She Started It: Barbara Daly Baekeland and Antony Baekeland (Ep.62)

Barbara Daly Baekeland was a glamorous American socialite who thought she could de-gay her mentally ill son Antony Baekeland with her own novel form of conversion therapy. It didn't work out well for either of them. *sad face*

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Transcript

July 1972, London, England

It happened in Cadogan Square, in Chelsea, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, an unusual setting for attempted murder. A troubled young man and his socialite mother, their relationship snarled in ways you couldn’t imagine. This was the day he grabbed her by the hair on the sidewalk outside their apartment and began dragging her towards the busy street, with every intention of throwing her into traffic. She desperately clung to a metal gate which he then slammed on her hand, breaking her thumb. Momentarily deterred, he went back inside. and then returned. This time with a knife. It was only the arrival of a friend of hers that broke the spell somehow. He fled back into the apartment, and the police were called. He was arrested and then moved to held in a psychiatric ward, eventually being released back into her custody. 

I think your life is still in danger, a psychiatrist told her in October. I don’t, she replied. 

Tragically. she was wrong.

Youre listening to Wicked Gay, a true crime podcast about gay people doing awful things.

Hello! I’m your host J. Harvey, and i want to start off by welcoming my new Patreon subscriber Patti. I already made a joke about how she isn’t my Cousin Patti on the latest Patreon episode so I wont again. By the way, the latest Patreon ep which is about Welsh serial killer who got WAY too into movies, particularly the slasher kind, so if you want to check it out, and lots of other exclusive wicked gay episodes youve never heard, sashay on over! 

And, thanks to Patti and to everyone else who is a PAtreon patron person. I also want to thank Boston Spirit magazine which is a glossy monthly periodical about queer life here in New England because they ran a little item about Wicked Gay! How chuffed was I? That’s British slang for delighted which I thought was fitting because tonight’s episode is about a murder that happened in London in 1972.

So this case is fairly well known because it has everything, it’s got very rich people, heirs and heiresses and a little Hollwwood, and a lot of global glamour, and people who dont have to work for a living so their occupation is like jet setting and fucking people who they probably shouldnt be (in the mom’s case, in a big way). and then there’s mental health issues, and Majora, and its about bakelite, which you may have seen things made out of on antique roadshow, and there’s even a movie based on this case starring Julianne Moore, and lastly, this case contains a really novel way to try and make your son not gay. 

And tons of podcasts have tackled this one , so youre probably like Jay Harvey, why are YOU tackling this one, and I'm like well, this time you're going to get it through the lens of J Harvey! which, i mean, thats the selling point, look,if  you gotta drive to work anyway so you might as well be entertained a little by my silly bullshit.

Oh, did you know we’re into Wicked Gay’s seventh season? Come on now, Seventh Heaven Season! Seven seasons of sin! This is Episode 62  And I’m calling it She Started It: Barbara Daly Baekeland and Antony Baekaland. That title will make sense by the end of the episode.

This one has enough story for about four episodes, but I’ll be sure to stick to the salient points while also keeping in the juicy details which I know you love. My sources are wikpedia, a book and movie called Savage Grace the book having been written by  Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson.

And first, let’s do some chemistry:

Bakelite is a thermosetting resin created in Yonkers, New York, in 1907 and patented in 1909. As the first fully synthetic plastic, it could be molded and hardened into any shape, and its heat-resistant, nonconductive properties made it ideal for electrical insulators, radios, telephones, kitchenware, jewelry, toys, and firearms. Bakelite’s commercial success revolutionized the chemical industry spurring the development of other synthetic plastics, and today vintage Bakelite items are prized collectibles

Bakelite did its own part to ruin the natural world by launching the age of non-biodegradable synthetic plastics. As the first fully synthetic plastic, its extreme durability and heat resistance meant that, unlike natural materials, Bakelite does not decompose, leading to permanent environmental pollution and toxic microplastic pollution, 

And it made its inventor, a Belgian chemist named Leo Hendrik Baekeland, and, more importantly in relation to this story, his descendants, very very rich. 

Consider that a prologue.

