plus, start smart every day on foxbusiness, today we days for the foxbusiness network in the mornings with maria live from six-9:00 a.m. eastern. we set the tone for the day >> the fastest racer on earth... >> my dad was the first american to ever go over 400 miles an hour. >> ...won't let his son take the wheel. >> i wanted to beat him. >> you wanted beat your father. >> at everything. >> but when the legend meets a tragic end... >> everything changed for the thompson family. >> ...he leaves behind one heck of a challenge. >> danny, you didn't dress me up like this for nothing, did you? >> we want you to get the real feel for what it's like to sit in a 400-mile-an-hour car. put your hand here and on your other side so you can let yourself down slowly. [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ]

>> i'm jamie colby on a beautiful, snowy day about 40 miles east of telluride, colorado, here to meet a man determined to set the record straight with his strange inheritance, a legendary drag-racing hot rod. >> my name is danny thompson. when my father was killed, he left me a car named "challenger 2" plus a big piece of unfinished business. >> danny, i'm jamie. >> so nice to meet you. welcome to colorado. >> inside danny's garage, i get my first look at his strange inheritance. >> this is challenger 2. this is the beast. >> oh! challenger 2, a 50-year-old supercharged, piston-powered racecar -- all i can say is... god bless america and racing, danny! kind of looks more like a spaceship than a car. >> kind of like a spaceship, trying to make it be

as aerodynamic as possible. >> the story of this racecar starts with this little traffic cop, mickey thompson, danny's dad, born in 1928 in alhambra, california, a boy who loves tools more than toys. >> he took apart the family washing machine because it had a gasoline-powered engine. >> fox sports vp erik arneson. >> he took apart his sister's roller skates to get the wheels. mickey was going to use whatever he could to make something he was playing with go faster. >> as a teen, mickey gets his hands on an old model "a," soups it up and hits 89 miles per hour. he's hooked. in 1945, 17-year-old mickey is idling at a traffic stop when he spots a blonde in the next lane. he decides to impress her with his wheels. the cute blonde is up for the challenge. >> this guy looked like he was really hot stuff. i said, "oh, okay, we'll give it a go."

light changed, and i put my foot on the pedal, and it surprised him so much that he hesitated for a second, so i naturally got ahead of him. >> she makes him eat her dust, and they become high-school sweethearts. you spent an awful lot of time with cars. >> yeah, i loved it. we used to meet at the drive-in with all these guys, and that's all they talked about, cars, not girls but cars. >> the teenagers marry in 1947. they spend their time building fast cars so mickey can set records with them, like the one he sets in his innovative slingshot dragster, 151 mph. meanwhile, in no time flat, their first kid, danny, comes along. >> danny was born right into the heart of the drag-racing part of mickey's career. >> he was my idol, racing this and doing that and inventing that. that's what my dad did. >> to pay the bills and fund his racing dream, mickey takes a part-time job

as a track manager at a drag strip in long beach. it's there that 9-year-old son danny starts entering events in quarter midget-class racing on a kids' track behind the grandstands. >> early on in life, danny looked up to his father in a way that he constantly felt like he had to prove himself to his dad. >> one day at the midget track, danny is sure he's earned dad's approval when he scores a big win. not so fast. what happened that day? >> he come running over, and i thought he was coming over to congratulate me. i won the race. i was standing there with the trophy girl. i was happy. >> but evidently there was an accident on the track, and another child injured his back, and it was announced over the pa system that danny had injured himself, and mickey came running over. >> but your dad thinks that you're the kid that got hurt? >> yep, and that feeling in his heart of me laying there hurt, that did it. he just came and said, "that's it. you're done. you're never racing again ever in your life." my dad took my car away,

sold it that night. >> he was just panic-stricken. he'd been doing racing, and he knew the dangers. >> a lot of people got killed in those days, and he just didn't want that to happen to his own son. >> but mickey is still willing to risk his own life. in fact, he's setting more and more records as a hot rodder. he breaks many of them at the bonneville salt flats, a 40-square-mile dry lake bed at the utah-nevada border. it's here that the world land-speed record is set, a blistering 394 miles an hour, john cobb, a brit. mickey is determined to beat it. >> british had the speed record on american soil, so he says, "going after that record will be my challenge," and that was the birth of challenger. >> in 1958, mickey and his best friend, mechanic fritz boyd, start brainstorming plans for a racecar with four whopping piston engines. >> so no rockets, no jet motors.

