There Will be Blood…The Real Daniel Plainview

Edward L. Doheny of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The King of Oil in California and Mexico in 1914.

He was born in Fon du Lac, the son of an Irish gardener and day laborer and a school teacher from Newfoundland. In high school he was regarded by his teachers as the least likely to succeed. In real life he was one of the richest men ever to walk the streets of Los Angeles and a key figure in the Teapot Dome Scandal that brought down an American presidential administration. He was a key contributor to institutions all over California, the inspiration for Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil" and the man behind the character ”Daniel Plainview” in the Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood. He started the oil boom in Los Angeles by single handedly drilling and rigging a 155 foot hole near downtown Los Angeles. The many oil wells scattered across the landscape of the City of Angels are one his legacies. The final scenes of the film take place in Doheny's famous 55 room Beverly Hills mansion, Greystone. The building, an often used location familiar to movie goers everywhere, has a tragic past. Doheny built it as a wedding gift for his son, Ned. At the time, it was the most expensive building ever built in California. Doheny had known deep poverty and was no stranger to tragedy, having previously lost a 7 year old daughter, Eileen to severe lung infection brought on by harsh living conditions. The death of his son Ned broke him.
"On February 16, 1929, four months after Ned Doheny, his wife Lucy and their five children moved into Greystone, Ned died in his bedroom in a murder-suicide with his secretary, Hugh Plunket. The official story indicated Plunket murdered Ned either because of a "nervous disorder" or inflamed with anger over not receiving a raise. Others point out that Ned's gun was the murder weapon and that Ned was not buried in a Catholic cemetery with the rest of his family, indicating that he had committed suicide. Both men were involved in the trial of Ned's father in the Teapot Dome scandal."
The man leading the investigation into the famous Teapot Dome scandal was Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. Greystone Mansion is a public park and open to visitors. I'd like to thank Andy G., the man from the "dirty south" of Milwaukee, for this whole thing.