Edward West Browning's Antics in Jazz-Age New York

In a fun and informative presentation, author Benjamin Feldman will tell all about America’s “Daddy” of the mid-1920s, Edward West Browning.

Mr. Browning’s antics fascinated New York and the entire country as he invited the newborn tabloid newspapers to follow him chasing underage young women in his peacock blue Rolls Royce, with the District Attorney and New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in hot pursuit. In 1926 Mr. Browning met the girl of his dreams--15-year-old “Peaches” Heenan. Within a dozen weeks they were married, and six months after that they began a legal battle for separation that turned their tempestuous drama into a national scandal.

Body-builder, raw food devotee and publicity-hound, the self-styled “Daddy” Mr. Browning prefigured a delicious combination of Donald Trump and Michael Jackson in his taste for high living and scandalous behavior. Damon Runyon, who called Browning a “gallus old codger” led the nation’s thousands of scribes in poking fun at the publicity-hungry Manhattan millionaire. A man for our times, Mr. Browning’s rise and fall followed the Dow Jones average in America’s rollicking “Era of Wonderful Nonsense."

Purchase tickets in advance by following the link below!