this is all piston-powered, the same kind of car that you would drive to work. they were mechanical geniuses, but they had to come up with transmissions and rear ends and fuel tanks and all of these things. this was a dream. this was a pipe dream. >> some 120 miles west of... >> finally, in 1960, mickey and challenger 1 hit the salt flats. ♪ he spits off from the starting line... then rockets through the finish at a speed of 406.6 miles per hour. >> my dad was the first american to ever go over 400 miles an hour, and he did that in 1960 in a car that he built in his garage. bonneville is what made my dad an american hero. >> but mickey's achievement comes with an asterisk. bonneville rules require two trips on the 8-mile course. official results are the average of the two speeds to account for wind resistance.

on the second race, challenger 1's engine craps out, so mickey starts again from scratch, this time spending 8 years to finance his vision of the ultimate streamliner, one with enough juice to smoke through the finish line more than once. >> the frosting on the cake was going to be challenger 2. >> mickey plans to break the land-speed record during the 1968 speed week at the bonneville flats, but a freak rainstorm turns the flats back into a lake. the event is canceled. it rained? >> it rained. >> the speed week cancellation turns into one of life's fateful detours for mickey. at the time a growing number of deadly racing accidents leads major sponsors to exit the racing world, so mickey now in his 40s, switches gears, going from the man behind the wheels to the man behind the deals.

he launches a high-performance tire company and an entertainment group that holds indoor racing shows. he and judy divorce, and in 1971, he marries 24-year-old trudy feller. as for challenger 2... >> so that car went in a trailer, and it sat in a trailer for years. >> until the day danny gets a mind-blowing call from dad offering the challenge of a lifetime. >> it took 25 years for him to say, "danny, this is your shot." the answer after the break. my twin brother jacob has an autism spectrum disorder i remember one moment after being at school all day and i remember him getting into the car just balling...

and saying: "mom, i have no friends" "why don't i have any friends?" it broke my heart. ♪brother let me be your shelter♪ ♪never leave you all alone that was the moment when i realized that i needed to do something about this. i needed to make a difference in his life. go! and i knew that if i could help him find a friend, i could help teach other people that including people with differences is the right thing to do. ♪bring it home ♪brother let me be your shelter♪ that was the inspiration behind my non-profit "score a friend" educating people to include the people with differences is so important because when jacob's included he feels like he can succeed in life and he feels like he actually has a purpose. ♪..home who we are as people and making everybody feel welcome. ordering custom ink t-shirts has been a really smart decision for our business. - [narrator] custom ink has hundreds of products

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♪ >> so the bonneville salt flats serve as a backdrop in which hollywood blockbuster? >> danny thompson always wanted to be like his dad, mickey, a drag-racing legend, but mickey, knowing the dangers of the sport, forbade his son from racing. until i left home, and i started racing motorcycles, and i didn't tell him. >> against dad's wishes, danny begins indy car racing, too. >> i had my own career, but not from anything he gave me.

he owned a tire company. when i needed tires, he made me buy the tires. >> in time, danny marries and has his own son, travis, but he still harbors resentment toward his father. >> i wanted to beat him. >> you wanted beat your father. >> at everything. >> then, in 1988, to danny's surprise, mickey calls his son out of the blue and offers him the chance to do just that. >> he says, "i want to run challenger 2." and he says, "i would like to have you drive it." sorry. after all of these years, the number-one thing, he comes back. he wants me to drive it. >> what changed? >> maybe he just finally got to that tipping point where the scales just rolled the other way, and he decided this was the time. >> danny and mickey set about getting the mothballed challenger 2 ready to run the bonneville salt flats. >> bonneville is a whole unique character all to itself,