Barbara Daly was born in 1921 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Frank and Nini Daly, a wealthy and socially prominent family. Her father, Frank, was a successful industrialist and her childhood was privileged -, private schooling, cultural enrichment, and life in New England high society. That world was shattered in January 1933., when she was just 11, when her father committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the family garage, reportedly arranging it to look like an accident so his family could collect life insurance. After his death, Barbara and her mother relocated to New York City, living in the upscale Delmonico Hotel while rebuilding their lives. Growing up surrounded by wealth and status gave Barbara charm, confidence, and ambition, but also a deep preoccupation with control, appearances, and social perfection—traits that would shape her glamorous but extremely turbulent adult life and especially effect her relationshoo with her only child.

As Barbara got older, she blossomed into young womanhood, she became known for her striking beauty, and, buoyed by her family;s already existing high society connections, she began modeling for Vogue and HArper’s Bazarr. She was also a fixture on the party scene, where she began to gain a reputation as an IT girl of sorts, but also a bit of a wild child, with some of her behavior bordering on unstable. Like both of her parents, Barbara struggled with her mental health, and its known that she was under the care of psychiatrists from her teens onward. 

A chance meeting at a party with a hollywood star named Dana Andrews brought her to Hollywood, where she screentested but it ultimately came to nothing except for meeting anoptehr aspiring actress named Cornelia Baekeland, Dickie to her friends. And it was through her new friend DIckie that she met her future hiusband, Dickie’s brother, a trainee in the Royal Canadian Air Force named Brooks Bareland.

Brooks and Dickie were the grandchildren of  Leo Baekeland—the chemist whose invention of Bakelite made the family fortune— Brooks and his siblings were born into a life of wealth, privilege, and access to elite education and culture. splitting time among New York, Paris, and other cultural capitals. Handsome, intellectually gifted, and charismatic from a young age, he was raised with the expectation that the family’s financial security was guaranteed, allowing him to pursue interests like writing, travel, and adventure rather than a conventional career. Early in adulthood, During World War II, he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he flew transport and training aircraft before leaving the service after the war.

Biographical accounts note that he abandoned promising academic or professional paths after the war, including a PhD in physics, in favor of attempting to be a novelist, though he never published a work. Brooks comfortably indulged in the family fortune, socialized extensively, and avoided the disciplined work ethic that had propelled his grandfather to success. You know with these rich families, its often the one person who made the fortune and then the rest of these layabouts benefit for the rest of their lives and throw their name on a museum wing or something. Anyway, Brooks was that guy. So - take a very rich hot dude with everything in life handed to him and some time on his hands plus an eye for the ladies and fix him up with a gorgeous socialite with a traumatic past and mental health issues and watch the sparks fly. 

Barbara got things rolling by lying that she was pregnant so Brooks would marry her, which he did. On their marriage certificate, he listed his occupation as writer, and she listed hers as painter, and the joke about their social set was that Brooks never once in his life set pen to paper and his wife never once touched a brush to a canvas. 

When the couple weren’t gallivanting around the globe hobknobbing with the other elites, their HQ was luxury apartment on the upper east side of Manharttan, where they held extravagant dinner parties for their fellow high society members, and that included celebrities, including Greta Garbo (apparently prior to when she vanted to be a alone), Tennessee Williams, and novelist William Styron. These included dinner AND a show because Barbara and Brooks were a lot. Barbara in particular, She was well known for her heavy drinking and unstable personality, which would include rude outbursts, angry scenes, and bouts of sevee depression. Her mental health wasn’t aided by Brooks engaging in numerous extramarital affairs. A lot of this would pop off at these dinner parties, and guests would sit in stunned silence as Barbara publicly humiliated Brooks by outing him as a philanderer,. GOD I WISH ID BEEN A GUEST. One of the better parts of social gatherings is when youre on the way home and you turn toi your person and youre like did you see, how about, and basically…GIRL….in relation to someone saying something suspxt or wearing something crazy or just plain acting the fool, These wBrabra brooks bashes woiulkd ould have been priceless post event tea.

