Masterpiece | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

there's no no mystery at all why it's been such a popular breed and not only just among uh
Rich old ladies but with with people all around the world of of all different uh backgrounds and uh
socio-economic uh circumstances Spud bacone he's the managing editor of the American Kennel Club Gazette which
has been published monthly without a single Interruption since 1889. it's a remarkably cool dog no more handsome dog
either they're beautiful animals very smart but complex and that's what makes them so
companionable they have a complex character kind of a human-like character and that's what endears them to owners
especially is that very interesting Almost Human personality that a good poodle will exhibit
[Music] 1955 a now defunct tabloid reported that when a girl makes the big time she
traditionally acquires three things minks gems and a poodle women were even cutting their own hair short and
fluffing it up to look like poodles Elizabeth Taylor was said to have done this with her hair to look more like her
tiny poodle in 1950 New York City uh women were still looking to Paris for fashion to Europe for literature for
architecture for any kind of a refined Pursuit so on uh you know in the Upper East Side
of New York City Circa 1955 you bet a wealthy old Widow with a lot of money was going to be seen with with with a
poodle the American Kennel Club is the governing body for the world of purebred dogs managing the National Registry
they're basically The Gatekeepers of what counts as a purebred dog do you have a dog I do not I have two
cats but you like dogs I would assume yes but in my uh Eternal effort to remain impartial among our dog fanciers uh I
don't have a dog so I'm free to report on the fine qualities of any one of our purebred breeds without uh fear of being
biased towards my own breed so if I asked you your favorite breed you wouldn't tell me I certainly would not
they're all God's children we love them all equally here what's interesting is that the lobby of
the American Kennel Club on Madison Avenue looks exactly as you might think the lobby of the American Kennel Club
there's a lot of dog paintings and dark wood yes and you may have also caught the skeleton of early Fox Terrier
belgrave Joe is just around the corner this is Bryn white I met her in the library of the American Kennel Club in
New York City she's the archivist for the AKC so I manage our book and ephemera and photograph and archival
collections all in relation to the development appreciation and sport of the purebred dog you're wearing a dog
pin do you always wear dog pins or dog themed things when you come to work I don't today was a special
occasion but I I am um I'm a terrier person a terrierist uh a terrier is yes that's what that's
what I've been told um I grew up with an obscure breed of dog I'm a librarian by trade but I think
I got my foot in the door because they thought I could understand because I grew up with a Welsh Terrier
I've been thinking about this is real a black Russian terrier oh that is a very interesting choice I like
it because they're so big and in the Wikipedia page they're pulling a little cart full of
stuff [Music] home of the purebred dog what is the AKC position on mutts I don't think I should talk about that
okay for much of the 20th century the Beagle topped the American Kennel club's list
of most popular breeds but then in the 1950s things changed and the poodle started to catch up
this is due in large part to one man a mysterious Russian count named Alexis Pulaski his obsession with poodles and
one poodle in particular a dog he named Pulaski's Masterpiece not only put the dog on the map but would lead to a
13-state alarm and in the end break Pulaski's heart I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
[Music] count Pulaski was born in Saint Petersburg in 1895 and arrived in New York City in 1926
little is known about his early life except he apparently served in the Russian Imperial Army and was adamantly
anti-communist and a big supporter of the Tsar he's circulating in the upper echelons
of society he's using his his title and his accent and his wit to kind of Institute himself among
um kind of the Uptown crowd of New York City one of the men he meets is named Gilbert
Khan a wealthy New York City Banker Gilbert Khan is a poodle man while count Pulaski grew up around Doberman
Pinschers and Pulaski agrees to babysit Khan's poodles he babysits these poodles in
1938 and it's love Pulaski was so taken with these poodles that he wanted to be around them all the
time he starts a breeding program and then gets Gilbert Khan and a few other Rich New Yorkers to bankroll a new store
poodle thing what is poodles Incorporated it is located on West 52nd Street a few doors
down from the famous 21 club and it is a you would say that is a salon a boarding house or Resort
and a boutique or Haberdashery if you will and it caters exclusively to poodles it's a club for poodles or it's a club
for poodle owners it's it's a store to purchase goods for your poodle and to get your poodle's hair cut and then to
also order a poodle while you're going out on your exotic vacations that don't involve the dog
although they're mostly selling things to facilitate you taking your dog on your exotic vacations
poodles Inc was an immediate success the sky was kind of the limit they offered 16 different hairstyles
[Music] what what types of hairstyle um they had one that was named after May West the Mae West was like a buffond
they offered a flat top called the Tom Collins if you wanted your dog's legs shaved to
look like it was wearing bell bottoms you could ask for the Sailor clip you could even get your poodle a mustache so
were they also dying the dogs I'm not sure if they did a poodle's ink but that did in this kind of craze instigated by
