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A whiz at English and math, he graduated at the head of his class from Indiana's Culver Military Academy, went on to the University of Virginia to study law. He spent more time playing poker and shooting craps. He did not bother to finish his first year because in April, at the age of 19, he married Anita O'Keeffe,* a girl from Sun Prairie, Wis., whom he had met at a party in Charlottesville.
Under draft age in World War I, Young got a job cutting smokeless powder at the Du Pont war plant at Carneys Point, NJ. at 28¢ an hour, ended up in the Du Pont treasurer's office in Wilmington. In 1920, having inherited $15,000 from his maternal grandfather, he moved to New York and went broke playing the market. He went to work for General Motors and was earning $35,000 a year as assistant treasurer when he left, in 1929, to become financial adviser to the late John J. Raskob, then top financial man at Du Pont. When Young advised Raskob that the bull market was going to collapse, Raskob fired him for his pessimism.
But Young sold short himself and made his first million. Soon he bought a seat * Sister of famed Painter Georgia O'Keeffe. on the Exchange, set up a brokerage shop with an old friend from G.M., Frank F. Kolbe. Young, Kolbe & Co. nourished on the Depression. The firm specialized in the fine art of grabbing up securities that looked worthless, then stepping in to run the properties involved. By 1937, Bob Young had added another $4 million or $5 million to his bankroll, and considered retiring.*
But then he got interested in Alleghany. Young needed more cash than he wanted to risk himself, so he wrote a letter to an associate, Allan P. Kirby, the shy heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune made by his father in the F. W. Woolworth Co. Young told Kirby that he had a good proposition lined up, and Kirby came through with $3,000,000. The obliging Mr. Kirby, now president of Alleghany Corp., has been the financial angel in many of Young's deals ever since. It is actually Kirby's holdings, some 550,000 shares of Alleghany, which give Young his control. In short, Kirby has supplied the cash, Young the plan to use it. Partner Kolbe, now president of Chicago's United Electric Coal Cos., has long since sold out.
Outside railroads, Alleghany Corp. has some ten subsidiaries. The chief one is the Pittston Co., a holding company for various coal-mining interests. Outside Alleghany Corp., Bob Young's biggest investment is in Pathe Industries, Inc., a catch-all holding company. Its chief subsidiaries make, process and distribute movies. Young has already poured $20,000,000 into his new producing subsidiary, Eagle-Lion Films, Inc., hopes to turn it into a major Hollywood studio. For Eagle-Lion, Young has made a deal with British Cinemagnate J. Arthur Rank to distribute ten of his pictures in the U.S. while Rank distributes Pathe's in Europe. Next week, Pathe will distribute its first major Rank picture, The Adventuress, starring Britain's Deborah Kerr (TIME, Feb. 10).