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Crazy things can come forward when diving into the history of Connecticut towns. This happened in my research on art collector Emily Hall Tremaine (1908-87), which then led to architect Philip Johnson and Emily’s collector-husband, Burton Tremaine, with a focus on their arts work rooted in Meriden just after WWII. I learned that just some years before the war, their histories spilled into a set of Nazi-era mysteries from New York to Cleveland to California and in the case of Johnson, over the Atlantic to London and Paris — and straight to the Nazi regime in Berlin. [See previous six-article focus in relation to Hitler’s Aristocrats book (2024) in the Connecticut Centinal.]
In one instance, my inquiry started with a curious photograph in the scrapbook of Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Von Romberg and then Spreckels). This photo was taken in southern California where Emily lived before WWII, based in Montecito / Santa Barbara; Emily later moved to New York and Connecticut and married Burton Tremaine of Madison and Meriden in 1945.
Before 2020, no one seemed to have noticed the photograph below, or didn’t mention it. My starting point: who were these people with Emily and her first husband Max and what were they up to?
First, Philip Chancellor, then Leopold McLaglen, then Emily, the town art lady of Meriden and Madison
An alleged assassination plot in southern California came after Philip Chancellor had hired Leopold McLaglen for some spy work and information gathering for, Philip said, a book that he was writing. This was while Philip was reportedly a reservist for U. S. Naval Intelligence. [Philip was noted to have started this activity with McLaglen as late as April 1937, noted in a Jewish-led group spy report].
Philip and his close friend Max von Romberg, Emily’s first husband, were socialite-adventurers. Max was a grandson of the banker Edmund Converse of Conyers Farm, a substantial estate in Greenwich.
At some point, McLaglen allegedly tried to extort money from Philip Chancellor. Philip contacted the police and a six-week investigation started in early September 1937.
In Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America (2017), in chapter 14, "Slaughter the Hollywood Jews", p. 205, we learn that [British Nazi] Leopold McLaglen, brother of actor Victor McLaglen, had an idea: "Promising to use the money he received [via extortion] from [Philip] Chancellor to pay for the hit men, McLaglan [sic] began compiling, with his friends, a list of people they would kill. " ...
"[This list included] some of the most famous people in the world: Jack Benny, Herbert Biberman, James Cagney, Eddie Cantor, Charles Chaplin, Emanuel Cohen, Sam Goldwyn, Henry Herzbrun [film producer], Al Jolson, Leon Lewis, Fredric March, Louis B. Mayer, Paul Muni, Joseph Schenk, B. P. Schulberg, Mendel Silberberg, Franchon Simon, Donald Ogden Stewart, Gloria Stuart, Sylvia Sydney, Ernst Toller, Walter Winchell, Marco Wolff, and William Wyler". [This was noted in an October 1937 Jewish-led group spy report].
McLaglen was arrested on October 27, 1937.
What to do just before a trial in which one was allegedly threatened with extortion, and the money to be used for an assassination plot against famous people in Hollywood? One choice is below: go out to dinner with friends and get photographed for the newspaper.
McLaglen was put on trial for extortion on March 1, 1938, reported in newspapers across the United States. The planned assassinations did not happen.
As a historical note, Nazi troops marched into Austria on March 12, 1938.
In a funny aside, McLaglen was asked if he once said that a "Baroness Von... " was trying to lure him into the bedroom. There was laughter in the courtroom. He insisted he didn’t. Was this "Baroness Von..." in the newspaper report, the town art lady, Emily Hall Tremaine, formerly "Baroness Emily von Romberg"?
As reported on March 14, 1938, Leo Baron for UP from Los Angeles wrote:
"[McLaglen] exploded when he was asked if he ever rubbed a lady’s back as a gesture of socialability.
The lady was a baroness, who supposedly lured him into her bedroom, but McLaglen branded it all a lie and part of the ’frame-up’ he contends is behind his prosecution on attempted extortion charges. He was convicted Saturday of trying to ‘shake down’ a former wealthy employer…
The business of the baroness and her ticklish back cropped up as Deputy District Attorney Vernon Ferguson was taking Leopold over the jumps in rebuttal testimony. He was asking him about a purported conversation, allegedly overheard on a dictograph machine, between McLaglen and Stanley Glimm, secretary to Philip Chancellor, his former boss.
’Did you say the Baroness Von—was a little strumpet?’ Mr. Ferguson asked. Leopold turned red like a tomato.
’I’m a gentleman,’ he shouted hoarsely. ’I don’t talk that way.’
’Did you say, "She tried to get me to go to bed with her on the pretense of rubbing her back. She closed the bedroom door, I opened it again and left. It was too disgusting." Did you say that?’ persisted the prosecutor.
Leopold’s face turned from tomato to beet red. His massive frame shook with rage. The spectators tittered [giggled].
’It’s a lie,’ he bellowed. ‘I never said that or anything like it’.. " (Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. 10.)
After the trial, McLaglen was allowed to go back to Britain.
However, was this "Baroness Von... " Emily Hall Tremaine? Was she a witness in this case? How much was she involved? To date, only one mention of the mysterious "Baroness Von... " has been found, spotlighted below.
Devastating news
On June 5, 1938, Emily’s beloved first husband Max died in a suspicious plane crash in New Jersey; he was flying the plane alone. Emily was reported to be emotionally devastated, with hints of lifelong impact.
By 1944, Emily had moved east and she married Burton Tremaine in 1945, and then lived in New York and Connecticut.
In interview in 2005, Emily’s niece Janie living in Montecito told a reporter, “She admitted to me once that Max was the true love of her life. She’d start talking about him and start crying.“
This was presumably 20+ years later, after the crash.
Almost 50 years later, Emily died in Connecticut in 1987 at the age of 79. Her final wishes were for her ashes to be sprinkled by plane over the higher hills of Montecito / Santa Barbara. This parallels what resulted after Max’s death; his ashes were spread by plane over Emily and Max’s villa down the hill on Hot Springs Road.
Next steps?
It’s time for clarity, and someone, or the Towns of Madison or Meriden, to spend the money and pull the court record covering the McLaglen trial, with receipt of that file cc.d to the Connecticut Centinal for INDEPENDENT confirmation.
The art / design kids of Meriden and Madison, and maybe even Emily’s restless spirit, are impacted by this history, and are waiting for the adults to do the right thing, to get to the bottom of this — and a lot more.
These are just some of the numerous questions about the histories of Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine and Philip Johnson impacting art/design sites in the towns of Meriden, Madison, and New Canaan today.
For more information regarding Emily's 1930s history, see the following at artdesigncafe.com:
> Emily Hall Tremaine & pals vs. the British Nazi (1937-38)
> Emily Hall Tremaine - crazy (Nazi and) anti-Nazi media coverage (1940)
> Emily Hall Tremaine - anti-Nazi It Girl, 20th c. art collector
Six installments, Hitler's Artistocrats et al.: part 1 | 2a | 2b | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | + Assassination Plot | + Martha & Hitler | + Thomas W. Lamont
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