Pulaski they were uh they did offer rinses for coats of dogs to be dyed pink blue green whatever color you were so it
seems to me that what you're saying is that that poodles in the 1950s they started
to become a showpiece so it was a part of your outfit that you're wearing and because you they were so customizable
you could really have something that looked unique to you because you could pick the color you could change the
haircut yes Pulaski also had a fashion line for poodles that kept up with what was
trendy he convinced high-end designers to create dog versions of whatever they were selling to department stores so a
year after the store was open Pulaski has a litter at on August 4th 1946 and there is the largest dog in the litter
he takes a special liking to he observes him over the course of six to eight weeks and decides that
this dog is something special and then subsequently named him Pulaski's masterpiece
uh he just saw this in a charm in this dog he saw a capacity to um to be trained in the dog he later talks
about how he admired masterpiece's clean habits he he would lay out a piece of paper when he went to bed at night in
case the dog needed to relieve himself while he was asleep and and he did not do that one night and woke up and
Masterpiece had nudged a little trading card into the spot he just searched for anything he could too
to replace the missing piece of paper so so he he views this dog as having very Vista critic
tendencies when Masterpiece was one year old count Pulaski showed him at the Westminster
dog show the most prestigious show of the year Masterpiece didn't win but he did get
attention Pulaski would continue to enter Masterpiece and competitions but it was
important to him that dogs were primarily bred to be members of the family he said the word pet often is
used in a derogatory sense by show breeders but the poodle should be bred primarily as a pet for temperament
willingness to please and a radiation of charm it was originally a hunting and retrieving dog is often used in in Duck
hunts and that you know show dog silhouette idea we all have of the poodle was actually born in practical
purposes like uh trimming the legs made it easier and more quick for them to to swim they even say putting ribbons on
their tails was a way they kind of followed them uh through the fields so because a standard poodle at least has
kind of a wild haircut with with a lot of hair up front and then none and then a little bit of hair
sometimes around the ankle yes that's what we call the lion cut and it and it is said to have evolved from how they
were cut back in the day when they had a more functional purpose would you describe what Masterpiece look
like yes I should say he was a gray toy poodle he was about nine and a half inches tall and about eight pounds
really little really little and he was not I he was not cut in that lion cut we associate with show poodles uh Pulaski
designed what he called a rigid masculine cut for Masterpiece that just trimmed him in the midriff
um so he so he had his own silhouette what what does a rigid masculine cut even mean
I really don't know um Pulaski was really into these kind of contradictions in relation to the dog he
liked to joke that he was the most useless looking utility dog in the world that he looked like Louis the 16th
posing for a portrait in his little gray wig that he looked like an aristocrat but he
had the soul of a Rowdy stevedore um that's kind of one of the things I love about him is is yeah just these
it doesn't even make sense at a certain point these Notions he has about this dog
embodying everything at the same time very quickly Masterpiece became a staple of New York society and count Pulaski
was invited to exclusive cocktail parties Masterpiece was the guest of honor and would perform his tricks for
all these rich socialites one of his trainers was the former lion tamer at the Bronx Zoo he's giving Masterpiece
special instruction in Old circus tricks and tragically Dives before Masterpiece
learns to walk a tightrope but Masterpiece does walk on his hind legs Pulaski's favorite trick is to ask are
you a are you a communist Masterpiece and he shakes his head no um that that I think a lot of his a lot
of his tricks kind of involved him interacting with Pulaski like it was kind of a two-person show and and and
expressing himself through Grunts and Barks and head chicks or however his fee for modeling was 25 an hour
often more than the humans he was posing alongside he showed up in ads for stockings beer
Furs he did a spread in Vogue even at his own bank account it was reported that Rita Hayworth's
third husband Prince Ali Khan offered Pulaski 25 thousand dollars for Masterpiece and count Pulaski turned him
down this led to masterpiece's reputation as the most valuable dog in the world there's no system for for measuring this
but I mean the system wasn't that he said that Masterpiece claimed 11 he made eleven thousand dollars a year in stud
and modeling fees and by stud fees we mean um the right to breed the female dog to masterpiece
the owners of masterpiece's Offspring include Judy Garland Eva Peron Gary Cooper the list goes on and on
Masterpiece was invited to Paris for Fashion Week he went to Cuba as a Goodwill Ambassador he performed on
television this nine-inch dog jumping over a line of Great Danes he led a parade of 70 poodles down Fifth
Avenue to the department store milgrams where he took his seat in the front window on a green velvet throne
all of this to say that Masterpiece was well known you couldn't get much more famous or recognizable
it's around 1 15 in the afternoon in late May at poodles Inc and the usual the usual crew is there Pulaski Fields a
phone call and he and his associate go downstairs and they're gone about 15 minutes when
they returned they found some customers who were interested in purchasing a dog whenever someone came in to buy a new
