Speaker 2: do is direct stop. As Joe Silver told The New
[27:42] Speaker 2: York Times, once a house is finished and you've completed
[27:45] Speaker 2: the process, it's over. But Todd had fantasies. He really
[27:49] Speaker 2: thought he could break into the movies. He really thought
[27:51] Speaker 2: he'd win an Academy Award. In fact, he'd probably already
[27:53] Speaker 2: written his acceptance speech.
[27:56] Speaker 4: So yeah, I can see how he's got like a
[27:58] Speaker 4: direction of of how to stay and how to present
[28:01] Speaker 4: a story.
[28:02] Speaker 2: So he's like, oh, yeah, I can do this, just
[28:04] Speaker 2: moving characters around the little blocking sure.
[28:06] Speaker 3: Camera direction and sit in a director's chair.
[28:08] Speaker 2: He's like, you know, when I was prepping a body
[28:11] Speaker 2: of the morticians and Balmer, I was telling a story. Anyway,
[28:15] Speaker 2: we're getting ahead of ourselves. So back to Jack Nicholson,
[28:17] Speaker 2: our focus. It's nineteen eighty six when Todd Michael Volpa
[28:21] Speaker 2: relocates to Hollywood. He starts working as an art advisor
[28:24] Speaker 2: art dealer to Joel Silver, Barbara Streisan, later Bruce Willis,
[28:28] Speaker 2: but mainly he partners with Jack Nicholson. Now the two
[28:31] Speaker 2: men they strike this deal. Jack Nicholson gives him six
[28:34] Speaker 2: hundred and ten thousand dollars to start their business. Vulpa
[28:37] Speaker 2: is in charged with finding art, buying it, restoring it
[28:40] Speaker 2: if necessary, and then he's supposed to sell it and
[28:43] Speaker 2: the two men split the profits. It's not a fifty
[28:45] Speaker 2: to fifty split. Jack gets sixty percent, Vulpa gets forty percent.
[28:49] Speaker 2: And basically he's like Jack's the silent backer, or he's like,
[28:52] Speaker 2: you know, he's like the front man. If it was
[28:54] Speaker 2: like a weed deal. He's like, I'll front you the bag.
[28:56] Speaker 2: You go out and sell, come back in me profits.
[28:58] Speaker 2: I'll get you some more.
[28:59] Speaker 3: To put it in terms.
[29:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, so getting paid for Vulpa's eye, and it tastes
[29:03] Speaker 2: is with the deal, right. Yeah, So since Vulpa doesn't
[29:05] Speaker 2: have an art gallery in la instead, he displays the
[29:08] Speaker 2: art in his home and he has buyers come by
[29:10] Speaker 2: to check what he has on.
[29:11] Speaker 3: Offer, which I think they would probably like.
[29:13] Speaker 2: Oh my god, they loved it. Right, And this also
[29:15] Speaker 2: works super well. He's got like a house up in
[29:17] Speaker 2: the hills. They drive up, you know, and then they
[29:19] Speaker 2: got to walk in and see it, like, oh, this
[29:21] Speaker 2: is what it would look like under natural light conditions
[29:23] Speaker 2: and so forth. Now, also at this point this is
[29:26] Speaker 2: working super well, but he finds that there's this shoehorn
[29:29] Speaker 2: that almost guarantee a sale. He just starts telling people
[29:32] Speaker 2: that this was owned by Jack Nicholson. So he just
[29:36] Speaker 2: uses Jack's name to sell the art and he adds it.
[29:38] Speaker 2: He basically adds Jack to the provenance of the pieces
[29:42] Speaker 2: and is Vulpa tells it himself quote, I would always say, look,
[29:46] Speaker 2: you know this painting came out of Jack Nicholson's collection.
[29:49] Speaker 2: When I was buying and selling for Jack, I was
[29:50] Speaker 2: using our investment group. I would say Jack owned this painting.
[29:54] Speaker 2: The truth is never even hit his hands. Now, no
[29:59] Speaker 2: matter if this is all true or not. The idea
[30:00] Speaker 2: that art once belonged to Jack Nicholson obviously is enough
[30:03] Speaker 2: to sell at a high premium. People want and covet
[30:06] Speaker 2: what stars have. Oh, I can tell people, did Jack
[30:09] Speaker 2: Nicholson own to this?
[30:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm in that rarefied air now. He and
[30:13] Speaker 3: I have the same taste exactly.
[30:15] Speaker 2: He's sweated on this. You could probably swipe it for
[30:17] Speaker 2: his DNA. So anyway, their arrangement is going gangbusters. At
[30:21] Speaker 2: one point, the two men they buy an Aston Martin
[30:23] Speaker 2: and with plans to restore it, and they plan to
[30:26] Speaker 2: share it like I'll get it on Friday, you get
[30:28] Speaker 2: it on Sunday.
[30:28] Speaker 4: I see the like montage right with them riding around best.
[30:38] Speaker 2: Pull over on in the Twitch city, keep going to
[30:41] Speaker 2: the beach. So this is all obviously part of Vulpa's
[30:44] Speaker 2: attempts to look the part of a Hollywood art dealer
[30:46] Speaker 2: to the stars, because remember, he knows he needs to
[30:48] Speaker 2: present the perfect appearance to show he has all the
[30:52] Speaker 2: trappings of success. And my Van Volpa, he's living large
[30:55] Speaker 2: at this point, like no doubt about it. As he
[30:57] Speaker 2: told the New York magazine, if I wanted to Steinway piano.
[31:00] Speaker 2: They deliver it that afternoon. I'd spend one hundred thousand
[31:04] Speaker 2: dollars on just one exhibition, and he means like in
[31:06] Speaker 2: his own home.
[31:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
[31:08] Speaker 2: So, in an interview with The New York Times, Volpa
[31:10] Speaker 2: he was sitting there and they describe what he's wearing.
[31:13] Speaker 2: They're at this hoity toity soho restaurant called Da Silvano Dslono.
[31:17] Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's a in the it's an art
[31:19] Speaker 2: world hangout, according to The New York Times, and as
[31:22] Speaker 2: the paper described Volpa's outfit, He's dressed in a pair
[31:24] Speaker 2: of blue jeans, a tasteful white polo shirt, a tweed jacket,
[31:28] Speaker 2: and a pair of polished alligator skinned loafers. He's just
[31:32] Speaker 2: that guy, ever, Yes, yeah, exactly. And he's explaining how
[31:36] Speaker 2: everything went so wrong for him in Hollywood to the Times. Right,
[31:39] Speaker 2: and as Vulpa tells it, every life has a story,
[31:42] Speaker 2: whether it's right or wrong, good or bad. People identify
[31:45] Speaker 2: with tragedy. I don't live a haphazard life. I had
[31:49] Speaker 2: a mission, a plan, and it wasn't to manipulate people.
[31:54] Speaker 3: Really.
[31:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, this is exactly what he did, though, which is
[31:57] Speaker 2: ironic and it's how he made his name in the
[31:59] Speaker 2: first place.
[32:00] Speaker 3: About how he manipulated yeah people, It's.
[32:02] Speaker 2: Also what his hero and role model, the art dealer
[32:04] Speaker 2: Joseph Devine did, right, So, I think he's being kind
[32:07] Speaker 2: to himself. What regardless, to be fair, I think when Vulpa,
[32:10] Speaker 2: what he really means is that he never expected what
[32:13] Speaker 2: would happen would happen, okay, right, and especially when everything
[32:16] Speaker 2: was going so well. He was partying with Hollywood stars,
[32:19] Speaker 2: laid into the night like it's one am barbistraize and
[32:21] Speaker 2: so we like have some food delivered. So like that's like,
[32:25] Speaker 2: you know, the lifestyle they're doing. Right, He's making a
[32:27] Speaker 2: mint selling art to producers and financiers. I mean he
[32:30] Speaker 2: lived well, he ate well, He drove nice cars, he
[32:32] Speaker 2: wore expensive clothing. He had a Japanese garden at his
[32:36] Speaker 2: place that required specialized groundskeepers. He drove obviously, that restored
[32:40] Speaker 2: Aston Martin that he co owned with Jack Nicholson, right so,
[32:43] Speaker 2: and that of course obviously requires a team of specialized mechanics.
