Victor Lownes - Early Life

Early Life

He was born to a wealthy family in Buffalo, NY but they later moved to Florida. At the age of 12 his father gave him a cigar to smoke as aversion therapy. The young Victor apparently asked for another. However at the same age he also accidentally shot and killed his best friend. This resulted in his forced enrollment at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he met Nicky Hilton. From there he went on to the University of Chicago where he obtained an MBA and met his first wife. He was married at 18 in 1946 and had two children. After several mundane jobs he found employment at an industrial time lock firm. “I was promoted to manager within a few months,” he would later write, “due solely to hard work, conscientiousness and the fact that my grandfather owned the company.” He seemed to have everything a man could want – a beautiful, loving wife (Judith Downs), two fine children (Victor "Val" Aubrey Lownes IV and Meredith Lownes), a magnificent home, and a good job. However, following his father's death, after 7 years of marriage he had what in an older man would be called a mid-life crisis. He realized he hated the smug respectability of the middle class American dream. He felt trapped by marriage and green-lawn suburbia. He abandoned his family.