Oh, and then they had an actual kid on top of all this. A real one this time,. Barbara gave birth to a son, Antony Baekeland, on August 28, 1946, he would be known as Tony.

When Tony was younger, around the age of 8,from the summer of 54 onward, the Baekelands began living kind of a nomadic rich biitch existence - they lept the apartment in NYC< but were mostly in Europe, renting houses and villas in London, Paris, Zermatt, Cap d'Antibes, and many parts of Italy. During this time, the marriage got so bad that Brooks started to withdraw from Barbara completely, and would go off on his own for long stretches of time to escape her controlling behavior and constantly haranguing,. You can assume he was sleeping with anything chic on two legs. In 1960, they settled down in an apartment in Paris, continuing to throw big dinner parties. It was during one of thee Paris soirees that Brooks met an English diplomat’s daughter, who was 15 years his junor, and decided he was in love and asked Barbara for a divorce, Barbara respomded by attempting suiidide and Brooks called off the affair.

Now amidst all this drama, enter Antony’s becoming a complicated young man. Reading this mess im given to think he might not have ever had a chance, 

From adolescence, Antony “Tony” Baekeland exhibited clear signs of emotional and social struggle. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Barbara and Brooks sent him to a series of European boarding schools, but he repeatedly failed to settle in, struggling with social isolation, emotional volatility, and behavioral issues. Rather than seeking professional help, his father dismissed psychiatric treatment as unnecessary and “amoral:” which, really L Ron>, this left , leaving Tony’s symptoms unaddressed. As he reached young adulthood, tthey developed into more pronounced mental health problems 

By 1967, the family was based in Switzerland and the resort areas of Spain. It was in SPaniosh party capital then and now Ibiza where which was where the now  20-year-old Antony met Jake Cooper, a bisexual expatriate of either Ameirca or Austraia, wikipedia and other sources are fighting over this one. Jake was part of a loose ring of other expat party animals with money who trsvled the globe looking for the best parties, which usually amounted to the ones with the best drugs. Which Antony began to get into heavily., In fact, he and Jake took a trip to Morrocco specifically to get some. Now antony and Jake - there are differing accounts as to their relationship, Antony would go on to say they were indeed a couple, Jake would later deny this. The important part of all this is that his mom Barbara believed they were, and was horrified that her son was gay.

Barbara was not on the Pflag float. Despite being a public mess many times over and letting he dysfunction out all over the plac,e she also had this thing in her head about keeping up appearances, adn we’;re high society  we need to at least look like it that us until im threatening to drown myself in the champagne founatin after calling my husband a lying whore at our parties. Anyway, Barbara was not a fan of Jake Cooper. 

After the Morocco trip, Jake and Antony were hanging out in Ibiza, and this was when Barbara found ouit they were allegedly fucking while ahnging out with Lucky in the Sky with Diuamonds. Barbara being the calm collected sort she was immediately hopped in her car in switzerland and drove her ass to Spain to collect her gay son. Which she did. Unfortunatley, mom and son were stopped at the French border because Antony didnt have his passport. Things got heated, and there’s not a lot of detail as to what actually went down, but it did end up with both Barbara and Antony spending the night in jail. You know shit’s crwazy if you and your moms are sharing a cell. 

Because the dysfunction was endless, the Baekalends settled in Spain, and Barbara tried accepting her son’s homosexuaklity. But he also had a certainf friend named, Sylvie, a young Spanish woman that Barbara felt would be a much more suitable romantic partner than Dirty Jake Cooper the bohemian druggie nomad. Antony’s dad Brooks disagreed, and by disagreed I mean he thought Sylvie would make for a much more suitable romantic partner for HIM. Yes, Brooks and Sylvie hasd an affair, and Brooks finally officially insisted upon a divorce. Barbara’s response was once again attempt to take her own life, but was prevented from doing so by her friend Gloria, who was the wife of From Here To Eternity author James Jones. 

Brooks was serious about Sylvie, another woman with whom he shared a considerable age gap. He tried to make ti legit through, marrying her and she bore him a son. This is sort of Brooks’ exit from the story, He wasn;t a huge presence in his son Antony’s life really. There might not have been a lot of room seeing as mother was constantly obsessing about Antony. his life, his friends, his upbgrining, his happiness.  In fact, she was pushing him to become an artist like she…said she was, although no one had ever seen any of her work. 

