Very wealthy and very happy

Press, 23 August 1984, Page 31

Very wealthy and very happy

By

ELISE CHISOLM

“Baltimore Evening Sun” Are millionaires happy? People always wonder. I know one, and I talked to him on the phone to find out just how happy he is right now. “Sure, I’m happy. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in life,” says Stanley Marsh the Third, of Amarillo, Texas. I watched Stanley, now 46, grow up in Amarillo. We are old friends. Some people would ask, “But did he?” (grow up, I mean). I can’t decide. You know, columnists get burned out writing about noble causes, concerns, and cares, the people to whom capitalism has given a smack in the face. What a welcome change is Stanley Marsh the Third, the only millionaire I’ve heard of who wants to be in print, loves being rich, and who never forgets to be kooky. He had his picture in the newspapers recently with 10 Cadillacs that he and his friends stuck in the ground 10 years ago, nose down, but fins up. From the “New York Times” to “Esquire” magazine, Stanley has been featured as a bizarre art collector and full time millionaire cult figure. Marsh’s money bubbles up from the soil, as in oil and natural gas. Then it seeps over television stations, banks, and any

good investment that strikes Stanley’s fancy — and he has lots of fancies. But he definitely hogs the contemporary Texas eccentricity market. Down on the ranch, which he named Toad Hall after his favourite book, “Wind In The Willows,” Stanley houses llamas, yaks, . a camel, peacocks, pigs, dogs, cats, five children, and a lovely understanding wife, Wendy. So Stanley, how was the recent party out at the ranch, the one I was invited to but missed? “It was fantastic. It was not a hoe-down. No Texantype food, no bandanas, no horses,” he says. “We had about 1000 guests. I had it catered. We had shrimp, caviar sandwiches in the shape of Cadillac fins, a huge hunk of cheese sculptured like a '5B Cadillac, champagne in crystal glasses — all under pretty tents. I asked all the women to wear all their jewels, and they did.” “What was the dress code?” I ask, in fear and trepidation. ‘ ? Oh, tuxedos or jeans, nothing in between. No long hairs or punks.” I ask Stanley what else he has been up to. Well, he put a collar round a mountain in 1980 so it would look like it was floating in the air if you happened to fly over. In 1981, at a Sotheby auction, in London, he

bought his wife a bra and an evening gown once worn by Marilyn Monroe. He put huge sculptures on his ranch land and built the world’s largest pool table — a 60m by 30m rectangle of grass with huge balls surrounded by a fence to keep the cows away. Oh, this is all classic Stanley. He has worked his way up to his “Mad” magazine life-style. When Stanley and my nephew were attending the University of Pennsylvania and infiltrated a nudist colony in New Jersey, my brother-in-law had to bail them out of jail. Stanley can’t go back to New Jersey. Stanley’s ■ maverickness has gained him a reputation he loves. “Well, I’m really a homebody now,” he says. “We go to bed early. My kids are my best friends. In fact, tell your readers I am very middle class. Really. I tithe 10 per cent of my income. But tell them I’m not charitable.” He cheerfully agrees to being middle-aged and eccentric. “But I’ve only had one wife. Doesn’t that sound middle class?” he says. Middle class is debatable. Stanley just got back from a trip to Rwanda, Africa, where he is working on a project to save the mountain gorillas. “I was scared of them, so I wore a gorilla costume,”

he confides. “Do you know they were quite tame? Of course, they are vegetarians.” He also points with pride to his support of Civil Rights. “I went on all those bus rides and the marches,” he says. “I just marched in the ‘Juneteenth’ (June 19, Emancipation Day in the South) parade here in Amarillo. I dressed as Abraham Lincoln.” That’s middle class? But Stanley Marsh is not just full of hot air and Cadillacs. Known to conduct business meetings with his pet ocelot at his feet, he is a shrewd wheeler-dealer. He has a degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, though he admits he picked his master’s programme in American affairs because it was the only one in which he didn’t have to learn a foreign language. Stanley Marsh the Third is an enigma extraordinaire, but he is a pushover for animals and children. Locked in my “don’t-you-ever-tell-file” is a list of Stanley-the-softie stories. He took my children to the Shrine Circus one evening. It was sold out, so instead of buying the circus, he climbed over a tall fence with my children in tow and they had the best seats in the house. But he bought the fairy floss machine the next day. Later he rented a large

circus elephant for the delight of little kids in his neighbourhood. The rides were free. “Stanley, I’ve never seen you on any talk shows, why not? You’d be great,” I asked him during our recent conversation. “They don’t pay enough. Remember, I’m not charitable,” he shot back. That is middle class. As I’ve said, it is refreshing to know that mother was wrong when she said, “Money doesn’t bring happiness.” It does for Stanley Marsh the Third.