Today I read a little about the life of Edward Beale McLean (1889 – 1941), the last man to buy the famed Hope Diamond. 

McLean, who was more often known as E.B. or Ned, came from a wealthy family. The city of McLean, Virginia is named for his father, John Roll McLean. He was the heir to the Washington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer fortunes. Young Ned married 22-year-old Evalyn Walsh in 1908.

Evalyn was a few years older than her husband, and she was not born wealthy. As a matter of fact, she was born in Leadville, Colorado, the daughter of a schoolteacher and an Irish immigrant miner and prospector.  In 1898, her father discovered a gold mine and the family moved to a mansion in Washington, D.C.  In 1900, when she was 14, Evalyn went to Paris to learn to sing. Instead of applying herself to music, she lived a wild life there.  She had one younger brother, Vinson, who died in a car accident in Newport, Rhode Island, at age 17.

As Evalyn settled into her socialite world, Ned McLean amused himself with owning and racing thoroughbred horses and publishing the Washington Post. He would officially become the owner of the paper in 1916 but, even before he was the owner, something very significant happened at the newspaper’s offices. It was there that Ned met with Pierre Cartier in January 1911 and agreed purchased the Hope Diamond for $180,000. 

The stone is a 45.52 carat blue diamond, extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in India. The Hope Diamond is at least as famous for its beauty as for the strange curse that follows it. This jewel will allegedly bring disaster to anyone who owns it.

The curse is demonstrably not true, since several owners lived out their lives with no extraordinary bad luck. But a surprising number did not and suffered spectacularly bad fates, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who were guillotined during the revolution. Others, with less famous names, were forced into bankruptcy, committed suicide, ousted from positions of power, died young, and/or died in poverty. 

McLean was concerned about the Hope Diamond curse and insisted on this clause in the agreement: “Should any fatality occur to the family of Edward B. McLean within six months, the said Hope diamond is agreed to be exchanged for jewelry of equal value.”

Due to the rumors of a curse, Evalyn’s friends and mother-in-law urged her to sell the diamond back to Pierre Cartier but he refused to buy it. It seemingly made no difference as the McLeans seemed to flourish for several years.

The first disaster struck in 1919. By then, the couple had three sons. Their oldest was a 9-year-old son, Vinson. Like Evalyn’s brother, whom he was named for, Vinson McLean was killed in a tragic automobile mishap. The little boy was struck and killed by a car while crossing the street.

The McLeans’ remaining sons John Randolph and Edward Beale, were born in 1916 and 1918 respectively. Both of the boys had long lives, which seem to have been primarily occupied with marrying various wealthy women and buying palatial estates.

In 1921, the McLeans had a daughter, Emily Beale McLean.  For reasons I couldn’t discern, Emily changed her name to Evalyn Washington McLean and went by Evie.

The McLeans were friendly with President Warren Harding and First Lady Florence and Ned managed to become a key figure in the disastrous Teapot Dome scandal, which permanently marred his reputation.

The McLean marriage imploded in 1931 and they divorced the following year. Evalyn initially filed for divorce on grounds of infidelity, to which McLean announced he had already remarried, to a sister of the starlet Marion Davies. This was false but Ned, whose behavior was becoming bizarre, moved to Latvia. There, he filed for divorce again. It was granted in December 1932.

Ned was still the publisher and owner of the Washington Post but his erratic leadership led to the forced sale of the paper.  This was followed by a Maryland jury declaring him legally insane and committing him indefinitely to a psychiatric hospital. He was still in the hospital when he died of a heart attack in July 1941, at age 51.

Three months after her father’s death, 19-year-old Evie became the fifth wife of 57-year-old U.S. Senator Robert Rice Reynolds. Less than five years later, she died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Evalyn McLean found her daughter’s body.

Evalyn survived her daughter by one year. In 1947, she passed away at the age of 60 from pneumonia.  She was the last owner of the Hope Diamond. After her death, the Smithsonian purchased it and there it remains.

Did the Hope Diamond curse the McLeans?  I would be more superstitious about naming a child after another person (particularly someone who is still alive) than I would be about the Hope Diamond. ​There’s an old saying that your future is in your name. Though if you have an opportunity to purchase the Hope Diamond, it might be wise to sleep on it before making a decision.