dog it was Pulaski's Habit to show off masterpiece they couldn't have Masterpiece of course
but they could be assured they were getting something close he called for the dog but Masterpiece didn't come
Pulaski went downstairs to the basement to look for him no Masterpiece they searched the store
the dog was gone [Music] the next day a person comes forward claiming to have seen a dark-haired
woman in a red coat leaving the store at around 1 30 P.M with a little gray Dog healing by her
side and the only reason he even registered this as you know not common sight was
that the dog did not have a leash and so it is deemed based on this very deemed credible witness that Masterpiece
has been kidnapped or dog-napped if you will word of the dog napping reached newspapers all across the country one
article read an anti-communist poodle dog disappeared today and its owner said a female may be the cause of it all
count Pulaski pleaded with the public for masterpiece's safe return he offered another poodle in masterpiece's place
he said I can't understand who would take the dog stealing a dog like that is like stealing the Hope Diamond
dog groomers all over the city were put on alert to watch for Masterpiece thousands of leaflets were spread across
New York they start making appearances on TV shows they have headlines they they select masterpiece's grandson
Johnny as as the the Ken most closely resembling him and they start trotting him out on the TV shows they do an on
the scene Recreation of the dog napping and they are said to have sent out a 13-state alarm
on this dog one of the theories is that because Masterpiece was so well trained he rarely barked so maybe he just calmly
followed the woman in the red coat out of the store as Pulaski himself had once said what he
loved so much about the poodle was its temperament and willingness to please what do you think happened to
masterpiece I mean maybe it was premeditated maybe this woman saw that big parade of poodles to
Milgram and thought there's going to be an opening in here somewhere or maybe she just saw the opportunity at the
moment it presented itself Maybe I mean maybe there was no Criminal Intent originally Poss we can't allow
for the possibility that Masterpiece just went with her I said I'm getting away from this count I'm sick of this
count I mean maybe he didn't understand that it was Forever the full ramifications for his action but I mean
there's a chance this woman thought that she was rescuing him from this kind of silly egomaniac or endless Life as a
show Pony um maybe it was a vindictive act against Pulaski maybe it was a communist she was
wearing a red coat um it kind of goes on and on foreign Polaski held out hope that whoever had
taken the dog would send a ransom note that there was some possibility of Masterpiece coming home I mean all these
things that he that he cultivated about the dog about the breed and this dog in particular like led to this happening
and and and the one thing is is dog napping was starting to happen poodles are the most kidnapped dog there had
been a high profile case of of seven or eight poodles being held for ransom I mean even Patricia Highsmith wrote a
novel in the early 70s a dog's Ransom but that was about the kidnapping of a poodle was like the initiating action
but obviously Ransom did not factor into this I mean there's a chance he was sold
on the Black Market Ali Khan in some way possibly but and and this was this was a
problem before the new problem members which was puppy mills but this was something that would happen for people
who wanted a purebred dog I mean the value of the dog is knowing who the dog is and asserting
asserting who this dog is I mean he was kidnapped at the height of his Beauty and manhood according to Pulaski but
when he was kidnapped he was considered the most famous off-screen like like the
most famous dog who wasn't on a Hollywood star who wasn't written tin or Lassie um and if you can't
say this is him then I don't know where the where the value is but I mean it seems very feasible that
you just start cutting that dog differently and who's ever gonna know it's Masterpiece I mean the dog could
just be could have just like lived out his days in Staten Island as a domesticated pet I mean
there's just I mean [Music] there's no telling Masterpiece was never seen or heard from
again almost a year later a reporter visited poodles Inc and wrote that the entire
shop felt like a memorial to the dog there were still photos of Masterpiece all over the walls in one corner
masterpiece's green velvet throne with canopy sat empty in 1956 Pulaski close-up shop
he turned his attention towards a poodle encyclopedia he called it Pulaski on poodles
he had a hard time finding a publisher though Winston Churchill a poodle man himself did ask to see a finished copy
in his chapter poodles I have known Pulaski writes extensively about Masterpiece they have a copy at the AKC
archives it sits alongside a big black scrapbook that Pulaski made he titled it Mr poodle
himself on the front is what might be the first attempt at photoshopping Pulaski took a picture of himself and
then pasted a picture of Masterpiece under his arm the poodle held its position at the top
of the American Kennel club's list of most popular breeds until 1982 when it was overtaken by the Cocker Spaniel
today Labrador Retriever [Music] count Pulaski died in 1971 at the age of 73. his obituary in the New York Times
is short but does make space for one important fact in 1953 a silver gray male poodle named
Masterpiece was stolen from the store and never recovered [Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore
Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Johnny Vince Evans special thanks to Crystal duhame
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[Music] foreign [Music]