so when we're talking about of salt, this is it right here. here's a chunk. >> that's the surface? >> that's the surface. now running at bonneville is the same as driving on slushy snow. that's how slippery it is. >> what does it take to run on this kind of salt? >> this was a tire that goodyear designed for my dad. as you can see, there's no tread on it. tread weighs a lot, and as it starts spinning, the centrifugal force, the tire gets bigger and bigger. these tires will grow 2 inches bigger at 400 miles an hour. >> in once race? wow. >> so a lot of really technical things that were developed just for bonneville. >> and as they prepare for the big run, danny, now 38, finds himself rebonding with his 57-year-old father. >> he'd call me at 1:00 in the morning, and he'd say, "i got this idea." he wouldn't let you sleep. >> there's another surprise call from mickey coming soon, but this one will stop danny in his tracks. >> i can't ever remember worrying about my dad. i never worried about him coming home.

the answer when we return. i joined the army after 911, cuz, um, i thought that was what i needed to do. we got our orders to go overseas and i went to baghdad, iraq. we were transporting a bomb sniffing dog to the polling stations. we rolled over two anti-tank mines, it blew my humvee up, killed my sergeant. after the explosion, i suffered a closed head injury, um, traumatic brain injury, loss of a limb, burns to 60% of my body. when the doctors told me i reached my plateau, i did not want to hear that because i do not believe i have a plateau.

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♪ >> it's "a," when in 1954, pontiac introduced the bonneville special. >> danny thompson's childhood dream is coming true, a chance to get behind the wheel of his dad, mickey thompson's, prized racecar. >> my dad and i were going to do this as a father-son project.

here we are, team thompson. >> then danny receives a frightening call from mickey. he warns him to be extra careful and watch over his wife, valerie, and his newborn son, travis. mickey is spooked about a bitter dispute with a former business partner named michael f. goodwin. >> michael goodwin's way of doing business was very different than mickey's way of doing business. lawsuits went back and forth, and the more that mickey won, the more michael got upset. >> what did he say? >> travis had just been born, and he told me i needed to watch valerie and travis very closely. and when my dad said that, i paid attention because my dad was not afraid of anything. >> on march 16, 1988, in l.a. just around dawn, mickey thompson is walking to his car with his wife, trudy, when two men on bicycles approach. >> they had trudy out of the car in the front of the driveway and executed her, and then they went up, and they shot mickey multiple

times. mickey and trudy die on the scene. that morning, danny gets a call telling him to head to his dad's house right away. >> police were already there doing the investigation, so his dad just kind of laid in the driveway. his hero, the man that he saw as unbeatable, undefeatable, that changed everything for him that day. >> how could somebody that's invincible be gone? >> police believe michael goodwin contracted the hit in an act of revenge, but it takes more than a decade to arrest him. >> michael goodwin stood as jurors walked into the pasadena courtroom. >> goodwin is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. >> it was 18 years till they finally put the guy in jail. >> by this time, danny has retired from racing, thrown everything into storage, and moved here to colorado. as the years click by, you'd think challenger 2 would become just a relic of racing's past. instead, it's a nagging piece of unfinished business

for danny thompson. do you hear your dad in your head? >> yeah, he'd be wanting to kick my buttif i didn't do i, if i didn't get it done. >> what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail, or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com.

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♪ >> now back to "strange inheritance." >> when danny thompson's father, racing legend mickey thompson, is gunned down in 1988, danny inherits dad's stable of racecars, including one they hoped would set the land-speed record, challenger 2. >> when my dad died, it all went away. so the car went back in the trailer. i didn't want to do it without him. >> but by 2010, danny is nearly as old as his dad was when he was murdered, and he's starting to look at things a little differently. he wants back in. >> i always wanted to go to indianapolis and be an indianapolis car driver, and i didn't make it,

