John Armstrong Chaloner | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of J. A. Chaloner byRufus W. Holsinger, 1918. | |
| Born | John Armstrong Chanler October 10, 1862 |
| Died | June 1, 1935(1935-06-01) (aged 72) |
| Other names | Archie |
| Occupation(s) | Author, industrialist, philanthropist |
| Spouse | |
| Parent(s) | John Winthrop Chanler Margaret Astor Ward |
| Relatives | SeeAstor family andLivingston family |
John "Archie" Armstrong Chaloner (néChanler; October 10, 1862 – June 1, 1935) was an American writer and activist, known for his catch phrase "Who's looney now?".[1][2]
Chaloner was bornJohn Armstrong Chanler on October 10, 1862, to Margaret Astor Ward Chanler andJohn Winthrop Chanler. Chaloner was related to the eliteAstor,Livingston, and Stuyvesant families.[3] He and his siblings became orphans after the death of their mother in December 1875 and their father in October 1877, both to pneumonia. The children were raised at their parents' estate inRokeby, New York.[4] John Winthrop Chanler's will provided $20,000 a year for each child for life (equivalent to $470,563 in 2018 dollars), enough to live comfortably by the standards of the time.[5]
Chaloner had ten brothers and sisters, of whom he was the oldest, including the politicianLewis Stuyvesant Chanler and the artistRobert Winthrop Chanler. His sisterMargaret Livingston Chanler served as a nurse with theAmerican Red Cross during theSpanish–American War.[6] Chaloner's brotherWinthrop Astor Chanler served in theRough Riders in Cuba[7] and was wounded at theBattle of Tayacoba.[8] His brotherWilliam Astor Chanler was a noted soldier and explorer and was elected to the US Congress in 1898. His sister Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler married authorJohn Jay Chapman.
Chaloner received some schooling in England and later returned to the United States, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees atColumbia University. Chaloner went on to study at theCollège de France and theEcole des Sciences Politiques.[3]
On his twenty-first birthday in 1883, Chaloner inherited the estate atRokeby along with $100,000 for its maintenance, however after his marriage began to disintegrate, he sold the title to his sister Margaret for a nominal fee and moved to North Carolina.[9]
In 1892 he was accepted as a compatriot of the New York Society of theSons of the American Revolution.
On June 1, 1908, he registered to have his last name legally changed from "Chanler" to Chaloner, which he believed to have been the surname's original spelling.[10]
Chaloner helped foundRoanoke Rapids, North Carolina,[11] where he successfully built an electric power-generating station and a cotton mill. Later in his life his erratic behavior caused his family to have him declaredlegally insane, a measure that estranged him from his family until 1919, when the family reconciled. Chaloner was highly philanthropic where education was concerned and around 1890 established the Paris Prize Fund, later renamed the John Armstrong Chaloner Paris Prize Foundation in 1917.[10]
By 1896 Chaloner began to claim that he was an "experimental psychologist of great insight" and through his work with the "X-Faculty" he began to exhibit increasingly erratic behavior.[10] This provoked concern with his family and on March 13, 1897, they had himinvoluntarily committed to theBloomingdale Insane Asylum inWhite Plains, New York. For his part, Chaloner believed that he was being committed so his family could take charge of his estate and experiments and wrote several sonnets to illustrate this belief. He was declared insane on March 13, 1897, and a New York court recommended that he be permanently institutionalized, however Chaloner escaped the following year and went to a private clinic, where he was deemed able to function in regular society.[10] Soon after, Chaloner began challenging the court's decision and laws on mental illness, which brought him into the national spotlight.[10] He was later declared sane in both Virginia and North Carolina and some of his proponents compared his experiments to research onparapsychology. During this time Chaloner publicly lectured on his X-Faculty experiments, but his lectures frequently featured diatribes against his family and psychiatry in general.[10] He also published several books includingFour Years Behind the Bars of "Bloomingdale," or, The Bankruptcy of Law in New York, (1906) andHell: Per a Spirit-Message Therefrom (Alleged): a Study in Graphic-Automatism (1912).
In 1909 Chaloner received additional attention when he accidentally shot and killed his neighbor John Gillard at Merry Mills. Gillard's wife had fled to Chaloner's home due todomestic abuse. While he was acquitted of responsibility, Chaloner paid for Gillard's funeral and gravestone, and also suffered anervous breakdown that caused him to leave Merry Mills for several months.[10][11] Chaloner would later write about Gillard's death inRobbery Under Law; Or, The Battle of the Millionaires: A Play in Three Acts.[12]
On June 14, 1888, he married the authorAmélie Louise Rives. The marriage was considered scandalous by Chaloner's family, who disapproved of her due to erotic passages in her bookThe Quick or the Dead? A Study—especially as one of the characters greatly resembled Chaloner.[3] Chaloner's marriage to Rives was notoriously unhappy and in 1895 Rives sought and was successfully granted a divorce in South Dakota.[13] Rives remarried only months later toPrince Pierre Troubetzkoy and Chaloner further scandalized his family by purchasing Merry Mills, the estate near the Troubetzkoys' home inAlbemarle County, Virginia.[3][14] Chaloner became close friends with the Troubetzkoys and also continued to pay Rives a yearly sum of money—events that caused his brother Robert Winthrop Chanler to call him a "looney".[10] This statement prompted Chaloner to send a telegram to Robert and the press, after Robert signed a poorly thought-outprenup withLina Cavalieri, titled "Who's Looney Now?".[14]
Chaloner died on June 1, 1935, inCharlottesville, Virginia, of cancer.
In 1921, the Chaloner Theater, was designed by George Keister, built byShroder & Koppel, decorated by 'Winter & Raub', for John Armstrong Chaloner, and opened in 1923, with 1568 seats, for silent movies, at 841 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY at the northwest corner of West 55th Street.[15][16][17][18][19][20]
In 1939,[21] it was sold, reduced in size to 1000 seats and renamedThe Town Theatre,[22] 851 Ninth Avenue and 55th Street, New York City. It closed July 17, 1950.
In 1950, CBS leased it, took out all the seating and it becameCBS Studio 58.[23][24][25]
In 1961, CBS donated the building toEducational Television for the Metropolitan Area, becomingWNET Channel 13's Studio 55.[26] home to the showCritique.[27][26] Later, it becameUnitel Video Studio 55,[28]
It was the second home toSesame Street and hostedThe Dick Cavett Show. Lastly, it was home to the cooking show,Emeril Live.
It was razed in November 2002, and replaced by theAlvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Joan Weill Center for Dance.
