Lamar Hunt: Son of a bigamist

Released Wednesday, the period gangster drama Public Enemies sold an estimated $41 million worth of tickets. The movie is based on a book by Bryan Burrough, a special correspondent at Vanity Fair.

Burrough’ most recent book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, offers an interesting glimpse into the history of one of Kansas City’s most influential families: the Hunts.

Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt is the son of H.L. Hunt, an oilman who relied on his poker skills before making his mark in crude. Baby Lamar arrived in 1932. By that time, his father had a second family with a woman he had married in the Cuban quarter of Tampa, Florida. As a boy, Lamar and his siblings learned at the foot of a governess in Tyler, Texas, while his father’s second family resided in Dallas. H.L. Hunt eventually procreated with a third woman, whom he married after his first wife’s death.