and the bonneville thing has always been in the back of my mind. >> the "bonneville thing," a quest that began at the salt flats in 1960, when mickey drove 406.6 miles per hour, the record at the time for a piston-engine vehicle, if only that vehicle, challenger 1, had not broken down during the required second run. since then, a few, but only a few, racers have beaten his dad's mark. that's why, says danny, on the 50th anniversary of mickey's historic feat, he pulls challenger 2 from storage to see if he can get it in shape to officially enshrine a thompson in the 400-mile-per-hour club. >> there's only been 12 people in history to go over 400 miles an hour with a piston-powered car, so this is a pretty elite group that i'm getting in step with. >> the first crew members danny recruits -- his 31-year-old son, travis,

and his wife, valerie. >> i think finally he just decided, "you know what? i can't not do this." >> there's a lot of similarities between my grandfather and my dad -- the drive, the determination and just a love of going fast. it's almost genetic. >> travis signs on sponsors to help foot the bills, but the lion's share comes from danny and valerie's own savings. >> everything we have -- and, valerie, i love you for this -- is in that car. >> nobody believed that he could really do this. as the time passed, he found individuals to help him complete this car, the best people that anyone could ever ask for. >> finally, after 6 years, in 2016, challenger 2 is ready to race. danny, who's now pushing 70, and his 50-year-old challenger will need to be in top performance mode. >> so what have you done

to your dad's challenger 2, the one that you believe will get you that record? >> so the body shape and all that is almost the same except for 32 inches added to the back. two engines still, but now we're making 5,500 horsepower. >> that's legal? >> it's heaven! i'm a 5,500-horsepower sandwich! >> it's an extra tight squeeze when you have to dress like the michelin tire man. >> we want you to get the real feel for what it's like to sit in a 400-mile-an-hour car. >> okay, the moment of truth -- can i fit in that teeny, tiny space? >> first thing, steering wheel is coming off. >> uh-huh. >> next thing is, put a leg all the way over and into the seat. there you go. put your hand here and on your other side so you can let yourself down slowly. >> so i'm fitting. i'm fitting. >> you got it. >> i did! there were doubters among the crew that thought i couldn't do this. >> you don't have much room

between your head right there. now imagine having a helmet on, a hans device, and gloves on. >> you know what i wish i had on? a blood-pressure cuff because my heart is racing. i can only imagine the thrill that you have at the start of that race. >> august 14th, 2016, the weather at the bonneville salt flats clear and dry, 97 degrees. ♪ as danny rockets across the desert floor, he's hoping to break the current land-speed record in a piston-powered vehicle, 437 miles an hour. but is his 50-year-old strange inheritance up to the bonneville challenge? >> wow, look at it go. >> he clocks in at 411 miles an hour, good enough

to join that 400 club if, per racing rules, he can do it again tomorrow. but remember, it's the second run that foiled his father. danny is back the next day. anything less than 392 miles per hour will be disaster. he'll fall short of a 400 mph average. and to beat his dad's mark, he's got to hit 402 or better. there he goes. his official average time, 406.7 miles per hour. that tops his dad by just a hair. >> after 60 years, we beat him by one-tenth of one mile an hour. that was one of the most fulfilling days of my life, bar none. >> but it still doesn't quench the need for speed

danny inherited from his dad. he tells me he'll keep hauling challenger 2 back to bonneville until the world record is officially his. >> how many more years of racing you have? >> what, is my wife back there? >> in his heart, you know, he's a racer. that desire and that passion to always go faster is always going to be there. >> danny swears the utah salt flats are heaven to him, but not so much during the 2010 bonneville world finals. he's driving this souped-up beauty, at the time the fastest mustang ever, 260 miles an hour. the mustang flies out of control. i mean, really flies. it lifts off the sand, flips end over end in the air for 1,100 feet, and tumbles back to earth. danny emerges unscathed thanks to the racecar's awesome safety features. just a day in the life of a hot rodder.

