‘Man Crazy’ Lucy Banning Was Rich and Free-Spirited

Lucy Banning was one of California’s richest and most beautiful women in the latter part of the 19th century. A headstrong, free-spirited ingenue at cross purposes with the Victorian era, she married and divorced several times, playing around in between.

She had enough money to ignore societal norms with impunity, having inherited a fortune from her father, “Transportation King” Phineas Banning, and padded her bank account with settlements from a gaggle of wealthy ex-husbands.

“Our very own Lucy Banning can share center stage with any two Lillian Russells,” Banning’s physician and friend, Rebecca Lee Dorsey, wrote in her memoirs. “I don’t believe Lucy heeded anyone’s advice from the day she was born. With all her thoughtfulness and kindness, she had one great weakness -- men. To phrase it very delicately, she was man-crazy.”

The pioneer daughter and eccentric socialite, dead more than 75 years, will come to life next month to talk about her adventures. Banning is one of five historical figures to be “revived” during the West Adams Heritage Assn.’s annual living history tour Oct. 9.

Actors in period costume will portray a quintet of dead notables buried at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery on Washington Boulevard, known for its unusual epitaphs and striking tombstones.

Lucy Banning was born in 1876, in a 23-room Greek Revival house in Wilmington that her father had built for his first wife and three of their nine surviving children. His second wife, Mary Hollister Banning, gave birth to Lucy and her elder sister, Mary.

But Wilmington was isolated. Its marshes, sand bars and shallow pools provided a refuge for waterfowl and a paradise for hunters, but not a proper place to rear well-bred young ladies.

In 1886, less than a year after Phineas Banning died, his widow moved to a mansion on Ft. Moore Hill near downtown. Los Angeles’ richest families hosted grand balls where girls such as the Bannings could make their debut into society. Lucy did just that in 1893, at 17.

Most men found her beauty irresistible. Her beaus included a handsome young attorney named John Bradbury, whose father, Lewis Leonard Bradbury, was a gold-mining and real-estate tycoon. The family name is commemorated by the Bradbury Building, a five-story architectural gem downtown; the town of Bradbury; and the gated community of Bradbury Estates.

John Bradbury and Lucy Banning eloped to San Francisco, where they were married on Dec. 4, 1893. According to news stories of the time, the marriage was oddly hurried. Banning wasn’t pregnant, but Bradbury insisted on marrying no later than Dec. 4.

“We have reasons why we desire it [their marriage] to be known to the world. It must go out [in the newspapers] this night that we are married,” he told reporters. Their reasons were never disclosed.

Shortly before the ceremony, he reportedly cabled his family, asking if everything would be all right if he married the girl of his choice. Everyone standing around Western Union assumed the answer on the return cable read “yes,” but it was deliberately obscured from reporters’ view.

“The bridegroom was quite a [blue] blood, and he wanted everybody to know it,” said the couple’s driver, George Dunham.

For four years, the marriage seemed successful. Then the couple attended a Santa Monica party, which Banning left with another man. Reporters found her and a middle-aged married Englishman named H. Russell Ward at a San Francisco hotel.

“It is true that I had a beautiful home, that jewels were showered upon me. But all these did not satisfy me,” Banning told the reporters. “I left simply because I believed that I had a right to plan out my life; to go in search of happiness. ...

“You may call this a love match or anything you like. Most people prefer to call it a scandal. I prefer to call it a romance.”

After a few days, Banning returned home. Her husband tracked Ward down and issued an ultimatum: “Get out of town in 24 hours, or else.”

Ward left, but was killed within days, accidentally stepping from a moving train in the middle of the night in Iowa. Some suggested that the accident could have been murder.

Banning remained married to Bradbury until 1902, when she divorced him and sued for nonsupport.

Then she took up acting -- and actors. Drawn to Shakespearean actor Mace Greenleaf in his sexy tights, she married him in 1903. But he was no Romeo offstage, Banning’s close friends confided. She dumped him for a fling with a longtime friend, Charlie Hastings, scion of an old San Francisco family and owner of Hastings Ranch in Pasadena.

She was romantically entangled for years with Hastings, who wooed her all the way to Europe and back. But in 1918 she married Robert E. Ross, a newspaper reporter and son of a judge.

“I’m through experimenting,” Banning, then 42, declared. “I’m prepared to settle down.”

And so she did -- until late 1925. Banning went to Olympic Auditorium to see the Japanese wrestler Setsuzo Ota, who was touring the United States at the invitation of world champion boxer Jack Dempsey. Witnesses said Banning tossed her evening bag into the ring at Ota; her calling card was inside, along with an invitation to dine with her and her husband at their home.

In July 1926, Banning went to Ota’s Los Angeles hotel room. “She took my shirts, ties, everything out of the closet and dresser, put them in a suitcase, closed it, and said: ‘We go now,’ ” Ota would later say in an interview.

Banning, Ota and a woman friend of hers set sail for Japan. She listed him on the ship’s manifest as her “courier.” But when she found out servants were required to travel second class, she demanded he get first-class accommodations near her.

They spent a few months in Japan, where Ota gambled away a small fortune of Banning’s money. When they returned to the States, Ota chauffeured her around and she sat ringside for his wrestling matches.

Gossip-mongers assumed Ota was her servant, a rumor she indignantly denied: “He is a Japanese gentleman of high degree and a graduate of Tokyo University.”

Ross divorced her in January 1927 on grounds of desertion.

A year later, Banning, 51, and Ota, 31, drove to Seattle to be married; interracial marriage violated California law. Both were ostracized by their friends.

This marriage, too, was short-lived, but not because another love intervened. During an extended European honeymoon, Banning caught a cold that turned into fatal pneumonia. She died on Feb. 20, 1929, shortly after her 53rd birthday.

Ota, who was devoted to her, returned with her body and stood by as she was buried.

Banning left her entire estate -- at least $400,000 -- to Ota, but costly lawsuits filed by her family left him with only $6,000. “I spent it gladly on a party in San Francisco,” he said.

After a stint in federal prison for a 1938 kidnapping, Ota returned to Japan in 1951. With the help of ghostwriter Kazumasa Yoshida, he published a book called “Maboroshi No Isan” or “A Dream of Inheritance.” A copy is in the Banning Museum library.

According to Ota, Lucy Banning knew she was dying. Her last words: “I’ll get criticized for this too.”