Who Do We Think We Are??
"Archduke Leopold Of Austria"
The Connecticut Factory Worker Who Might Have Been King
Archduke Leopold of Austria, Prince of Tuscany, spent most of his
life in exile trying to chase down money — at least when he wasn’t at a
costume ball in Greenwich, Conn., or getting arrested for drunk driving
in Boston.
He was a Habsburg, a family that ruled Europe for a
thousand years. At one point in his life he was first in line as a
Pretender to the Throne of Spain on the Carlist branch. The grand-nephew
of Emperor Franz Joseph, he stood in the line of succession to the
British throne. Pretty low down – 300th at birth, then he fell further.
Come along and meet one of my ancestral Hapsburg cousins...
Royal Birth & Early Life
At the fall of Habsburg monarchy he remained in Austria and recognized
the new republic in order to marry Dagmar, Baroness von
Nicolics-Podrinska. The couple had one daughter. After divorcing his
wife in 1931, Leopold eventually emigrated to the United States where he became a naturalized American citizen under the name Leopold Lorraine, and where he remarried. He died in 1958 in Connecticut.
Leopold was born January 20, 1897 in Zagreb, Croatia, the second son of
Archduke Leopold Salvator and Infanta Blanca of Spain. His father was descended from the Royal Hasburg family of Austria and his mother was descended from the Royal house of Bourbon-Spain. He had 9 siblings.
Leopold
grew up in luxurious surroundings. His parents owned the Palais Toskana
in Vienna, Schloss Wilhelminenberg in the Austrian countryside, a villa
in Italy and a castle in Lower Austria. His father had a scientific
bent, and patented a number of military inventions. Later on, those
patents would throw off money when the Habsburg bank account wouldn’t.
During World War I, Archduke Leopold fought along with his older
brother, Rainier, Both served as lieutenants of artillery in the
Austro-Hungarian Army. At 19, Leopold distinguished himself in the
Battle of Medeazza. Great-Uncle Franz Joseph I of Austria, awarded him
the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Then everything went downhill.......
The Fall of the Austrian Monarchy & Life after Royalty
Austria, of course, lost World War I, and the monarchy fell. Leopold
and Rainer decided to stay in Vienna and recognize the Republic,
relinquishing their titles. But “archduke” made newspaper fodder, and
they would always be known as such.
The Austrian government seized
their Vienna home, the Palais Toskana
The Palce Toskana
and subdivided it into
apartments. Rainer and Leopold were allowed to live there.
The
rest of the family fled to Barcelona, where they lived in a tiny house.
The boys slept with their father in one bedroom, the girls with their
mother in another.
In Vienna, Rainer ran a garage. Leopold went to work delivering films
to theaters on a three-wheeled motorcycle. In 1925, police arrested him
for running over a pedestrian. He then made the news as a police item
when the New York Times reported his court appearance on April 2.
He
told the court he couldn’t pay the $3 fine because he only earned $10 a
month. On appeal, two workmen (probably monarchists) said the
pedestrian caused the accident. Archduke Leopold didn’t have to pay the
fine, but he did have to suffer the indignity of being described as an
errand boy in print.
The Times also noted he had a wife
and children to support. Actually, he had one daughter after his
marriage in 1919 to the Baroness Dagmar Nicolics-Podrinska, a minor
Croatian noble.
A New Life in America
In January 1927, the New York Times sent one of its
correspondents to find Leopold in Vienna. The reporter described the
obscurity into which the Habsburgs had fallen. He found Rainer in his
Palais Toskana apartment, “a degenerated palace” with corridors filled
with old furniture. Leopold had an address in a middle-class flat, but
he had sailed for America. His wife and daughter stayed behind in
Austria.
Archduke Leopold landed in Hollywood. He told the Times
in the summer of 1927 that he wanted to earn enough money as an actor
to return to Austria. His motive was revenge: Count Laszlo Szechneyi had
insulted him.
While the archduke acted, his secretary, Alfred
Neuhardt, mopped his brow for him as he perspired under the lights.
Leopold apparently had difficulty playing a German officer because he
couldn’t salute. He explained that he never had to salute anyone in
Austria, everyone saluted him.