[32:47] Speaker 2: All in all, over the course of his two decade
[32:49] Speaker 2: career as an art dealer, Vulpa estimates that he spent
[32:52] Speaker 2: twenty eight million dollars just to buy art and to
[32:54] Speaker 2: live well. Now a right, A lot of that went
[32:57] Speaker 2: to the living well. But we'll get into the numbers later.
[33:00] Speaker 2: And then Elizabeth, it all unravels. So how did it
[33:03] Speaker 2: all come undone? What was the thorn in this elephant's foot?
[33:07] Speaker 2: I was hoping you'd ask that, Elizabeth.
[33:08] Speaker 3: Great question, by the way, so good.
[33:10] Speaker 2: There was this collapse of the go go eighties art market,
[33:13] Speaker 2: right because everything was selling. It was incredible. I have
[33:17] Speaker 2: you've seen a Beetlejuice, the original. There's a whole scene
[33:20] Speaker 2: they're talking with the art dealer with a friend of Delia, right, yeah, yeah,
[33:25] Speaker 2: So that gives you a good sense of what the
[33:27] Speaker 2: art market was like. It was pretentious, it was full
[33:29] Speaker 2: of itself. It was like, oh, I like thinking, move right, right.
[33:33] Speaker 2: So if this all comes to a screeching halt when
[33:36] Speaker 2: a recession hits in America in nineteen ninety, that lasts
[33:39] Speaker 2: into nineteen ninety one, which eventually gives us you know,
[33:42] Speaker 2: it's why George hw. Bush doesn't get re elected and
[33:45] Speaker 2: Clinton is elected. This thing was like nobody saw this coming.
[33:48] Speaker 2: They're like, we just survived the Black Monday in eighty seven.
[33:50] Speaker 2: We thought everything's good, and.
[33:52] Speaker 3: They didn't want to stop believing.
[33:53] Speaker 2: No, and so the following price in the weakened demand
[33:57] Speaker 2: for art, it leads to this change in Volpa's ability
[33:59] Speaker 2: to pull his financial shenanigans that he was using to
[34:02] Speaker 2: pay for his lavish lifestyle. It really all came to
[34:05] Speaker 2: a head when these two Hollywood superproducers figured out that
[34:09] Speaker 2: Volpa had sold them fraudulent artwork and they demanded their
[34:12] Speaker 2: money back. So these super producers were Frank Marshall and
[34:15] Speaker 2: Kathleen Kennedy. Oh now Marshall who's the producer and like
[34:18] Speaker 2: Star Wars, Empire strikes Back, Kathleen Kennedy was the eventual
[34:21] Speaker 2: head of Lucasfilms. Right. They also produced Jurassic Park for Spielberg.
[34:25] Speaker 2: They also co founded Ambulance Entertainment with Spielberg superproducers. Right, So,
[34:31] Speaker 2: Vulpa learned that they liked artwork from the interbellum, that
[34:34] Speaker 2: period of time between World War One and World War Two,
[34:36] Speaker 2: specifically time completely now Volpa he goes then sells them
[34:41] Speaker 2: a Thomas hart bent In sculpture for eighty three thousand dollars,
[34:44] Speaker 2: and he tells them that the sculpture was made in
[34:46] Speaker 2: that interwar period and when in fact, the truth is
[34:50] Speaker 2: it was cast in nineteen seventy. Oh. They figure this
[34:53] Speaker 2: out because they're not dumb people. They demand their money back.
[34:56] Speaker 2: The trouble for Vulpa is he doesn't have the eighty
[34:59] Speaker 2: three grandis line around and he tells them like, oh,
[35:01] Speaker 2: and he can't raise it either. He's like, he doesn't
[35:03] Speaker 2: have assets he can sell, so instead he offers to
[35:06] Speaker 2: resell that artwork. I was like, give it back to me,
[35:09] Speaker 2: I'll resell to some other buyer, sucker, and then I'll
[35:13] Speaker 2: reimburse you the profits from that sale. But by then
[35:16] Speaker 2: it's way too late because not only did they come
[35:18] Speaker 2: to him, they'd already gone to a lawyer, and the
[35:20] Speaker 2: lawyer had done the research, and the lawyer, as they
[35:22] Speaker 2: told it, we quickly discovered that this was a giant
[35:26] Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme involving works of art. So the Ponzi scheme
[35:29] Speaker 2: is revealed for the first time. The married couple sues
[35:33] Speaker 2: him and they got money for days for a lawyer. So,
[35:35] Speaker 2: as you know, Hollywood is a small town, word starts
[35:38] Speaker 2: to spread quickly. Soon other buyers figure out they've been
[35:41] Speaker 2: conned or defraud and they demand their money back too.
[35:44] Speaker 2: And remember, the art market at this point is dead,
[35:46] Speaker 2: there's a recession going. It's nearly impossible to find new
[35:50] Speaker 2: buyers in order to reimburse all these clients that he's conned.
[35:53] Speaker 3: Well, and they're new buyers for pieces that are are fakes, right.
[35:57] Speaker 2: Well, no, there's some real stuff, Like he had this
[35:59] Speaker 2: one salvage or Dolly painting that he Dolly had painted
[36:03] Speaker 2: it for the Hitchcock movie Spellbound. It was the real painting.
[36:06] Speaker 2: It was absolutely real, and he bought it Vulpa bought
[36:09] Speaker 2: it as a as an investment, and then he sold
[36:12] Speaker 2: pieces of the investment like, oh, if you can get
[36:14] Speaker 2: one eighth of this, you give me this amount of money,
[36:17] Speaker 2: you can get one eighth and when I eventually sell it,
[36:19] Speaker 2: you'll get one eighth of the profits. He sold more
[36:22] Speaker 2: than eight portions.
[36:24] Speaker 3: Oh, I see, he's talking.
[36:26] Speaker 2: About all sorts of weird financial stuff. Sometimes he's faking stuff,
[36:30] Speaker 2: sometimes he's lying about it. Sometimes he's saying a date
[36:32] Speaker 2: is wrong. Sometimes he's just over selling it. He's doing
[36:35] Speaker 2: everything he can to con everybody halfway to the middle,
[36:37] Speaker 2: and there he is in the middle. So one dealer
[36:40] Speaker 2: in that deal lost five hundred thousand dollars on the
[36:43] Speaker 2: like how many I don't know how many eighths they had,
[36:45] Speaker 2: but that's what they lost. So this also starts to
[36:47] Speaker 2: put more pressure on Vulp. He's got more and more
[36:49] Speaker 2: clients from all sorts of deals upset at him. Meanwhile,
[36:53] Speaker 2: there's his main business partner, Jack Nicholson. And remember they
[36:56] Speaker 2: were buying art together and splitting the profits. But it
[36:59] Speaker 2: wasn't like he would drive over to Jack's house and
[37:00] Speaker 2: hand him a briefcase of cash or like a check
[37:03] Speaker 2: for his cut of the profits. Instead, they had this
[37:06] Speaker 2: investment fund. He would tell Jack what he sold, and
[37:08] Speaker 2: then he would just you know, put the profits in
[37:11] Speaker 2: the fund's.
[37:12] Speaker 3: Account and tell him it's in there now.
[37:15] Speaker 2: In order to keep up his luxurious Hollywood lifestyle, Volpa
[37:17] Speaker 2: had been skimming from that fund pretty much from the start.
[37:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so.