In the 1950s poodles were all the rage — one tabloid even reported that when a girl “makes the big time she traditionally acquires 3 things — minks, gems, and a poodle.” But one poodle in particular put the breed on the map. His name was Masterpiece… and police in 13 states knew exactly what he looked like.

Music in the episode “Spins and Never Falls” by Blue Dot Sessions “Aim is True” by Podington Bear “Lemon and Melon” by Blue Dot Sessions “Backed Vibes Clean” by Kevin MacLeod “Sonatina” by Kevin MacLeod “Quizitive” by Lee Rosevere “Time Waste” by Podington Bear “The Gall” by Podington Bear “Mineral Still” by Blue Dot Sessions

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Episode 84 originally published 2/9/2018 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-84-masterpiece-02-09-2018

Brief Summary

The episode details the rise of poodles and the mysterious kidnapping of Count Pulaski's prized poodle, Masterpiece.

Key points

The Rise of the Poodle. Poodles became a fashionable breed in the 1950s, captivating wealthy owners.
The Mysterious Count Pulaski. Count Pulaski's obsession with poodles led to a breeding program and a famous dog.
The Kidnapping of Masterpiece. Masterpiece, the prized poodle, is kidnapped, leading to a nationwide search.
The Legacy of Masterpiece. Masterpiece's disappearance left a lasting impact, with Pulaski mourning his loss.
Phoebe Judge Introduces Criminal. The host, Phoebe Judge, sets the stage for the podcast.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He looked like Louis the 16th posing for a portrait in his little gray wig.

11:52WatchJan 7, 2023

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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