The Busches may have gotten away with plenty. With their voracious appetites and propensity for tragedy, they resemble another great American dynasty–right down to their own version of Chappaquiddick. But the Kennedys look tame compared to the spoiled brats and rogues depicted in ‘Under the Influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty’ (461 pages. Simon & Schuster. $24.95), a biography of the Busch clan by Peter Hernon and Terry Ganey, reporters for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The book is a lively, if meandering, tour through the family closet, filled with more skeletons than a med-school anatomy class. Awful deaths, alleged infidelities and ugly marital breakups so dominate the Busch history it’s a wonder the family found time to build the world’s biggest brewery–and amass a fortune worth more than $1 billion.
Unlike the Kennedys, the Busch clan never showed enthusiasm for Civic affairs or higher education; some members never even finished grammar school. But they were masters at selling suds. Adolph Busch, the German-born patriarch, emigrated to St. Louis in 1857. With soap maker Eberhard Anheuser, he revived a failed brewery using promotional savvy and a recipe for Bohemian Pilsener. He married Anheuser’s daughter, fathered 12 children and set the Busch standard for Croesus-like luxury. Son August A. Busch found his brewery under siege during World War I because family members sympathized with the kaiser. He weathered Prohibition, only to commit suicide during the Depression.
The most memorable Busch was his son August Jr., known as “Gussie”. Married four times, Gussie had a mean temper and an inexhaustible sex drive. He took the family’s self-indulgence to heights, hosting lavish, Bavarian-size feasts featuring roasted suckling pigs with red-painted toenails. (Gussie’s humorless son, August III, deposed him in 1975.)
Not surprisingly, the authors say the Busch family tried to stop this book, asking friends and relatives not to talk. Hernon and Ganey relied heavily on news clips and a handful of unidentified sources, which deprives their tale of immediacy. Their workmanlike prose and shapeless piling up of anecdotes don’t help the narrative. Also missing: a clear sense of the business. Despite repeated references to “beer distributorships” awarded to cronies like Frank Sinatra, the authors never explain the mechanics of such lucrative deals. Still, the spectacle of a dynasty struggling for legitimacy–undermined wretched excess–is fascinating.