[37:22] Speaker 2: He would tell him like, oh, remember he said, like
[37:23] Speaker 2: I would tell I buy a painting for one hundred
[37:25] Speaker 2: and seventy five, and I'd tell him, you know, one
[37:26] Speaker 2: hundred and eighty five. I wouldn't tell him three hundred
[37:29] Speaker 2: and fifty. The reason why he might have come up
[37:30] Speaker 2: with these numbers is he probably had some guilt going
[37:33] Speaker 2: and he was just telling what he actually did. Sure,
[37:35] Speaker 2: because he was lying to Jack about the numbers and
[37:38] Speaker 2: then telling him like, oh, here's your cut, here's your
[37:40] Speaker 2: sixty percent of the profits. Right, it was not an
[37:42] Speaker 2: accurate sixty percent.
[37:43] Speaker 4: Well, and because it's such such a side thing for Nicholson, Yeah,
[37:47] Speaker 4: he's not going to look focusing on it.
[37:49] Speaker 2: And also he's not going to pay attention to himself.
[37:50] Speaker 2: He's got a business manager for that. Yeah, and the
[37:52] Speaker 2: business manager doesn't how suspicious he's going to be as
[37:55] Speaker 2: long as profits keep showing up. It's just you know,
[37:58] Speaker 2: he's going to know what the numbers are for tax
[38:00] Speaker 2: right off or whatever. So basically from the start, starting
[38:04] Speaker 2: in eighty six, it's now nineteen ninety one, and this
[38:06] Speaker 2: is when he gets caught short and the recessions hit.
[38:09] Speaker 2: So to make matters worse, there's always people suing him.
[38:12] Speaker 2: Talk is starady to get around. As Vulpa recalls, I
[38:15] Speaker 2: was always putting money back into the fund. I did
[38:17] Speaker 2: that successfully for like five years. But when money got
[38:20] Speaker 2: held up in the nineteen nineties, I began trading things,
[38:23] Speaker 2: sometimes for far less, and I paid for them. When
[38:26] Speaker 2: he says trading things. Yeah, some of those things didn't
[38:28] Speaker 2: belong to him, but he sold them anyway. So people
[38:32] Speaker 2: would be like, oh, he's like, yeah, I'm gonna get
[38:33] Speaker 2: back to you on the profits. I almost have a
[38:35] Speaker 2: buyer and he's already sold it. It's gone right. Yeah,
[38:38] Speaker 2: to make up the money he skimmed from Jack Nicholson
[38:40] Speaker 2: and all the money he owed, you know, to Frank Marshall,
[38:43] Speaker 2: Kathleen Kennedy, Vulpa starts selling off art, art that doesn't
[38:46] Speaker 2: belong to him, art that belongs to other clients. Then
[38:48] Speaker 2: he tell them, you know, he's sold for far less
[38:50] Speaker 2: or you know, like I said, he's waiting for the
[38:51] Speaker 2: buyer to pay him or the buyer whatever. He's just
[38:54] Speaker 2: lying all the way. So now he's compounding his problems. Yeah,
[38:56] Speaker 2: he also sold that Aston Martin that he bought with
[38:59] Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson. Didn't tell him about that. Now, I assumed,
[39:02] Speaker 2: you know, you would assume that he would tell Jack
[39:04] Speaker 2: because they're all buddy buddy, but and also you'd assume
[39:07] Speaker 2: he would tell the buyer that it was Jack Nicholson's
[39:09] Speaker 2: to improve the provenance of the Ashston Martin. So maybe
[39:12] Speaker 2: talk will get back to Jack and he was like, hey,
[39:14] Speaker 2: I bought this from Jack. You got Jack's car. Anyway,
[39:17] Speaker 2: after he saw the car, he forgot to tell Jack
[39:20] Speaker 2: or give him his cut of the car. Finally, he
[39:23] Speaker 2: used his relationship with other art galleries to borrow money
[39:26] Speaker 2: from them for the collateral. He would use artworks that
[39:30] Speaker 2: didn't belong to him. So now he's promising people's artwork
[39:33] Speaker 2: to get money, literal cash for like fronted to him
[39:36] Speaker 2: so he can give it to people. Here's the money
[39:38] Speaker 2: I owe you.
[39:39] Speaker 3: So he's just you know, as Hannick of it all completely.
[39:43] Speaker 2: Now, Jack Nicholson's business manager, this guy Robert Colbert or
[39:47] Speaker 2: Colbert you'd hear a simple story from him if you
[39:50] Speaker 2: were to ask him, how would you describe all of this?
[39:52] Speaker 2: As he told The New York Times, what happened was
[39:54] Speaker 2: that he moved to California and got into the California lifestyle,
[39:57] Speaker 2: which was above his means. And if you rob Peter
[40:00] Speaker 2: to pay Paul, all of a sudden it fell apart on.
[40:03] Speaker 3: Him, so straight to the point, right, just laying it
[40:06] Speaker 3: down there.
[40:07] Speaker 2: Now. Meanwhile, being under pressure like he was, Volpa sought refuge.
[40:11] Speaker 2: He escaped into the forgiving arms of cocaine, Because Elizabeth,
[40:16] Speaker 2: if your life's not going well, the best thing to
[40:18] Speaker 2: do is to start doing massive cocaine. It's cheap, it'll
[40:22] Speaker 2: fix everything.
[40:23] Speaker 3: Fix it makes you a fabulous person to be hereund totally.
[40:26] Speaker 2: You know, if we're saying fix, if you mean like
[40:28] Speaker 2: it gives you all sorts of new problems, that would
[40:31] Speaker 2: be accurate, because that's what happened, as Volpa told The
[40:33] Speaker 2: New York Times. By nineteen ninety three, my cash flow
[40:36] Speaker 2: problems had become severe.
[40:37] Speaker 4: So well, yeah, he's already like lying all the stuff,
[40:40] Speaker 4: and now he's just gonna set money on fire by
[40:42] Speaker 4: doing coke all the time.
[40:43] Speaker 2: So what does he do now, Well, he could no
[40:45] Speaker 2: longer keep up appearances. He's doing a bunch of blows.
[40:47] Speaker 2: He looks erratic. Yeah, so Vulpa flees Hollywood and he
[40:50] Speaker 2: goes back to New York. Right, as he told The Times,
[40:53] Speaker 2: I didn't own anything. I didn't have a stock portfolio.
[40:56] Speaker 2: I stuck money under my mattress like my mother. I
[40:58] Speaker 2: kept a cookie jar in my head, and if I
[41:00] Speaker 2: needed something, I'd use it. Right, So this is he's
[41:03] Speaker 2: reduced now to money in the cooky judge and under
[41:06] Speaker 2: a mattress. Somehow, Volpa still manages to live luxuriously though
[41:10] Speaker 2: when he tries to get back to New York. He's
[41:11] Speaker 2: trying to hop back into the New York art world
[41:13] Speaker 2: and make the money he owes the people in La
[41:16] Speaker 2: and so he needs to keep up appearances. So he
[41:18] Speaker 2: plans to make money there by conning people. So he's
[41:20] Speaker 2: got to look like, you know, hey, everything's going well.
[41:23] Speaker 2: And also he plans to con his old friends. So
[41:27] Speaker 2: I got to pay my new friends with my old
[41:28] Speaker 2: friend's money. So for three months or so, he's residing
[41:31] Speaker 2: at the Regency Hotel, but not just in any room.
[41:34] Speaker 2: He lives in the presidential suite.
[41:36] Speaker 3: Oh my god.
[41:37] Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety three, the presidential suite rented for anywhere
[41:40] Speaker 2: between one thousand and eighteen hundred dollars a day in
[41:42] Speaker 2: ninety three, and I updated that for twenty six money.
[41:46] Speaker 2: My next question, that would be twenty two fifty to
[41:48] Speaker 2: four thou fifty dollars a day. And he was there
[41:52] Speaker 2: for three months.
[41:53] Speaker 3: Oh my god.
