Golden Years

born in September of eighteen oh three in France. Although she was of Spanish descent, her parents were both painters, and her father was also a prominent teacher at a local polytechnic school until he became secretary of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The family was successful and Clara grew up quite comfortable. When she wasn't learning new languages or travel in England, she was digging into more eccentric topics,

such as magic. Clara eventually graduated from secondary school, having focused mostly on classical languages, but once she entered university she pivoted to law. Her goal was to secure a position within the royal administration, and in eighteen twenty two she got one step closer by passing her exams and earning her law license, but there was still one thing bothering her at the back of her mind. It was

her other passion, literature. Clara loved to read both local and foreign authors, and even went as far as to begin translating certain works into her native tongue. Pretty soon, Clara found herself inside prominent literary circles, rubbing elbows with the likes of writer and politician Chateaubriand and Henrie Bail otherwise known as Stendahl. By eighteen twenty three, she moved on from translating other people's work to writing her own.

Her first pieces were plays, including a political show titled Cromwell and a six part compendium called teyech de Clara gazoul. It was a biding satire on the state of the current socio political climate in the country, and became a hit among her fellow writers, so much so that they sang its praises publicly. Clara was now a big deal in the literary world and continued to publish all kinds of pieces, including short stories, novels, and novellas, many of

which were based on her extensive travels throughout Europe. One of these stories involved a new character, a young Romani woman who charms a Spanish cavalry officer after robbing him. This tale had been told to her one of her visits with the Countess of Montejo in Spain. In the original story, the woman is not Romani, but Clara had been studying their language in culture while in Spain and

felt the change made it more interesting. Around the same time, she took a series of jobs within the government, much like her literary contemporaries. This eventually led her to the appointment as Inspector General of Historical Monuments in eighteen thirty three, a position she held for over twenty years. But even though she was it work preserving and restoring old structures

of historical importance, she never stopped writing. During this period, Clara wrote three of her best known novellas, Lavenus Deal in eighteen thirty seven, Columbia in eighteen forty, and a third story based on the character first introduced years earlier, the one about the Spanish soldier and Romani woman whose name was Carmen now Carmen, was not a huge success upon its publication, not when compared with the other two novellas.

In fact, Clara didn't get to experience its success at all, as she died several years before it found a new audience. But the world wouldn't know Clara Gazool, at least not as the story's true author. You see, Clara, a Spanish actress, was actually the main character of Tiatra de Clara Gazool, the six part play that had put its real author

on the map. In reality, it had been written by a french Man named Prosper Marrimi, who had been born to artist parents, had learned a number of languages in school, and had worked as France's Inspector General of his life historical monuments for over two decades. In a way, Marrimi had perpetuated a kind of hoax on the public by

listing the character Clara as the playwright. His novella Carmen wouldn't gain popularity until eighteen seventy five, when a new opera by a French composer, George Bizet debuted based on Marrami's work. Even today, Bezay's Carmen tends to overshadow its source material, But without Marram's captivating story, we wouldn't have one of the greatest operas ever composed. One aspect of

the book, however, still leaves some readers perplexed. Today. The original edition of the story features an illustration of the purported author, Clara Gazoul, opposite the title page. But if Prosper Marrami a man wrote the book, then whose picture is that? As it turns out, it's Prosper Marrimi dressed in drag. There's some of our favorite movies. One's about daring criminals, elaborate schemes, and of course, mind bending heists.

These are films where every character is a piece on a chessboard, moving across the spaces in a distinct and predetermined way in order to keep hidden from the watchful gaze of security cameras, and of course, to get into the vault. Maybe it's money thereafter, like in Ocean's Eleven, or perhaps they're after fine art, like in the Thomas Crown Affair. But one woman many years ago had a hankering for diamonds, and she didn't have a team of trained experts to help her either. It was just her

and it wasn't a movie. Doris Payne, a black woman from slab Fork, West Virginia, was born a coal miner's daughter in nineteen thirty. Hers was a life fraught was struggle, at least when it came to standing out. After all, it's hard to be noticed when your four brothers and one sister are hogging all the attention. But not to worry, Doris eventually found a way to simultaneously stand apart from

the crowd and blend in unnoticed. You see, she never really had a job, yet she traveled the globe, heading to countless exotic locations, and she managed to make a name for herself. You see, she became a thief, a jewel thief, to be exact. And it all started when she was a child. She'd gone into a store where the owner was kind enough to let her try on a gold watch while he went off to help a

white customer who had entered the store. Doris left with the timepiece, but she knew right from wrong and later came back to return what she had taken. Over time, she developed a kind of charm to help ease people's suspicions, aided by her expensive taste in fashion. And that's the key. She didn't look like a jewel thief. She looked like a socialite in the beginning, she would only steal temporarily putting something in her purse and then handing it back

like a fisherman tossing back his catch. As she evolved her Cohn, she would walk up to the counter of a jewel or department store with a convoluted backstory in her pocket, something about an inheritance or money she'd gotten from an insurance company, and as she distracted the salesperson with her tale of loss, she would sneak a ring or a necklace into her pocketbook and then slip out the shop. By the time the clerk realized what had happened,

they would be too late she was gone. Eventually, her United States excursions grew tiresome, so Doris decided to try her luck overseas. On her first trip abroad, she traveled to London, followed by a quick jaunt over to Paris and then finally Rome. She credited her knowledge of Europe to her public school education and extensive study of world maps, but it was her informal education, specifically of gemstones and their quality, that helped her gain an upper edge in

her exploits. Doris also knew to travel with a variety of fake names and social security numbers to throw salespeople and investigators off her trail. In nineteen fifty three, she left a jewelry store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a to twenty two thousand dollars diamond, and in the nineteen seventies in Monte Carlo, she swiped a ten carrot diamond ring worth half a million dollars. Honestly, Doris never met a band of gold or a diamond that she didn't like.

But she didn't always get away clean. Sometimes she found herself being carted away in handcuffs, and once spent five years in prison for getting nabbed in Colorado. Her wrap sheet was at least twenty pages long and kept growing. She was finally stopped for good after stealing an emerald cut diamond ring from Macy's worth almost nine thousand dollars. Or maybe it was after her theft of a twelve carrot white gold ring in California. That item ran twenty

two thousand dollars. And it also could have been after lifting a thirty three thousand dollars diamond ring from a shop in North Carolina. You see, that's the problem. The charges kept adding up. Doris Payne's career as a jewel thief has spanned sixty years. She's now ninety one years old and facing numerous criminal charges. But even she should have retired years ago, she shows no signs of slowing down. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.