Final Thoughts on Puzzle Hunt Origins
Tracing the origins of the puzzle hunt/The Game has been a lot of fun for me. I enjoy history; more specifically, I enjoy understanding the thin strands of history that bring the reasons for modern activities and traditions to light. Finding out about the connection from DASH to the BANG to the Standford Game to BARF to Midnight Madness to Donald Luskin's Games of the 70s to The Last of Sheila to Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins' Halloween Hunt of 1968 has been a pleasure.
Finding out how Sondheim and Perkins came up with the idea, however, has been filled with frustration and speculation. I have no idea how to contact Sondheim. At his age (81 in March), I half-expect to hear of his demise any day, before being able to find out what touch of genius set the wheels in motion to produce the puzzle events that I so enjoy to this day.
So I've guessed that Elsa Maxwell, the self-proclaimed inventor of the treasure hunt, was his inspiration, whether consciously or not. Sondheim was mentored and lived with the Hammerstein family, and I've read that Hammerstein's frequent collaborator, Richard Rodgers was at one of her parties. I would assume, then, that either Sondheim at some point was at one of Elsa's parties, or learned of them from Rodgers.
So then how did Elsa Maxwell come up with the idea of a treasure hunt? I've already mentioned that Treasure Island had implanted the idea of treasure maps into the public consciousness, but I wanted something more direct than that. So I checked out R.S.V.P.: Elsa Maxwell's Own Story from the closed stacks at the local library and read through it.
I was prepared not to like Elsa. From what I had read elsewhere, she was someone who simply decided to be famous and set about it by throwing tons of parties and inviting the rich and famous. Making friends with those who attended, she became used to an extravagant lifestyle that was often funded by those friends. She seemed like a coat-tail rider who took advantage of her friends' wealth and connections.
In reading her book, though, I found her quite likable and someone I had more than a little in common with. She defends herself, saying that her friends were always trying to give her things in thanks for all that she did, and that it would have been rude to not accept. She made a lot of people happy, at least for the little while they were at her parties. I don't have the exact quote, but she said that many members of the jetset were so bored with their lives, that her parties were a small breath of fresh air. They even made a movie based on her parties, My Man Godfrey, which challenged party-goers to venture out into the real world. It was a fun book, though admittedly Elsa does seem a little self-absorbed.
Throwing treasure hunts was mentioned only briefly, late in the book, with no thoughts on how they came to be. However, earlier on, she does relate a story about a socialite friend of hers, Countess Dorothy (Taylor) di Frasso. In it, Dorothy is told by a Canadian prospector that he has a treasure map that he'll sell to her for the unbelievably low price of... whatever. Anyway, the young naive countess takes it as real (Elsa mentions that fake treasure maps were all the rage those days) and sets out to find it.
This real-life treasure hunt turned into a major disaster. Doing a search, I was able to turn up a 1939 Time magazine article about it. It details all the things that went wrong with the ship and crew, and how the treasure's supposed location was all but desolate:
I have no evidence that this fiasco inspired Elsa Maxwell to come up with treasure hunts as a party game. However, Elsa knew the countess, and knew of the trip, and was always looking for ways to spice up her parties. But until some other, more concrete information comes in, I'm satisfied with this as at least a plausible explanation for the ultimate roots of the puzzle hunt.
Finding out how Sondheim and Perkins came up with the idea, however, has been filled with frustration and speculation. I have no idea how to contact Sondheim. At his age (81 in March), I half-expect to hear of his demise any day, before being able to find out what touch of genius set the wheels in motion to produce the puzzle events that I so enjoy to this day.
So I've guessed that Elsa Maxwell, the self-proclaimed inventor of the treasure hunt, was his inspiration, whether consciously or not. Sondheim was mentored and lived with the Hammerstein family, and I've read that Hammerstein's frequent collaborator, Richard Rodgers was at one of her parties. I would assume, then, that either Sondheim at some point was at one of Elsa's parties, or learned of them from Rodgers.
So then how did Elsa Maxwell come up with the idea of a treasure hunt? I've already mentioned that Treasure Island had implanted the idea of treasure maps into the public consciousness, but I wanted something more direct than that. So I checked out R.S.V.P.: Elsa Maxwell's Own Story from the closed stacks at the local library and read through it.
I was prepared not to like Elsa. From what I had read elsewhere, she was someone who simply decided to be famous and set about it by throwing tons of parties and inviting the rich and famous. Making friends with those who attended, she became used to an extravagant lifestyle that was often funded by those friends. She seemed like a coat-tail rider who took advantage of her friends' wealth and connections.
In reading her book, though, I found her quite likable and someone I had more than a little in common with. She defends herself, saying that her friends were always trying to give her things in thanks for all that she did, and that it would have been rude to not accept. She made a lot of people happy, at least for the little while they were at her parties. I don't have the exact quote, but she said that many members of the jetset were so bored with their lives, that her parties were a small breath of fresh air. They even made a movie based on her parties, My Man Godfrey, which challenged party-goers to venture out into the real world. It was a fun book, though admittedly Elsa does seem a little self-absorbed.
Throwing treasure hunts was mentioned only briefly, late in the book, with no thoughts on how they came to be. However, earlier on, she does relate a story about a socialite friend of hers, Countess Dorothy (Taylor) di Frasso. In it, Dorothy is told by a Canadian prospector that he has a treasure map that he'll sell to her for the unbelievably low price of... whatever. Anyway, the young naive countess takes it as real (Elsa mentions that fake treasure maps were all the rage those days) and sets out to find it.
This real-life treasure hunt turned into a major disaster. Doing a search, I was able to turn up a 1939 Time magazine article about it. It details all the things that went wrong with the ship and crew, and how the treasure's supposed location was all but desolate:
They reached Cocos. Only vestiges of life on the barren island were so many picks and shovels left by previous treasure hunters, that "it looked like an abandoned WPA project." With Countess di Frasso offering suggestions, the crew "dug hell out of that island," but they found only rocks.
I have no evidence that this fiasco inspired Elsa Maxwell to come up with treasure hunts as a party game. However, Elsa knew the countess, and knew of the trip, and was always looking for ways to spice up her parties. But until some other, more concrete information comes in, I'm satisfied with this as at least a plausible explanation for the ultimate roots of the puzzle hunt.
Labels: elsa maxwell, history, stephen sondheim, treasure hunt
posted by Skott at 10:15 AM
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