[41:56] Speaker 2: Now for that sort of luxury, Volpa had to con
[41:59] Speaker 2: his friends, the owners of the Regency Hotel, Steve and
[42:02] Speaker 2: Patty Tish. But he knew he could pull this off
[42:05] Speaker 2: with them because they knew him as the man at
[42:07] Speaker 2: the center of the New York arts scene. So it'd
[42:08] Speaker 2: take him a little while. And the lawsuits in Hollywood
[42:11] Speaker 2: hadn't hit the newspapers yet and hadn't made their way
[42:13] Speaker 2: back to New York yet. The communities weren't as you know,
[42:16] Speaker 2: communicative back then. Yeah, so, and you know the gossip
[42:20] Speaker 2: you knows you internet exactly so, as Volpa recalls it, quote,
[42:24] Speaker 2: I was hanging around with Steve and Patty Tish. They
[42:26] Speaker 2: own the Regency. All my clients stayed there. I did
[42:28] Speaker 2: business there, the breakfast, the power lunches. It's how you
[42:31] Speaker 2: do business, It's how you live your life. So that's
[42:34] Speaker 2: what he's doing, like, still high on cocaine, still doing
[42:36] Speaker 2: the business, power lunches.
[42:38] Speaker 3: He sounds like the worst person to be around at
[42:40] Speaker 3: this point.
[42:40] Speaker 2: Oh completely, And he's stalling, installing to pay for the
[42:43] Speaker 2: presidential suite. He's paying little bits when he can, but
[42:45] Speaker 2: mostly he's just running up a tab. Eventually the tab
[42:48] Speaker 2: is too great for anyone to ignore, and that he's
[42:50] Speaker 2: told he has to leave the Presidential Suite, and when
[42:53] Speaker 2: he does, he still owes the owners eleven thousand dollars,
[42:56] Speaker 2: and that is after they gave him a steeply discounted rate.
[43:00] Speaker 2: They're like, we'll cut it in by, like by seriously exactly. Meanwhile,
[43:04] Speaker 2: Vulpa is still trying to win or swing a big
[43:07] Speaker 2: deal to get back into Hollywood. He's like, I gotta
[43:09] Speaker 2: gotta get back to Hollywood. So he's trying to get
[43:11] Speaker 2: his client, Terry Semmel, the coach chairman, to Warner Brothers
[43:14] Speaker 2: to buy a screenplay. Idea. He had Elizabeth, you can
[43:17] Speaker 2: take the boy out of Hollywood, but you're much harder
[43:19] Speaker 2: to take the Hollywood out of the boy.
[43:22] Speaker 3: A screenplay will say this.
[43:23] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Even back in New York, Todd Michael Volpa,
[43:25] Speaker 2: as I said, still thought his plan to get into Hollywood,
[43:27] Speaker 2: and his plan is, once again, I planned to direct.
[43:29] Speaker 2: I really like to direct.
[43:30] Speaker 3: I swear to you that's fast cash right there.
[43:33] Speaker 2: He'd optioned the life story of his hero and role model,
[43:35] Speaker 2: Joseph Duvine, and he figured, if I can get a
[43:37] Speaker 2: script in shape sell that all my money troubles will
[43:40] Speaker 2: be over. They'll all disappear. I mean, this is such cokehead.
[43:43] Speaker 3: He's just going to say, that is cocaine logic.
[43:46] Speaker 2: He remembers thinking at the time, I'm gonna sell the
[43:49] Speaker 2: Duvine story and then I'll get a writer's fee and
[43:51] Speaker 2: a producer's fee three hundred thousand, maybe four hudred thousand.
[43:54] Speaker 2: Like you can start to really hear it in between
[43:56] Speaker 2: the words. Now if you ask him, he claimed Semel
[43:59] Speaker 2: was sending a hard for him to take them to
[44:01] Speaker 2: Warner Brothers out to their jet, like their private jet,
[44:04] Speaker 2: so he could then wing his way back out to
[44:06] Speaker 2: Hollywood and talk to deals. And this is how Volpa
[44:08] Speaker 2: tells it, I'd fly to California in the Warner jet.
[44:11] Speaker 2: And you have to live in a way that you
[44:12] Speaker 2: look like you have class. I was one of them.
[44:15] Speaker 2: But if you ask a spokesperson for Terry Semmel, you
[44:18] Speaker 2: hear a different story, such as what she told the
[44:20] Speaker 2: New York Times and I quote it never happened. Meanwhile,
[44:25] Speaker 2: Vulpa is still saying, I kept thinking I'm gonna get
[44:27] Speaker 2: through this, Elizabeth. You think he got through it. No,
[44:31] Speaker 2: let's take a little break and when this after these messages,
[44:34] Speaker 2: we'll get into how badly he missed getting through this, Elizabeth.
[45:00] Speaker 2: How you digging Todd, Michael Volpe.
[45:02] Speaker 3: This guy he's just too much a.
[45:04] Speaker 2: Cocaine art dealer who's Konjack Nicholson, The Warner Brothers all
[45:07] Speaker 2: like the CEO, the chairman, Joel Silver and Barbara No. Yeah,
[45:14] Speaker 2: but at this point luck is not on my dude's side.
[45:17] Speaker 2: The option that he had on the book about Joseph
[45:20] Speaker 2: Duvine the art Dealer ye expired in the spring of
[45:23] Speaker 2: ninety four, and there when his pipe dream a screenplay
[45:26] Speaker 2: is gonna sell. So by nineteen ninety five, Todd Michael
[45:31] Speaker 2: Volpa he has to file for bankruptcy. Yeah, his stuff
[45:34] Speaker 2: is catching up to him, right, And in his bankruptcy
[45:37] Speaker 2: paperwork he decides, I'm going to write down everything I
[45:39] Speaker 2: still owe people, and he gets step to his debt
[45:42] Speaker 2: liabilities are three point five million dollars. That's what he's
[45:45] Speaker 2: trying to like write off. However, by documenting all of
[45:49] Speaker 2: his debts in his hope to have them written off,
[45:52] Speaker 2: he creates this irrefutable paper trail, or is he later
[45:55] Speaker 2: put it by putting things in writing, I murdered myself
[46:00] Speaker 2: right out. He's being metaphorical. Well, yeah, so we're good
[46:03] Speaker 2: on our ninety nine pree. This is not a one percent.
[46:06] Speaker 4: Around the time I think maybe it's a little later
[46:08] Speaker 4: that all the bankruptcy laws started to get revived.
[46:10] Speaker 2: It's under George W. Bush. He's you have to pay
[46:14] Speaker 2: thirty five hundred dollars before you can even talk about bankruptcy, right.
[46:17] Speaker 4: But it's like when you look at like that gets
[46:20] Speaker 4: plugged into so many other systems like.
[46:22] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well also it's just you literally saying these
[46:25] Speaker 2: are all the things I owe. It becomes a legal
[46:27] Speaker 2: document and people we come along and then use it
[46:29] Speaker 2: to sue you. And there you are attesting too, Yes
[46:31] Speaker 2: I did. Oh yeah, so if.
[46:34] Speaker 3: You leave stuff off, if you leave creditors off, yeah.
[46:36] Speaker 2: Then off the schedule, then you you know better than
[46:39] Speaker 2: I do.
[46:39] Speaker 3: You worked for I worked for a bankruptcy trustee for
[46:42] Speaker 3: a while. It's a paralegal.
[46:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know this intimately, I do. So just imagine
[46:48] Speaker 2: how screwed this client would be if your boss was
[46:51] Speaker 2: having to deal with him. And also remember he's still
[46:53] Speaker 2: on cocaine, so there's a lot of it, just a
[46:56] Speaker 2: really sweaty You could almost.
[46:58] Speaker 4: See it on some of the pages as I would
[47:00] Speaker 4: review the stuff that would come in. I think this
[47:03] Speaker 4: does not make any sense, do you see, Like, you know,
[47:06] Speaker 4: little details about them emerge and you can craft a
[47:09] Speaker 4: story about the people.