His film career went nowhere after he played two bit parts, one in a film by John Ford. Director Eric von Stroheim used him as an uncredited actor and technical advisor on The Wedding March. Shortly before leaving Hollywood, Leopold told Photoplay,
Archduke Leopold, right, with his brother Rainer and mother Blanca.
Schloss Wilhelminenberg
Palais Toskana
The original caption to this photo read, “Hollywood predicts that Leopold will soon become an idol in Filmdom.”
Back on the East Coast
Shortly after the New Year in 1928, the Times
found Leopold in Greenwich, Conn., where his friends, Mr. and Mrs. W.H.
Stumpfel, held a fancy costume ball in his honor. He continued to make
the social pages at luncheons, parties and the racetrack. In 1928, the Times mentioned him along with Charles Lindbergh as attending an international polo match on Long Island.
Hungarian Prince
His
fortunes seemed to brighten in 1929, when the Hungarian legation in
Washington, D.C., declared him a citizen and a Hungarian royal prince.
But the honor didn’t seem to help his finances. The next month his
tailor sued him in Vienna for failing to pay him $1,000 for day and
evening clothes.
Then a few days later he made the papers
again. At a dinner before the Beaux Arts Ball in New York, he got into a
fight with Julius Fleischman Holmes, a wealthy sportsman, over Mrs.
Holmes.
In August of 1929, he told the New York Times he expected to ride in a steeplechase in Belmont Park.
Grand Larceny
In
early 1930, Archduke Leopold lived at a fashionable Sutton Place
address in New York City. He shared an office with a real estate agent,
Stefan de Pomierski, a Polish count he met at a party. However, as the
archduke later told police, he didn’t have an occupation.
In March, he received a subpoena in connection with the theft of the Napoleon Diamond Necklace, which belonged to his great aunt, Archduchess Maria Theresa. It was all a misunderstanding, Leopold insisted.
Maria Theresa
The full story of the Diamond necklace theft:
In 1929, following a decline in her finances, Maria Theresa engaged two agents to sell the Napoleon Diamond Necklace,
a piece inherited from her husband, in the United States. After a
series of botched sales attempts, the pair finally sold the necklace for
$60,000 with the aid of the great-nephew of Maria Theresa, the Archduke Leopold of Austria, Prince of Tuscany
but he claimed nearly 90% of the sale price as "expenses". Maria
Theresa appealed to the United States courts, ultimately resulting in
the recovery of the necklace, the imprisonment of her great-nephew, and
the absconding of the two agents.
In 1930 Archduke Leopold was cleared of the grand larceny charge in connection with the sale of the necklace that had been in the possession of the sister-in-law of the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal. The necklace, valued at $400,000, had been a gift to an earlier Habsburg, Marie Louise, from her husband Napoléon Bonaparte.
Later Life and Death
After divorcing his wife in 1931, Leopold emigrated to the United
States where he was known as "Mr. Leopold H(absburg) Lorraine".[2]
In 1932 he remarried, also morganatically, Alicia Gibson Coburn (New
York 20 January 1898 – New York City 25 August 1960). Their marriage
remained childless and ended in divorce.
For a time Leopold sought a career in Hollywood and had several minor roles. He moved to Willimantic, Connecticut
where he settled into a small house with his second wife and spent the
rest of his life as a factory worker. He became an American citizen in
1953.
My 13th Cousin (twice removed), Leopold died on March 14, 1958 in Willimantic, CT, United States. His ashes are in tomb 91 of the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.
My Family Line to Archduke Leopold Haspburg of Austria
Leopold Maria, Erzherzog von Österreich-Toskana is your 13th cousin twice removed.
Sources and Further Reading:
https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/archduke-leopold-the-connecticut-factory-worker-who-might-have-been-king/
https://www.geni.com/people/Princess-Alice-of-Bourbone-Parma-Grand-Duchess-of-Tuscany/6000000002188374540?through=6000000008182044101
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Leopold_of_Austria,_Prince_of_Tuscany
https://www.geni.com/people/Leopold-Maria-Erzherzog-von-%C3%96sterreich-Toskana/6000000002188374761?through=6000000002188374721
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanta_Blanca_of_Spain
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/De_Castilla_Maria_De_La_Concepcion_of_Spain-1