But Barbara’s unhealthy fixation on her son didn't mean she didn't have room in her life for obsession and inappropriate attachments, Enter Sam Green.,

Sam Green was a sort of an involved outsider with Andy Warhol and the Factory. I gotta do a Warhol episode some day because that era in the late 50s and the 60s when he lorded over was basically a the high art version of the Manson Family going on fascinated me, the factory, the warhol superstar, the aluminum foil loft the whole thing. I read the Warhol diaries once a year and those dont even cover the factory years. Im hooked. Anyway, Sam Green was an associate of Warhol’s and much to his eternal regret, he aksi become an associate of barbara Baekalkdn and her son's. To the exact extent, and how we're defining "associate" here is sort of up in the air.

Barbara and Sam Green began an affair that lasted a couple of months. During this time, Barbara tried to get Sam to represent Antony as an artist. And its funny, every source Ive read about Sam and Barbara’s relationship makes a big point of using the word “unimpressed” when it explains Green’s reaction to Antony’s “work” and I’m putting “work” in quotes. He really thought poor Antony was a shit artst. This displeased Barbara, who really thought her baby boy had the stuff.

Eventually, Sam tired of Barbara’s bullshit and broke things off. Now, Ive told you about how Barbara handled the ending of relationships in the past, usually with an attempted suicide. After Sam broke it off with her, she became erratic and desperate, and began basically stalking him. It was very I’ll die without you, I’ll do anything for you. This culminated in her trying to prove this in an incident that pops up in every source, one night Barbara, clad only in a lynx coat, walked through Central Park during a snowstorm to Sam’s place in an attempt to seduce him into getting back wit her. Ok, hypothermia, frostbite, wet cat smell, these are not what I would call hot. and reportedly neither did Sam Green, who remained steadfast as to the relationship being over. That wasn’t the end of their history together though, as we’ll see in a moment.

Now, during this time, ever since the Jake Cooper affair, and espedcially AFTER Brooks went off with Sylvie, Barbara decided she couldnt; cope with Antony being gay. It grew to be an obsessiuon for her. And here’s where things get very dicey. 

After her affair with Sam Green came to an end, Barbara and Tony headed back to Europe, spending some time in Spain again, and then settling in London. And Barbara began to go to extremes to FIX her son. This allegedly ibcluded her hiring female prostitutes to seduce him, to little affect. And then worse, and the big rumor that always gets brought up, Barbara allegedly told a female friend that either she COULD fix Antony by sleeping with him herself, or had done so when they were in Majorca. And whoa. There is no verification of this, but this was a messy unstable family, and she was quoted as saying it was something she’d actually given consideration, to. It was also on Majorca that Sam Green reportedly visited, and legend has it that he temporarily resumed his physical relationship with Barbara, except this time, Antony was involved in a threeway. Yikes. Now, I’d like to say that this was portrayed in both the book AND the movie, and Sam Green was played by Hugh Dancy, who is a good looking bloke, so that's hot, but Sam Green himself up to the end of his life, was like fuck no, that never happened,. I wouldn't sleep with an artist that shitty, no I'm kidding, hut he was so upset by the allegation or revelation that he brought legal action., Sam Green actually went on to be Yoko Ono’s bestie/kinda boyfriend, and thats a whole other type of crazy person to be involved with so Sam Green either liked drama or had a lot of patience fior insane rich broads. 

So Tony already had a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis going on and then hthrow in an unstable mom potentially doing some really unhealthy shit to change him and it's a volatile situation. And by 1972, they had setteled in London, Tony was a mess, she was a mess, and things got worse. Much worse.