[47:10] Speaker 2: Oh man, So are you ready for justice to catch
[47:13] Speaker 2: up to this con man and arts will he be
[47:16] Speaker 2: able to swing that one big payday? So he so
[47:19] Speaker 2: desperately needs to get back in the good graces of
[47:21] Speaker 2: Hollywood and repair his relationship with Jack Nicholson and everyone
[47:24] Speaker 2: else he conned and defrauded. Yeah, good question. Elizabeth, rather
[47:28] Speaker 2: than me, answered that, Elizabeth, please close your eyes.
[47:30] Speaker 3: My eyes a clue.
[47:31] Speaker 2: I'd like you to picture it. It's six o'clock in
[47:40] Speaker 2: the morning in New Hampshire, and all through the house
[47:42] Speaker 2: not a creature is stirring, not even a coked out mouse,
[47:45] Speaker 2: and you, Elizabeth, are lying down for the moment because
[47:48] Speaker 2: you are the top half of Todd Michael Volpa's silk pajamas.
[47:51] Speaker 2: You notice a strange sound from outside the window. Is that, yes,
[47:56] Speaker 2: it is. It's a helicopter. You don't hear those off
[47:59] Speaker 2: in a New Hampshire. And then you hear another distinct sound,
[48:03] Speaker 2: a loud, hard banging at the front door. It sounds
[48:06] Speaker 2: like cops pounding on the door, which is exactly what
[48:09] Speaker 2: it is, only they're federal cops aka the FBI. The
[48:13] Speaker 2: banging wakes up Todd Michael Volpa. He exclaims, what the
[48:16] Speaker 2: ever living? His voice falls off away before he finishes
[48:20] Speaker 2: his thought. He leaps up from his bed and tears
[48:22] Speaker 2: back that drapes to his bedroom window, and he sees
[48:25] Speaker 2: what you see. A squadron of local police and FBI
[48:28] Speaker 2: guys with their jackets with their yellow letters FBI on
[48:31] Speaker 2: the back. Some of them are even wearing bulletproof vests
[48:34] Speaker 2: and carrying machine guns. Todd Michael Volpa exclaims, damn, we're
[48:38] Speaker 2: in a tight spot. You don't know who he's talking to.
[48:40] Speaker 2: It's just you and him, but you can tell he's
[48:42] Speaker 2: terrified because you can feel his heart beating against your silk.
[48:46] Speaker 2: He flees the bedroom and races through his house. He
[48:49] Speaker 2: bounds down this wooden stairs and checks the front door.
[48:52] Speaker 2: People through the fish eye, he can see a few
[48:55] Speaker 2: FBI guys on the front step. They pound on the
[48:58] Speaker 2: door again. The man you open up. In response, Vulpa says,
[49:03] Speaker 2: what the hell's going on here? With a deep and
[49:06] Speaker 2: steadying inhale, Vulpa opens the front door. You hear him
[49:10] Speaker 2: as he asks, what do you hear?
[49:12] Speaker 1: For?
[49:12] Speaker 2: The FBI agent on his front porch says Todd, Volpa.
[49:16] Speaker 2: The silk of your pajamas lifts As Volpa responds yes,
[49:21] Speaker 2: The FBI agent says, we have a ward for your arrest.
[49:24] Speaker 2: Vulpus sighs. It's finally happened. The Feds have come for him.
[49:28] Speaker 2: Without any warning, the FBI agents grabbed Vulpa, yank him
[49:32] Speaker 2: down the stairs and walked him no march him over
[49:36] Speaker 2: to the open door of across. Now fully in their custody,
[49:40] Speaker 2: Vulpa asks what's going on. One of the many FBI
[49:44] Speaker 2: agents doesn't answer, and instead asks him, what do you
[49:48] Speaker 2: know about Jack Nicholson? What do you know about Joel Silver?
[49:53] Speaker 2: What do you know about Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy?
[49:56] Speaker 2: You lift and fall as Volpa answers, what do you
[50:00] Speaker 2: asking me these questions for? I don't know, The serious
[50:03] Speaker 2: faced FBI guy says, because tomorrow morning your name is
[50:07] Speaker 2: going to be on the cover of every magazine and
[50:10] Speaker 2: newspaper in the country, your famous pal. Vulpa asked for what,
[50:15] Speaker 2: and you hear the FBI agent started chuckle to himself,
[50:19] Speaker 2: knowing that Vulpa knows the answer, and then he says,
[50:22] Speaker 2: rather flatly, for defrauding people. So there you go, Elizabeth,
[50:27] Speaker 2: the federal takedown of Todd Michael Vulpa. So what happened
[50:32] Speaker 2: after that? Well, for one Vulpass to face down his
[50:34] Speaker 2: old business partner, Jack Nicholson, Yeah, that's gonna be no fun.
[50:38] Speaker 2: And you may be wondering, like me, what did his
[50:41] Speaker 2: old friend and former business partner say once the ugly
[50:43] Speaker 2: truth finally came to it. It's a great question. Way
[50:47] Speaker 2: to be on the beam now. According to what Vulpa
[50:50] Speaker 2: told New York Magazine, quote, Jack Nicholson said, why didn't
[50:54] Speaker 2: you just tell me you were having financial problems? But
[50:57] Speaker 2: I couldn't say dup, especially to someone like Jack. I
[51:04] Speaker 2: like that. Jack's not petty about being conned, and as
[51:06] Speaker 2: you pointed out earlier, he doesn't really care about the money.
[51:08] Speaker 2: It's just like a kind of a fun business right. Instead,
[51:11] Speaker 2: he's like, look, I know you meant, well, why didn't
[51:12] Speaker 2: you come to me?
[51:13] Speaker 3: Well, because it was he didn't mean well, no.
[51:17] Speaker 4: I mean it was like, oh, I mismanaged things, so
[51:19] Speaker 4: I kind of messed some stuff up. Then I think
[51:21] Speaker 4: Nicholson would be like, you know, more forgiving or understanding
[51:25] Speaker 4: and be wounded that you didn't come to me for help,
[51:28] Speaker 4: but no, he was robbing you.
[51:30] Speaker 3: Jack.
[51:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like one of those fish that hangs up
[51:32] Speaker 2: by a shark's mouth. Yes, just eats whatever the shark
[51:34] Speaker 2: doesn't get into their mouth.
[51:36] Speaker 3: Didn't you come to me because I was too busy
[51:38] Speaker 3: going through your bank account?
[51:39] Speaker 2: Exactly? But I do like that Jack is basically a
[51:42] Speaker 2: good guy about it. It doesn't care. Oh no, not
[51:45] Speaker 2: at all. I definitely would not. But I mean, I'm
[51:47] Speaker 2: just I'm surprised he wasn't angry. It wasn't like veiled
[51:50] Speaker 2: threats about like, you know, I know some bad people, right,
[51:53] Speaker 2: like I worked with Russ Meyer. I know some people
[51:55] Speaker 2: who will collect that money. Anyway, What did the DOJ do?
[51:59] Speaker 2: Now that to Michael Volpa's day in court had finally
[52:02] Speaker 2: come well. Volpa was formally charged with thirty eight allegations
[52:05] Speaker 2: of fraud and embezzlement for stealing two point five million
[52:08] Speaker 2: dollars from his former clients. He was facing a maximum
[52:11] Speaker 2: of twenty five years behind bars. He was forty eight
[52:14] Speaker 2: years old at the time. Wow, basically the rest of
[52:17] Speaker 2: his good years. Yeah.
[52:17] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[52:18] Speaker 2: His federal k starts in ninety seven, last through nine
[52:21] Speaker 2: in to ninety eight, and so there he was staring
[52:23] Speaker 2: down a penalty of one point two million dollars in
[52:26] Speaker 2: fines on top of the restitution amount possible prison sentence
[52:30] Speaker 2: of twenty five years. This is when the art dealer,
[52:33] Speaker 2: self made man, decides he's going to strike a bargain
[52:36] Speaker 2: and that would change the course of his life because
[52:38] Speaker 2: it saved it. Volpa recalls, quote, two minutes before I
[52:41] Speaker 2: was ready to go into a court room, they offered
[52:43] Speaker 2: me a plea agreement, and I went for it. I
[52:46] Speaker 2: went to jail for two years.
