By JACK MAJOR

"The Dollar Princess" was a popular musical that opened in London and New York in 1909. The title later was used to describe a woman who went from a stenographer in Ohio to real-life princess in Greece. What made it possible was the fortune left to her by her wealthy second husband, William B. Leeds. I knew nothing about her or the musical until I stumbled upon the above item and my curiosity took over.

Princess Anastasia was her royal name. And while she did not become queen of Albania, it's possible an offer was made. Reportedly Lithuania had offered a package deal to her husband, Prince Christopher of Greece, saying he and his wife could rule as king and queen, but he declined. That anyone even considered the possibility was because the American princess had in abundance what the Greek royal family lacked – money.

In 1921, this rich American woman-turned-princess was very popular throughout Europe. Hers is a fascinating story, one made possible by her beauty and, I suspect, a fierce determination to be wealthy, a goal reached in 1900 with her second marriage. She was only 22. At that point she seems to have set a third goal – to be accepted in high society.

She was born Nonnie May Stewart in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1878, but her family moved to Cleveland where she was better known as Nancy Stewart. (Her childhood friends called her "Pinkie," which doesn't fit the image she would make for herself as an adult). As a teenager, she entered a brief marriage with banker George H. Worthington, who died in 1898 shortly after their divorce.

As a stenographer, she attracted the attention of William Bateman Leeds, who'd made millions of dollars in the tin-plating business. He divorced his wife in 1900 and a few days later married Nancy Stewart Worthington. Forever after some would refer to her as Nancy Leeds or Mrs. William Leeds, though her husband died in 1908. The woman's claim to the title of princess – and a new nickname – wouldn't be established until 1920 when she married Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark, brother of King Constantine I of Greece.

THE WIDOW Leeds and Prince Christopher became engaged in 1914, but the marriage was delayed for six years, supposedly by his family's opposition to the match. I suspect that is only partly true. The Greek royal family might have resisted because, according to their marriage laws, Mrs. Leeds would herself become royalty.

However, the Greek royal family was in deep financial trouble, which made the American a great catch for Prince Christopher. It may have been Mrs. Leeds who delayed the wedding until after World War I. The Greek royal family was connected to the German royal family and was sympathetic to the German cause. Mrs. Leeds might have been playing politics, realizing she'd be scorned at home if regarded as a supporter of an enemy of America.

But she finally married Prince Christopher and in the process became Princess Anastasia. For the next few years there would be stories that she used her money to put her brother-in-law, Constantine, back on the throne of Greece. These stories seemed more believable than her denials. However, no amount of American money could resolve the problems facing Greece, which was at war with Turkey in 1921, a situation that made life uneasy for Prince Christopher's family.

Even after her marriage, the American press often referred to her as "The Tin Plate Heiress," though the nickname "The Dollar Princess" became more popular. One variation was "The Million Dollar Princess."

THAT THE Greek royal family was related by marriage to the Romanovs, the Russian royal family unseated by the Bolshevik Revolution, created a sometimes confusing, eventually frustrating situation for the Leeds family. Nancy Leeds became Princess Anastasia, but obviously wasn't the mysterious Romanov grand duchess, Anastasia, subject of much controversy in the 1920s and '30s, and later a 1954 Broadway play, the 1956 Ingrid Bergman movie, an animated 1997 film, and several television documentaries. But Nancy Leeds' marriage to Prince Christopher, who was born in Russia, established a family connection between the two women.

That connection became stronger in 1921 when the only child of the American heiress-turned-Greek princess, William Bateman Leeds Jr., married a Russian princess, Xenia, who was living in Greece. Later, when Leeds and Princess Xenia were living in Long Island, they paid the way to America for a woman who claimed to be the Russian Anastasia. The woman, known then as Anna Tschaikovsky, later as Anna Anderson, had a history of mental illness and was dismissed as an impostor. She lived in relative obscurity until 1927 when a newspaper article about her attracted the attention of Princess Xenia, who knew the real Anastasia, but had last seen her in 1913.

Anna Tschaikovsky lived for awhile at the 54-acre Leeds estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and Princess Xenia was one of the few members of Russian royalty who believed the woman's story. For awhile it looked as though the visitor would hang around permanently, but she did not get along with Xenia's husband. It was William B. Leeds Jr. who sent Anna Tschaikovsky packing. It wasn't long afterward that the Leeds marriage ended. Anna Tschaikovsky (Anderson) kept in touch with Princess Xenia, who continued to believe the woman was the real Anastasia, even after almost everyone else conceded it had been proven otherwise.

BUT I'M GETTING ahead of myself. Her son's marriage to Princess Xenia seemed to go against Princess Anastasia's wishes. At the beginning of 1921, she told reporters:

“I love America and still consider myself an American, despite the relinquishment of my citizenship. I want William to return to the United States and become a useful citizen of his native land. And I hope he marries an American girl.”

Unfortunately, Princess Anastasia was ill ... so ill that weeks later she underwent surgery and her son was summoned to her side, which wasn't easily accomplished because the teenager was thousands of miles away. His visit would prove to be one of those good news/bad news things. His presence cheered his mother, but hours later she went into an emotional decline because William B. Leeds Jr. abruptly proposed marriage to a 17-year-old princess. And she had said yes.

