Frank Jay Gould (December 4, 1877 – April 1, 1956) was a philanthropist and the son of financier

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made hi ...

. He was the owner of

French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

casinos and hotels.

Biography

He was born on December 4, 1877, in Manhattan, New York City to

and

Helen Day Miller Helen Day Miller (September 20, 1838 - January 13, 1889) was the wife of the financier Jay Gould. Biography Early life Helen Day Miller was born on September 20, 1838, in Manhattan, New York, the fourth child of Daniel Stratton Miller and A ...

(1838–1889) On December 1, 1901, he married Helen Margaret Kelly and had two daughters, Helen Gould and

Dorothy Gould Dorothy Gould (January 15, 1910 – July 26, 2000) was a vaudeville and motion picture actress from New York City. Stage actress Gould participated in a production financed by Alice Pike Barney at the Theater Mart in Hollywood, California, in ...

(1904–1969). They divorced in 1908. The ''Wichita Daily Times'',

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

, wrote: "Frank Jay Gould and his wife who was Helen Margaret Kelly have separated and it is said Mrs. Gould has brought action looking for a legal separation. Jealousy on the part of Mr. Gould, due, it is said, to the homage paid Mrs. Gould, who is a beautiful woman, by other men." In 1909 he was sued by

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

dancer Bessie De Voie for breach of promise, and his love letters to her were published as part of the scandal. The case was settled in late 1910, when Gould paid De Voie $10,000. Gould's married his second wife, Edith Kelly, in 1910, divorcing in 1919. Edith was the sister of Hetty Kelly, who was Charlie Chaplin's first true love. Gould was married to his third wife, Florence La Caze (1895–1983), from 1923 until his death. Together Gould and La Caze collected impressionist artwork. In 1909, he founded the "Virginia Railway and Power Company" in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. The company would be renamed "Virginia Electric and Power Company", and known widely by its acronym (VEPCO) in 1925. The company became "Virginia Power" in the 1980s and operates today under the name

Dominion Resources Dominion Energy, Inc., commonly referred to as Dominion, is a North American power and energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and supplies natural gas t ...

, serving Virginia, North Carolina with electric power and half a dozen other Middle Atlantic states providing natural gas services. He moved to France and developed several casinos and hotels at the

. He made a great contribution in the development of multiple spa towns including Granville,

Bagnoles-de-l'Orne Bagnoles-de-l'Orne is a former commune in the Orne department in northwestern France. On 1 January 2000, Tessé-la-Madeleine and Bagnoles-de-l'Orne merged becoming one town called Bagnoles-de-l'Orne, however, it adopted the former Insee code of T ...

and

Juan-les-Pins Juan-les-Pins (; oc, Joan dei Pins) is a town in the commune of Antibes in the Alpes-Maritimes department in Southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera, it is situated between Nice and Cannes, to the southwest of Nice Côte d'Azur Airport ...

. In 1926 he opened the Hotel "Le Provençal" in Juan-les-Pins. He died on April 1, 1956, in Juan-les-Pins. He was buried in the Jay Gould Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in The

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York City.

Legacy

The history of his investments in France is described in the documentary film "Hotel Provencal" (2000), by German filmmaker

Lutz Hachmeister Lutz Hachmeister (born 10 September 1959) is a German media historian, award-winning filmmaker and journalist. He particularly gained international attention for directing the 2005 film ''The Goebbels Experiment'', co-produced by the BBC and the ...

. Frank Jay Gould´s art collection of 200 Impressionist and modern paintings was auctioned at Sotheby's after the death of the widow Florence Gould in 1983. Old master paintings, furniture, decorative objects and jewels were also sold at other auctions.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gould, Frank Jay Frank Jay 1877 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American hoteliers American art collectors New York University alumni Burials in the Jay Gould Mausoleum