[52:47] Speaker 3: Oh that sounds good to me, Yeah, from.
[52:49] Speaker 2: Twenty five to two sure. Yeah. So he pleads guilty.
[52:52] Speaker 2: The result of DJ they dropped thirty three counts of
[52:55] Speaker 2: wire fraud.
[52:56] Speaker 4: Well, and I don't think he didn't stand a chance
[52:58] Speaker 4: at trial much against him.
[53:00] Speaker 2: He'd done everything wrong in documented documents. And then there's
[53:04] Speaker 2: this like hole like, hey, I'm a bankrupt here's all
[53:06] Speaker 2: of it.
[53:06] Speaker 3: On paper under penalty, and he gave that to.
[53:09] Speaker 2: The federal government to do. Was this switch it from
[53:11] Speaker 2: one department to another? Anyway? Volpa agrees to restitution at
[53:15] Speaker 2: one point nine million to pay off his more than
[53:18] Speaker 2: a dozen former clients who he'd turned into victims of
[53:20] Speaker 2: his crimes. This list includes names like Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streis,
[53:24] Speaker 2: and Frank Marshall Kathleen Kennedy. But also I found interesting
[53:27] Speaker 2: one of the members of Kiss I looked really hard
[53:30] Speaker 2: to find which one could not find it. I'm guessing
[53:33] Speaker 2: it was Gene's I'm leaning Simmons. He seems like a
[53:37] Speaker 2: pretentious sort and also a mark. Yes, so I'm just
[53:40] Speaker 2: saying anyway. When all was said and done, Vulpa was
[53:43] Speaker 2: sentenced to twenty eight months in federal prison. He gets
[53:45] Speaker 2: sent to live in this very unluxurious ten by twelve
[53:48] Speaker 2: foot cinderblock cell at a taft correctional institution down in Bakersfield, California, oh.
[53:54] Speaker 2: Now locked up, he had plenty of time to think
[53:56] Speaker 2: about what he had done, and he also had some
[53:58] Speaker 2: strange moments. For instance, he told New York Magazine quote,
[54:01] Speaker 2: I'm sitting in my cell in California and somebody rushes
[54:04] Speaker 2: in with an envelope. It's the streisand sale at Christie's
[54:07] Speaker 2: quote important American arts and crafts. But of course that
[54:10] Speaker 2: movement wouldn't exist without us. And then the guard says, okay.
[54:14] Speaker 2: Volpo Gett against the wall. I'm gonna check your locker
[54:17] Speaker 2: for any chicken from the mess hall.
[54:19] Speaker 4: So oh God with the high low high love on
[54:22] Speaker 4: that one. He's got one of Christie's catalog and some
[54:25] Speaker 4: purloined chicken exactly.
[54:28] Speaker 2: I love that he's still doing small crimes sholding chicken
[54:31] Speaker 2: at this point, so always in prison fulp begins the
[54:34] Speaker 2: plan how to get back into the art world right.
[54:36] Speaker 2: He feels like he has the perfect mark, I mean,
[54:38] Speaker 2: client all picked out, as he told The New York Times.
[54:41] Speaker 2: I know it sounds crazy, but I really love to
[54:43] Speaker 2: build an art collection for Donald Trump. He's like a
[54:46] Speaker 2: little boy with a lot of money and great vision.
[54:49] Speaker 2: That's his mark. He is like, I got one shot
[54:52] Speaker 2: of that guy. I can totally con him, breathing through it,
[54:57] Speaker 2: setting his plan to con Trump aside, Elizabeth, do you
[55:00] Speaker 2: want to guess what other plans Vulpa came up with
[55:02] Speaker 2: inside the Old Iron Bar University?
[55:05] Speaker 3: Is he gonna finish his screenplay?
[55:07] Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Well, for one,
[55:09] Speaker 2: he decided forget Joseph Duvine's life story. Now his life
[55:12] Speaker 2: story would make a great movie. So he joined the
[55:15] Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime Prison Book Club, and began working on his memoir.
[55:19] Speaker 2: They hope that he could turn the book into an
[55:21] Speaker 2: Academy Award winning movie.
[55:22] Speaker 3: He can stuff up, but.
[55:23] Speaker 2: That's not all. As he told the New York magazine,
[55:25] Speaker 2: Vulpu considered starting a new gallery, or is he put it,
[55:29] Speaker 2: I thought of showing only prison artists. My cube was
[55:31] Speaker 2: across from a Chinese man, one of San Francisco's wealthiest
[55:34] Speaker 2: real estate entrepreneurs. He'd sit at his window drawing, and
[55:37] Speaker 2: I'm saying, my god, this guy is as good as
[55:39] Speaker 2: any artist in New York. But my life in the
[55:42] Speaker 2: art world is finished. I'm working on a film project now.
[55:45] Speaker 2: I'd like to do what Frank Abnegail did with Catch
[55:47] Speaker 2: Me if you can. Oh god. So yeah. When he
[55:50] Speaker 2: gets out of prison, Vulpan his girlfriend a literary agent.
[55:53] Speaker 2: They get to work to make his dream come true.
[55:56] Speaker 2: Oh yes. He pens his memoir, which I told you
[55:59] Speaker 2: is entitled Frame Right, which is a curious title since
[56:01] Speaker 2: he was not framed at all. But it's a cute
[56:03] Speaker 2: art pun, I guess anyway. Now, if you ask him
[56:06] Speaker 2: about his Hollywood plans, Pulpa really wanted to work with
[56:08] Speaker 2: Oliver Stone. He believed Oliver Stone could grasp his American story.
[56:13] Speaker 2: Oh really has, He told The New York Times, I've
[56:15] Speaker 2: already talked to Oliver Stone about collaborating on an art
[56:18] Speaker 2: world movie that would become the Wall Street of the
[56:20] Speaker 2: art world. He's interested, but he's involved in a lot
[56:23] Speaker 2: of things right now.
[56:24] Speaker 4: Okay, I'll tell you exactly how that went down. He
[56:27] Speaker 4: sees Oliver Stone at a restaurant, walks up to him, Hey.
[56:30] Speaker 3: You know a friend of this distiness, and I've got this.
[56:32] Speaker 2: Whole project Frank Marshall about me.
[56:34] Speaker 4: Yeah, this is you know, I want to get you
[56:36] Speaker 4: in on the ground floor. And Oliver Stone's like, you know,
[56:38] Speaker 4: I'm working on a lot of stuff that sounds great.
[56:40] Speaker 2: Sounds great. I'm interested.
[56:41] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[56:41] Speaker 2: Now, if you asked Oliver Stone about their plans, his
[56:44] Speaker 2: spokesman would explain, mister Stone is not interested in pursuing
[56:47] Speaker 2: the project because he's.
[56:49] Speaker 3: Like, I have no idea what you're talking about exactly.
[56:51] Speaker 2: But you can't keep a good person down. You also
[56:54] Speaker 2: can't keep a bad scheming convent down.
[56:56] Speaker 3: Oh you cannot.
[56:57] Speaker 2: So it didn't take him long to work his way
[56:59] Speaker 2: back into the New York Art World Elizabeth, where he
[57:01] Speaker 2: once again became a fixture and even won back the
[57:03] Speaker 2: trust of buyers and sellers. By the early two thousands,
[57:07] Speaker 2: you can see him showing his head up. He became
[57:10] Speaker 2: involved with people such as friend of the show Montell Williams.
