James Howard Marshall II was a business magnate, attorney, university professor, and government official, who was born on 24th January 1905, in Germantown, Pennsylvania He was best known as a highly successful businessman primarily in the oil industry, and also as the husband of model Anna Nicole Smith during the last 14 months of his life, as his estate became the subject of numerous court trials and in the tabloids.
Have you ever wondered how rich J. Howard Marshall was? According to sources it has been estimated that Marshall’s overall net worth was $100 million, acquired primarily through his successful lifelong career in the oil industry. As a president and vice president of several important oil companies, his net worth significantly increased.
J. Howard Marshall’s Net Worth $100 Million
Marshall attended George School in Newtown, a private high school in Pennsylvania, and later went to study liberal arts at Haverford College, graduating in 1926. During his years of study, he edited school newspapers, captained debating teams, and became an All-American soccer player.
After finishing Haverford, he enrolled at Yale Law School and graduated magna cum laude in 1931. Upon his graduation, he served as an Assistant Dean at Yale Law School for two years, and at the same time, he was a member of the legal realist school of thought where he worked on articles like “Legal Planning of Petroleum Production” which offered an alternative to the then current practice of controlled production in the oil industry, gaining the interest of the government. His net worth was already established.
In 1933, J. Howard decided to leave Yale and became an Assistant Solicitor at the Department of the Interior, during this time he wrote the “Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry”(1933) and “The Connally Hot Oil Act of 1935” which revived the original legislation, regulating the flow of oil between states. He soon left government service to become the counsel of “Standard Oil’s” president Kingsbury and began his lifelong career as an oilman.
Not long after he became another firm’s partner, and started a business association with Ralph K. Davies. During World War II, he was a Solicitor of the Petroleum Administration for War, and later a member of the Committee on Reparations, the National Petroleum Council, and the American Petroleum Institute.
When the war was over, Marshall developed a relationship with Paul G. Blazer and became the Vice Chairman and President of Ashland Oil and Refining Co. His other notable positions included Executive Vice President at Signal Oil & Gas, President of Union Texas Petroleum, and Executive Vice President of Allied Signal. All benefited his net worth, but none more so than his partnership with Fred C. Koch, of Koch Industries, whose stock became the majority of his wealth.
However,r when it comes to Marshall’s private life, was an interesting one. He married three times, firstly to Eleanor Pierce with whom he had two sons. After their divorce in 1961, Howard married Bettye Bohannon, with whom he stayed until she died in 1991.
His last marriage was to the 26-year-old model Anna Nicole Smith, whom he married at the age of 89, and their marriage lasted fourteen months. (She died of a drug overdose in 2007.) After he died of natural causes on 4th August 1995 in Harris County, Texas at the age of 90, his marriage caused numerous court battles, as his sons and his spouse fought over his will and estate.