As I opened with, in July of that yearn there was a horrible incident outside their flat, where Anthony turned on his mom, grabbing her by the hair and attempting to bodily toss her into a busy street in hopes she’d get hit by a lorry or something. She was saved by three things, one was the metal gate she desperately clung to, even after Tony broke her thumb with it, two, Tony was a slight sort of guy, with multiple descriptions referring to him as "physically weak," and then, after he went back inside and returned with a knife, the arrival of Guiness heiress Susan Guiness, a close friend of Barbara’s who reportedly scared Tony back into the house. The Guiness family has had their share of fucked up shit happen to them so this was probably just a Tuesday for Sue Guiness. Tony was arrested, but instead of being charged with attempted murder via street traffic/knife he was remanded to a place called The Priory, which is a private psychiatric hospital in south west london, thats hosted an insane guest list including Eric Clapton, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse, Sinead O'Connor, Lily Allen, Lenny Henry, Johnny Depp.Kate Moss, and Katie Price. Its like the London Betty Ford Clinic, but i guess it also treats other issuyes besides addiction, And its a place you go when you have money clearly, And by the way, they weren’t able to prosecute him because Barbara refused to press charges.

When he moved back home with Barbara, he saw a therapist who did house calls. This did not go well, and on October 30, the day before Halloween, the therapist sat Barbara down and said that Tony was not progressing. He needed to be back in the hospital, and that he felt her life was in danger. "I don't," was Barbara’s reply. 

Two weeks later, on Nov 17, 1972, Barbara Daly Baekeland was stabbed several times in the chest with a kitchen knife by her son Antony. Police disocvered the crime when they were called by a friend of his who told them that Antony had calmly confessed to her murder to him. When they arrived at the apartment, Antony was reportedly home and on the phone ordering Chinese food in view of his mother’s body. It’s gviing callous but we’re talking mental illness here. I guess after he was through ordering, he got off the phone and freely confessed to having killed her. He said they had been fighting, claiming “she started it”, and also reportedly told the police that he felt that he had to kill her becauise she was tyring to control his mind. Some accounts also state that he told the police he had to end his mother’s life because she was trying to make him her lover.

Tony Baekland was arrested, and charged with murder. In 1973, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was then committed to Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric institution in England, where he would reside until 1980. His Doctors came to believe his schizophrenia was controlled, He was described as quiet, intelligent, and cooperative and considered no longer violent Also - he had influential friends who campaigned to have him released, and he stil had Bakelite money. 

After his release, he flew directly to New York City to live with his grandmother, Barbara’s mother 87-year-old. Nina Daley. And only six days after his release, he attacked her, stabbing her several times and breaking some of her bones. Nina daly survived. And Tony was arrested and charged with attempted murder and sent to infamous hell hole Rykers Island. 

After a court hearing, at 3:30 PM EST on March 20, 1981, he was found dead by suicide, having suffocated himself with a plastic bag.

In 1985, the book Savage Grace came out and it was a big hit, and is now considered a true crime classic. In 2007, someone finally made it intio a movie with Julianne Moore playing Babrbara, and Eddie Redmayne playing Tony. It was not a hit with either the audience or the critics. Ive seen it, its ok, the acting is good but its a little boring,. Even 2007 Hugh Dancy’s beauty cant lift it out of its meh status.

But the movie full on has Babara sexing her son up and having a threesome with her kid and sam green. Sam Green didnt not agree with this. Here’s what he had to say in addition to the legal action he took against the filmmakers whcihw as not resolved as of his death in 2011.

"It is true that almost 40 years ago I did have an affair with Barbara, but I certainly never slept with her son, nor am I bisexual. She started telling people she had had an incestuous relationship with her son as a way of 'curing' him of homosexuality ... But I don't believe she had sex with Tony. I think she simply enjoyed shocking people."

And thats what Sam Green had to say, and thats the story of the Baekeland family. Its a sad one. I don't believe that old adage that money cant buy happiness. I think it can buy some semblance of it, comfort can be happiness for people, but I do think money can exacerbate some deeply rooted dysfunction and sometimes throwing money at things is easier than doing the work, you know what I mean? 

Thank you for listening to Wicked Gay, and please rate or review or click a star or call up your gramma and say hey gramma, there's this podcast about murder and mayhem but gay so at least you know it will be stylish and aesthetically pleasing with some pizazz. Hopefully your gramma will listen. Good night!