[57:15] Speaker 2: This also how Volpa earned the trust of a very
[57:19] Speaker 2: unique woman, one who wandered her way into the art
[57:22] Speaker 2: world and had her story turned into a documentary. That
[57:25] Speaker 2: film also featured Todd Michael Volpa because when he heard
[57:29] Speaker 2: her story he saw dollar signs and possible newfound fame,
[57:33] Speaker 2: so he agreed to help her, which is how he
[57:35] Speaker 2: ended up in her documentary. So he made it back
[57:38] Speaker 2: into movies. Elizabeth, you ever heard of the doc Who
[57:40] Speaker 2: the Is? Jackson Pollock? No? Came out in two thousand
[57:44] Speaker 2: and six. It's the story of Terry Horton, a retired
[57:47] Speaker 2: truck driver turned dumpster diving granny and thrist store gold miner.
[57:52] Speaker 2: One day hunting for treasures, she buys this painting she likes,
[57:55] Speaker 2: and she later discovers that it may or may not
[57:57] Speaker 2: be a painting by Jackson Pollock. The story she was
[58:00] Speaker 2: trying to squeeze the painting into her friend's trailer and
[58:02] Speaker 2: they found it was too large. To fit through the door.
[58:05] Speaker 2: So they thought about turning this quote ugly painting into
[58:07] Speaker 2: a makeshift dartboard. But then they decided, you know what,
[58:10] Speaker 2: I'll just sell it, see how much I can get
[58:11] Speaker 2: for it on the open market. And by open market
[58:13] Speaker 2: I mean a garage sale. And that's when her friend
[58:15] Speaker 2: came by an art teacher, she spied this quote ugly
[58:18] Speaker 2: painting and informed Terry it might be a masterpiece by
[58:22] Speaker 2: Jackson Pollock. It could be worth an estimated fifty million dollars.
[58:27] Speaker 2: So in response, Terry Horton asked who the f is
[58:30] Speaker 2: Jackson Pollock, which gave the dockets title. Now at this
[58:33] Speaker 2: point she learns who Jackson Pollock is and tries to
[58:36] Speaker 2: get her painting authenticated. Trouble was, the work had no
[58:39] Speaker 2: clear provenance, which means the galleries, the auction houses they
[58:42] Speaker 2: won't touch it. But by then she's hooked on the
[58:45] Speaker 2: idea of selling it for fifty million dollars, so she
[58:48] Speaker 2: thinks to herself she could just make up the provenance,
[58:52] Speaker 2: which is what she did. She made up a bartender
[58:55] Speaker 2: named Pops, who she claimed gave her the paintings totally
[59:00] Speaker 2: way more than like Joe Biden's old Street hood friend.
[59:04] Speaker 2: But this is just the tip of this strange iceberg
[59:06] Speaker 2: of Liz Elizabeth, because then she goes bigger. She brings
[59:09] Speaker 2: in Golden age Hollywood to really sell her lie. She
[59:12] Speaker 2: claims that Jackson Pollock was a dear friend of Pop's, and,
[59:15] Speaker 2: as Terry tells the documentary film Cameras, quote he get
[59:19] Speaker 2: really drunk and slobbering, you know, kind of crying over
[59:22] Speaker 2: and missing Jackson and all this stuff. And he would
[59:24] Speaker 2: tell me these kind of risky stories, you know, and
[59:26] Speaker 2: they were really funny, some of them were. And I thought, wow,
[59:29] Speaker 2: I said, this is some relationship. I should have known
[59:32] Speaker 2: who this guy was. But of course he was much
[59:34] Speaker 2: older than I was now. According to her, back in
[59:36] Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, when Jackson Pollock was quote down on
[59:39] Speaker 2: his luck, he went out to La one day he
[59:41] Speaker 2: found himself part of this all star alcoholic paint party
[59:45] Speaker 2: in a snowstorm. More on this in a second. So
[59:47] Speaker 2: imagine up at a mountain resort, this spot called Mount Baldy,
[59:50] Speaker 2: which is in Socow. It's where Hollywood slubs used to
[59:52] Speaker 2: run off to get away. There's this incredible list of
[59:55] Speaker 2: forty Sara slabs who all get stuck together in a
[59:58] Speaker 2: wicked snowstorm in this resort. So what do they do.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: They have a painting contest. They all paint their own paintings,
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: then go who made the best one, and one of
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: them is Jackson Pollocks, so nobody's gonna win but him anyway,
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: As Terry tells it, it snowed big time and they
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: could not get out. And Jackson always kept paints with
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: him wherever he was spending time at. So since they
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: couldn't get out, he'd come up with the idea that
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: they should all paint a picture. Now, this list of
[1:00:21] Speaker 2: stars for this painting and drinking contest, according to Terry,
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: is ridiculous.
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: They did.
[1:00:25] Speaker 4: He have to construct a scaffolding for him to drop
[1:00:28] Speaker 4: stuff like.
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: Not almost not quite. Luckily they're in a bar, so
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: they've got places to work. And he's like leaning his canvas.
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: Up against the mirror for everybody.
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and now the list of stars who were
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: at this all like drinking snowed in paint party. As
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: Terry tells a quote, they were all there, Cagney, Bogey, Gable,
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: Davis and the Duke, all painting away. Tough guy Broderick Crawford,
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: would only paint in the nude. She's just peppering in details.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: Now for those keeping score, that's James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart,
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: Clark Gable, Betty Davis, John Wayne.
[1:01:02] Speaker 4: Doesn't this sound like one of those AI paintings, right,
[1:01:05] Speaker 4: all the celebrities welcoming somewhere to heaven.
[1:01:08] Speaker 2: Yes, and there's naked Broderick Crawford and Jackson Paulck over
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: her shoulder. Oh I forgot. She also said Joan Crawford
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: was there, as Terry claimed Joan Crawford quote was there too.
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: She was noisy and she was bothering everybody because she
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: was up at the bar and trying to watch Pollock
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: and he didn't want anybody watching him, so he always
[1:01:25] Speaker 2: made it a point that you couldn't get rid of
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: Joan Crawford. She was such a when you're trying to paint,
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: and I say, I loved Joan Crawford being a paint
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: in the ass. Well, Betty Davis and James Cagney and
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: John Wayne are trying to paint, but Jackson Pulk's like,
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: get good, way go away.
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: You're doing like one of those like paint and SIPs.
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: Yes, So the story goes on. She the documentary Terry says, quote,
[1:01:48] Speaker 2: you know, I always thought she was a great actress,
[1:01:50] Speaker 2: you know, but so what but pops up she was
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: a because she just kept wanting to interfere and tell
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: him how to do the painting. And he didn't want
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: anybody in there watching him. So anyway, when it was
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: all done, and everybody come around with their paintings and
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: everything to show each other, while Jackson's painting was like
[1:02:06] Speaker 2: while all all in this mirror behind the bar, and
[1:02:09] Speaker 2: they were all talking about it, and all of a
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: sudden he said, wait a minute, and he said I'm
[1:02:12] Speaker 2: not finished yet. So then he got up on the
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: bar and he signed it with his Now, the reason
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: why his little Richard was brought into this story was
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: to explain why this so called lost Jackson Pollock had
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: no signature. And this is the story. She comes up with,
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: Oh you signed it with this?
[1:02:29] Speaker 3: No.
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: Yes. So at this point the documentary director asked Terry good,
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: where did you get this story? Where did this come from?
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: And she just omits it. Where'd it come from? I
[1:02:37] Speaker 2: made it up?
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: So unbelievable.
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: Now we's skip ahead so we can get Todd Michael
[1:02:42] Speaker 2: Volpa's involved in in the story Please. So one day,
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: Terry's in a bookstore, she finds his book framed. She
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: reads up on him. She decides this former fraudster is
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: the perfect person the partner with and helped me sell.
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: This could be would be pollock to the auction houses
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: and get this vulpas of course down to help her,
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: which she approaches me. He's like, oh, of course. He
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: senses this would create a big splash in the art world.
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: It would reassert him as an art world star and
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: possibly a big, big payday along the way. It's like win, win, win, gat.