Later she tried to postpone the wedding, saying her son and his intended bride were too young for marriage. She claimed that upon learning her son had proposed to the princess she cried for three days and refused to see him. However, the marriage took place a few months later.

PRINCESS ANASTASIA was dying, but the public was led to believe her illness, while serious, was not fatal. There were references to an intestinal problem, with denials of the cancer that would take her life on August 29, 1923. She spent much of that time in Paris and London and also made a valiant visit to the United States. Her son and his wife spent most of the next two years at her side.

Before leaving England for America, Prince Christopher said that after the funeral he would return to Europe with William B. Leeds Jr. and Princess Xenia. He also declared all three of them would live in Europe permanently. However, the prince spoke only for himself. Three months later, Leeds and his wife announced they were leaving Europe to live in the United States.

Princess Anastasia's will – indeed, almost everything I've read about the estate of William B. Leeds – is beyond my understanding when it comes to who got what, when and how. Estimates about the size of the estate vary wildly, as do guesses about how much money Princess Anastasia and her son had at various times in their life. The usual estimate is that William B. Leeds Sr. was worth at least $30 million dollars when he died.

The princess also had a collection of gems, gifts from Leeds and European royalty, including jewels valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. These were distributed among her husband, son and daughter-in-law.

One thing is very clear: There was more than enough money for everyone – the princess, Prince Christopher, William Leeds Jr., Princess Xenia, and various royal relatives who came begging. (The 1920s were a bad time for royalty, especially those too lazy to work.) Also, the former Nonnie Stewart took good care of her sister, Margaret Stewart Green, and her family.

IT'S TIME FOR a few words about the man who made all this possible.

William Bateman Leeds Sr. died in 1908. What follows may be true, mostly true, or partly true, but undoubtedly incomplete.

How he became a multi-millionaire known as "the tin plate king" involves several things I don't fully understand ... things such as tariffs, trust-building and watered-down stocks. My information, such as it is, came from various websites, several of which obviously copied items word-for-word from other sites and passed them off as their own. (There's a lot of litter along the information highway. The most annoying may be those websites that promise to be your source for all there is to know about almost every person who ever lived, but deliver only a squib they lifted from Wikipedia ... plus a lot of advertising.)

I found most of my information on an unusual website, www.fultonhistory.com, which offers about a zillion pages from old newspapers. It doesn't have every newspaper, nor every year from the newspapers that are available. But there's enough available to keep you busy for the rest of your life. The site seems to be used mostly by people on the same mission that led me to it in the first place – to discover and read about my ancestors. Some of mine made the news in 1921, which is how I accidentally stumbled across Princess Anastasia and Leeds.

Newspaper articles – which form the backbone of this project – aren't exactly reliable, particularly those from the glory days of the industry when each large city had several newspapers. Competition induces speed, and deadline-beating reporting often leads to mistakes compounded when an inaccurate story becomes the basis for a follow-up. This may be especially true in the case of stories about the Leeds family, especially when royalty entered the picture, because the combination of money and arrogance created a strong barrier against intrusion by the press.

Because I did this online, I couldn't help but consider how much easier it is today to tap sources of information – yes, even bad information – than it was when these articles were written. Reporters almost invariably identified William B. Leeds as "the tin plate king" without explaining why he had the nickname or, for that matter, explaining what they meant by "tin plate." Many years later, Leeds' two children would be identified as "tin plate heirs" or "sons of the tin plate king." By the 1920s people would be hard-pressed to identify "the tin plate king," and finding the answer might take some time. Ah, the difficulties of living B.G. (before Google). The answer to the "tin plate king" question, of course, is ...

WILLIAM B. LEEDS. His wasn't exactly a rags-to-riches story because he seems to have started out in Richmond, Indiana, as an ambitious, middle-class fellow who probably would have led a comfortable life even without the breaks that came his way. He doesn't seem to have been particularly likable – few narrowly focused opportunists are – but at least in the beginning he often stopped to smell the roses. And that's because his first business was operating a nursery which specialized in the sale of roses, shrubbery and greenhouse plants.

But that was a brief period in his life. At 22, his direction changed. The year was 1883, and whether it was his roses, his personality, his good head for business or the fact he had chosen the right woman to marry, Leeds made a favorable impression on Henry Miller, a relative of his fiancée and a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1883 Leeds found a new career when Miller secured him a position with the railroad's engineering corps for the territory west of Pittsburgh. It wasn't a cushy job, but it did offer advancement.

A month after starting his new job, Leeds insured his future – he married Jeanette Irene Gaar, also of Richmond. I have no idea whether this was true love or good planning on Leeds' part – certainly the love didn't last – but I'll assume that for the first seven years of their marriage they were an average young couple, hard workers with big aspirations, perhaps benefiting only a bit from her family's wealth.

Then came 1890. Her father died she inherited a substantial amount of money. How much money is unknown, but in 1890 you could do a lot with, say, $100,000, especially if you were friends with a banker who wasn't afraid to wheel and deal.

Leeds convinced his wife to let him use all or a big chunk of her money to buy a nearby tin-plating plant. And then he turned to his best friend, who just happened to be a wheeling-dealing banker.

For what happened next, I turn to "A History of the United States Steel Industry," by Herbert Newton Casson (1859-1951), who had this to say in a section labeled "The Napoleons of Tin Plate."