Daddy's Money

When Howard Sr. died on August 4, 1995, he willed his estate not to Anna Nicole Smith, his bodacious bride of 14 months, but to the J. Howard Marshall II Living Trust and Marshall Petroleum, Inc. Both entities are controlled by his younger son, Pierce.

Pierce's attorneys portray him as the loyal son, a common man who, though well educated, was not as brainy as his brother. Pierce, they say, may have had disagreements with his father, but wanted very much to please him.

And in fact, while Howard Jr. was in California trying to make a go of the electronics industry, Pierce remained in Texas, near his father, and followed his father into the oil business.

Howard Jr.'s lawyers don't dispute that Pierce was closer to Howard Sr. In fact, they try to turn that point to their own advantage. They maintain that Howard Sr. always mistreated Howard Jr., and that Pierce was the old man's favorite. Howard Sr., they say, chose to bestow his worldly goods on Pierce, the son he loved, rather than keep his promise to Howard Jr., the son he never loved enough.

Last July, during a three-week trial that ended in a mistrial, Howard Jr.'s legal team described their client as a poor little rich boy, the brother who had never been able to gain his father's affection. Attorney Don Bowen asked the jury to pretend that they were watching an old home movie. The imaginary movie, he said, shows a skinny, bent boy lugging a suitcase to a car. Tears are running down his cheeks, and his dog barks through the door screen. The scene fades, and then cuts to an external shot of a military boarding school -- Culver Military Academy, the Kentucky school where Howard Jr. was sent when he was nine.

"We see this sort of harsh man," said Bowen. "Captain's uniform, got a drinker's nose, grabbing that little boy's hand and pulling him into the dormitory while he's looking back over his shoulder at his mama and his brother. We see the car drive off, and his mama and his little brother don't look back."

Howard Jr. went on to accuse his father of other cruelties, such as wife-beating. And according to one of the attorneys in the litigation, the Marshall brothers have long differed in their opinions of the women in their father's life.

Howard Sr.'s marriage to Anna Nicole Smith was not the first time one of his romances had raised eyebrows. A few years before catching Anna Nicole's topless-dancing act at Rick's, the aging oilman fell for a woman that one of the attorneys in the current litigation describes as "trailer park trash." Howard Sr. never married Lady Dianne Walker, another topless dancer, but for years he lavished upon her gifts of furs and jewels. According to a Texas Monthly article, in 1991, after 52-year-old Walker died during plastic surgery, Marshall shelled out $52,000 for her funeral and left a tearful note: "I never loved thee casually. Till we meet again in the next world, your own man, now and forever, Howard." Despite those tender words, Howard Sr., with assistance from Pierce, sued Lady Walker's heirs to get back everything he'd ever given her.

Observers say that Howard Sr.'s dealings with both Lady Walker and Anna Nicole Smith show that, besides the oil industry, there were only two true loves in his life.

One was Eleanor Pierce, his first wife, a graceful, religious woman. They were married in 1931, while Howard Sr. was still at Yale, and together they had sons Howard Jr. and Pierce.

In 1961, Howard Sr. divorced Eleanor to marry Bettye Bohanan, the other great love of his life; Marshall dedicated his autobiography to her. Her interests, like his own, lay in the wheeler-dealer world of the oil industry.

By the time of their father's second marriage, both Marshall boys were grown men. According to one of Pierce's attorneys, Pierce, ever loyal to his father, embraced Bohanan as his stepmother, but Howard Jr. resented her.

"In addition to loving his mother," says lawyer Rusty Hardin, who represents Marshall Petroleum, "Pierce also loved Bettye. It was real clear during the trial that Howard Jr. did not. He only cared about his mother."

Ironically, it may be Howard Jr.'s mother, Eleanor, who blows away his chance at his father's money.

Of all the women in Howard Sr.'s life, it's hard to imagine any of them being more impressive than Eleanor Pierce Marshall Stevens.

After they dissolved their 30-year marriage in 1961, Stevens could have taken her settlement and joined the ex-wives clubs of Houston society. Instead, at age 59, she enrolled at the Unity School of Christianity in Missouri and became an ordained minister. After graduation, she moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she worked as an associate minister. Then, from 1968 to 1976, she was the minister of the Unity Church of Memphis, Tennessee. She retired to care for an ailing cousin in southern California. After the cousin's death in 1979, Stevens moved back to Memphis and became the minister of a splinter group from her church.