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: So what happens? He tells Terry the painting it won't
[1:03:15] Speaker 2: fetch fifty million dollars. Get that number out of your head.
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: He tells her he could sell for nine million, So
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: that's good enough for her. Now they're onto it. So
[1:03:23] Speaker 2: he also gives her this education on the nature of
[1:03:25] Speaker 2: the art world and how perception works to create value,
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: something obviously he knows uniquely. Well yeah, so Volpa explains
[1:03:31] Speaker 2: to the documentary film cameras how he gives her his
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: education and I quote, I only saw the art world
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: as a kind of through the looking glass experience kind
[1:03:39] Speaker 2: of like Alice in Wonderland. A lot of illusions, costumes, disguises,
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: people who are masquerading. There's a lot of smoking mirrors.
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: In the art world, money is no object. It's big business,
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: creating opportunities for hedge fund managers, high leveraging of art deals.
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: It's all about money, it's about power. It's also about greed.
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: You have to be very clever, very skillful, have enormous
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: understanding of financing art history business. The art world is
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: not what it was twenty years ago. It's a doggy
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: dog shark tank business where we would have seen Terry
[1:04:09] Speaker 2: Horton as a peasant. So that's his assessment. Now he's
[1:04:13] Speaker 2: willing to give her this education. He tries to help
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: her sell the fake Jackson Paulk to some of the
[1:04:18] Speaker 2: usual suspects, some marks he thinks might go for it.
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: As he tells the cameras, we offered the painting to
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: Steve Winn, Bill Gates, David Geffen, lots of different people,
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: and the answer is always the same, until you get
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: authenticity on the picture, until you get the art world
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: to say it's okay, we're not interested.
[1:04:34] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: Now, if you're wondering, Terry Horton never did sell that painting. Yeah,
[1:04:39] Speaker 2: but it did give Todd Michael Volpa one more spin
[1:04:42] Speaker 2: in the limelight those documentary. It did Jack Nicholson watch
[1:04:46] Speaker 2: the documentary and did he give him a dark, dark laugh?
[1:04:49] Speaker 2: I wonder, Hollywood, So, Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway here?
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: I love art crime. It's always it's always so good
[1:04:58] Speaker 3: and rich, rich.
[1:05:00] Speaker 4: Inzany and just what people think they can get away with,
[1:05:04] Speaker 4: you know, I mean, honestly, how did Todd think this
[1:05:07] Speaker 4: was going to play out?
[1:05:08] Speaker 3: He can't do it forever?
[1:05:09] Speaker 2: Yes, totally? You know.
[1:05:11] Speaker 4: Did he have a notion of why I can get
[1:05:13] Speaker 4: caught up here and then do it right way?
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, I'll go up to Montreal live some
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: days off of just tolen money? Do they head extradition
[1:05:21] Speaker 2: from Canada? I mean? Also, the one name I kept
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: expecting to show up in this story but it never
[1:05:26] Speaker 2: did for me was Sylvester Stolone, because you know, he
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: fancies himself a painter. Yeah, he does paintings. I mean
[1:05:32] Speaker 2: I shouldn't say he fancies himself. He really does do
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: paintings and he sells them, so he technically is. But
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: he never showed up it is and that, and I'm
[1:05:40] Speaker 2: going to have to now find a crime involves Sylvester
[1:05:43] Speaker 2: Sloan just so I can do his accent. Tell you
[1:05:47] Speaker 2: in the mood for a talk back, maybe we wash
[1:05:49] Speaker 2: this all down please? Oh my god.
[1:05:59] Speaker 6: I hi, Dame, This is Skuy from Melbourne, Australia. I
[1:06:06] Speaker 6: just wanted to let you know that most of us
[1:06:08] Speaker 6: don't know how to say our names of our towns
[1:06:11] Speaker 6: or cities either, and depending on which state you come from,
[1:06:14] Speaker 6: it's highly contested. Also fun fact, apparently Mighty Ducks was
[1:06:20] Speaker 6: released as champions here in Australia. I'm not sure I
[1:06:24] Speaker 6: was aware of that, but apparently some people had it.
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: Anyway, have a good one by Wow.
[1:06:33] Speaker 4: Can I say this is why I love Australians.
[1:06:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, oh, you don't. We none of us
[1:06:39] Speaker 3: know how to say it. Who cares? We all know
[1:06:41] Speaker 3: it's the place, you know what we mean.
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: And also we know that people with different accents are
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: going to pronounce it differently, So it's like what do
[1:06:46] Speaker 2: you can get hung up because something doesn't.
[1:06:48] Speaker 3: Say I love Australians.
[1:06:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a big fan of those down Under.
[1:06:52] Speaker 3: Yes, I didn't really know a lot about Australians.
[1:06:54] Speaker 4: Until we started doing this podcast, they've been like, I mean,
[1:06:57] Speaker 4: I knew a couple of people, but like every single
[1:07:00] Speaker 4: person who reaches out is a funny, be smart see Chill.
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: I love Australians. I mean obviously the ones that love
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: me back. There's something down there. Not big fans of
[1:07:11] Speaker 2: but they're not me personally, but people who look like me,
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: but whatever, So setting aside them, I love Australia. Yes,
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: just generally speaking.
[1:07:19] Speaker 3: Someday I'll be able to get on a flight that long.
[1:07:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck, I can do that.
[1:07:23] Speaker 3: But yeah, so.
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: Thank you for that. That's awesome. Also, I need to
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: give a personal thanks to one of our listeners, Rose
[1:07:31] Speaker 2: aka the Envious Moon on Instagram. I want to thank
[1:07:34] Speaker 2: you so much. The pennies arrived, the twenty twenty six pennies.
[1:07:37] Speaker 2: I am so delighted. Twenty twenty five pennies. I'm so delighted.
[1:07:40] Speaker 2: It meant the world to me. So thank you so much.
[1:07:42] Speaker 2: The final pennies ever to be created. Now I've got mold.
[1:07:46] Speaker 2: Not just one. You didn't just send me one, you
[1:07:47] Speaker 2: sent me multiple that that was really really it not
[1:07:50] Speaker 2: only made my day, it made my week, possibly made
[1:07:52] Speaker 2: my month, and not just the short one, but like
[1:07:54] Speaker 2: all of January, so that too. But thank you so much.
[1:07:57] Speaker 2: That was really really thoughtful and really kind and it
[1:08:00] Speaker 2: touched me. So thank you. And there you go. That's
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: all I've got for you. So you can find us
[1:08:06] Speaker 2: online at Ridiculous Crime on social medium, we have a
[1:08:09] Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime pod on YouTube, go check it out. And
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: we have our website ridiculous Crime dot com. There's merch
[1:08:16] Speaker 2: and there is all sorts of gifts for your viewing pleasure,
[1:08:20] Speaker 2: so go check out ridiculous Crime dot com. Obviously, we
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: love your talk back, so please go to the iHeart
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: app download it leave a talkback. We'd love to hear
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: your voice here. Also, you can email us if you like,
[1:08:30] Speaker 2: at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. If you do
[1:08:33] Speaker 2: email us, remember to start with the email dear producer
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: d as always, thank you for listening and we will
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: Dutton and Zarren Burnette, produced and edited by Jack Nicholson's
[1:08:50] Speaker 2: Aston Martin Mechanic Dave Houston, and starring Analys Rutger. It's
[1:08:55] Speaker 2: Judy research is by Harvey Kayitel's plug for Rocking Chairs
[1:08:58] Speaker 2: Marissa Brown and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is by
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: our house band, Tom Cruise and the you Can't Handle
[1:09:04] Speaker 2: This Truth Rhythm and Blues Band aka Thomas Lee and
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: Travis Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Buddy five hundred,
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: I Guess Tara, makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive
[1:09:15] Speaker 2: producers are Oliver Stone, spokesman Ben Bowlen and dol Brown.
[1:09:27] Speaker 6: Cry Say It One More Time, Cry.
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows

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