Today's tour features two characters with legendary reputations.
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Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. It's practically cliche now, the young hopeful moving to Hollywood wanting to be discovered. Yet it still happens.
Every year. Thousands of people uproot their lives to pursue their dreams of stardom. But one man found his fame a different way by bringing the movies to him. Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was born in Durango, Mexico, in eighteen seventy eight, with a very full name of Jose Doroteo Orango a Rambula. Many stories about his early life are either apocryphal or just downright false, but it's widely believed that he grew up in poverty with his parents and four siblings. They suffered under the hacienda system, in which wealthy estate owners would exploit poor workers for their labor. After the death of his father, via abandoned his schooling to find work and help his family keep their home. He did a number of jobs, working as a bricklayer and a sharecropper, among other things, but his life took a sharp turn when he was just sixteen years old. He'd been living in Shihuahua when he got word that his sister had been assaulted by a local hacienda owner back home. He returned to Durrango for revenge. After killing the owner and stealing one of his horses, Via became a bandit to get by. Pretty soon he found himself in trouble with the law, getting arrested for stealing mules and guns. But while other criminals would have been sentenced to death for their crimes, Via had gotten involved with some pretty important people who often kept him off of death row. Instead, he was forced to join the federal army, but that punishment didn't last too long. He skipped town and went back to Chihuahua to try and make an honest living as a butcher. When that failed, he left once more and assumed a new name, one inspired by his paternal grandfather, Jesus Villa. He called himself Francisco Pancho Villa and Then in nineteen ten, his life changed forever as the Mexican Revolution took hold. Via joined the other revolutionary seeking to overthrow the oppressive Mexican government, but the opposing forces and funding were very strong. If Via was going to have any hope of victory, he needed money. But it wasn't like he could just kick start a war or hold the GoFundMe. He needed big donors, and he needed them fast, So he looked north to the United States, specifically to the motion picture industry. Via reached out to the Mutual Film Corporation with a proposal. He would allow Mutual Film to shoot The Mexican Revolution in exchange for a twenty five thousand dollars advance and fifty percent of the film's profits. He even prompt to perform re enactments of key battles in case they needed additional footage. The studio agreed and told him that even though US papers were painting Via as a villain, Mutual would show the world a much different and sympathetic side of him. The studio sent a crew down to Mexico, including actor Raoul Walsh, who was cast as a younger version of Via for the film. The goal wasn't just to make a war picture. It was to craft a biography of a man who was fighting for a better life for his people. The Life of General Via, directed by William Carbaine, told the story of triumph over adversity, at least it would have if it had survived. Very little of the production exists today. It's really just a few pieces of footage and some publicity photos, And unfortunately for their star, Mutual wasn't able to do what they had promised. After the war, Via was left to deal with the fallout all on his own. This included a nineteen sixteen US expedition across the border to capture him and bring him to justice for attacking New Mexico. Villa managed to survive another seven years until his assassination on July twentieth of nineteen twenty three. He was killed in an ambush while returning home from the bank. Although his reputation was tarnished for decades following his death, he eventually came to be revered as a champion for the Mexican people, an achievement that might have happened sooner had his film not been lost. Pancho Villa was a revolutionary hero who stood by his principles until the very end, But it seems that even he was tempted by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Every musician has their influences, artists they love and listen to while shaping their own sound. If you're a classic rock fan like me, then your favorite band was likely influenced by the blues. And if you like Eric Clapp, led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, then your favorite artist's favorite artist was one man Robert Johnson. But just like his later listeners, Robert had his own influences, and if the rumors are true, he got his talent from a sinister source. He won his musical style in a diabolical deal with the devil himself. Not much is known about Robert's early life. He was born in nineteen eleven in Mississippi and at an early age became interested in the guitar. In the deeply segregated South, black people often weren't allowed in community spaces like bars, performance halls, or restaurants, so blues musicians often performed in juke joints, which were casual after hour spots in black owned stores or houses where the black community could gather when Robert was a teenager, he first saw a blues musician named Sunhouse perform a juke joint in Robinsonville, Mississippi. When Robert tried to perform himself, he was booed off the stage by Sunhouse and the other patrons. Apparently Robert was no guitarist. Robert moved with his mother to another town shortly after that, but when he returned to Robinsonville two years later, Sunhouse was blown away at how quickly Robert had become an excellent player through his teens. In twenties, Robert traveled throughout the South playing street corners, house parties, and juke joints. Twice he sat down to record his original music, resulting in twenty nine recorded songs. In nineteen thirty eight, when Robert was just twenty seven, he died of unknown causes. He never gained any recognition or fame in his lifetime, and was buried in an unmarked grave in a pauper cemetery. Robert's legacy might have stayed just like that if it wasn't for a compilation of his songs called King of the Delta Blues Singers, released in nineteen sixty one. The Man who recorded Johnson's twenty nine songs, believed that he was a great blues artist, and audiences in the nineteen sixties seemed to agree. Teenagers Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, and Keith Richards all love the record. Robert Johnson's music helped shape the path of classic rock and roll. The same time Robert's musical genius was being rediscovered, so too was his darker reputation. Rumors spread that Robert hadn't just been a great artist, his gifts were supernatural. To learn to play the blues, he went to a crossroads somewhere in Mississippi and made a deal with the devil, promising his soul in return for musical talent. It didn't help that many of his songs hinted at the supernatural, like Hellhound on My Trail, Crossroad Blues, and even Me and the Devil Blues. But the truth, well, it's not quite as exciting. It was tireless practice, not dealings with the devil that made Robert Johnson a star. The rumor about his supernatural skills probably first came from the remarks by the musician Son House. He was the one who had laughed Robert off the stage in that juke joint the first time Robert tried to play guitar. When Robert showed up again nearly two years later, playing like a natural, he made it that Robert must have made a deal with the devil. Instead, what Robert really had done was find a great teacher, a player named Ike Zimmerman. Now, Robert and Ike did like to practice in graveyards after dark, which does sound a little spooky, but this was for practical reasons, not demonic. Graveyards were one of the few quiet places where Robert and Ike could play without people disturbing them. It's also likely that Robert's story was mixed up with another blues musician with a similar name, Tommy Johnson, who played Delta Blues in the same circuit as Robert, claimed that he had sold his soul to the devil to learn guitar. Robert may have died in obscurity, but today his music lives on, as does his devilish reputation. Whether or not the devil made him do it, he'll have to admit that Robert Johnson was a hell of a good player. 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. The 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.