i'm jamie colby. thanks for watching "strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. help! get me out! i'm stuck. >> it stands in the way. >> it's just her house in the middle of the block. >> she won't sell out. >> the 84-year-old seen here turned down $1 million payout. >> he's caught in the middle. >> i promised her that i wouldn't let them take her away. >> that's a really big promise. >> what's "up" with that? >> people from all over the country and even around the world have stopped by this house. >> they put balloons on the house, and that's how it became the "up" house. >> it is amazing. i can't believe that she held out. [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ] ♪ >> i'm jamie colby, and today,

i'm in seattle, headed toward the ballard neighborhood. it's an upscale area once known for sawmills and commercial fishing, and just down the road is one man's strange inheritance and a story with a hollywood ending. >> my name's barry martin. i inherited a tiny, hundred-year-old house from a little old lady. if there ever was a real-estate niche, this is one. >> hi, barry. i'm jamie. >> hi, jamie. nice to meet you. >> i meet barry in front of this little house. yep, this is it -- his strange inheritance. it's just 600 square feet, and it's now surrounded by a huge shopping mall -- a mall that the unlikely heir in this story helped build. >> who leaves this to somebody? >> well, edith left it to me. >> edith? >> yep. >> love to learn more. >> okay. come on. >> barry explains that when this house was built over a hundred years ago, ballard, washington,

was the shingle-mill capital of the world, with 20 mills producing 3 million shingles a day. >> there was fishing on elliot bay there, and the shingle-mill industry, all along shilshole avenue here. >> cass o'callaghan from the ballard historical society tells me more. did the neighborhood really change over the years? >> in about the late '30s, early '40s, the commercial district moved north and businesses moved out. nobody wanted to be here anymore. >> with the exception, that is, of edith macefield and her retired single mother, alice wilson. edith's early life is a bit mysterious. we know she was born in august 1921, and that her parents divorced shortly thereafter. during her 20s, edith disappears -- to england, she says, where she seems to have gotten married once or thrice. but, again, it's hard to tell fact from fiction.

[ camera shutter clicks ] by the 1950s, she's back in ballard, single, and working as a store manager for spic 'n span dry cleaners. edith buys this house for her mother and the two name it whitewood cottage. edith is able to pay off the $3,700 mortgage in just a few years. in her off hours, she babysits for next-door neighbor gayle holland. hi, gayle. you know why i'm here -- to hear about edith. >> i've got a lot to tell you. come on in. our street was very quiet and edith would play games with us. >> so she was older, but she loved to hang out with children? >> oh, yes. everybody liked edith. she would play her saxophone or her trumpet outside. we would sit and listen to her, and she'd let us blow on her instruments. >> what a character! they ask her about her past, and, oh, the stories she tells. >> i know she had a son who died

of meningitis. >> edith shares only a few sketchy details -- that the boy was born out of wedlock, that his father was jewish, that james macefield, a much older englishman, married her to help save the boy from the nazis. it's all very complicated. you see, edith was spying on hitler for britain at the time. is it all true? who knows? gayle just loves hanging out with her eccentric neighbor, until her family, like so many others, abandons the area. so, you left and edith stayed. >> yes. it was the early '60s when we moved away. >> in 1976, edith's mother, alice, passes away on the couch in the front room. not long after, edith retires and spends her days watching greta garbo videos and listening to big bands on vinyl. more and more, whitewood cottage stands apart -- her oasis amid

urban blight. by the '90s, homeless -- living in parked cars -- provide an edgy backdrop for the grunge-rock scene. but all the while, developers are slowly gobbling up edith's neighborhood, says real-estate broker paul thomas. >> each time a parcel came up on the market, they'd just quietly acquire it and let it sit in an llc, and they assembled the whole entire block, except for her house. >> it's in early 2006 when edith gets the knock at her door. it's a representative of kg investment management, which wants to put up a shopping mall. the developer makes a proposal they think the 84-year-old can't refuse -- $750,000! what do you think the house was worth? >> $150,000. [ chuckles ] it wasn't worth very much. >> edith could buy five whitewood cottages. even so, she does refuse the offer.

and the bulldozers roll around her. >> i have a picture when they tore everything down in the whole block and it was just her house in the middle of the block. >> reporters catch wind of the story and turn edith into a local folk hero -- a steadfast champion against yuppification, standing up for seattle's old neighborhoods, defying the encroaching chain boutiques, food courts, and those $6 lattes. that's how they portray edith. and that's exactly who barry martin expects when he becomes construction manager of the mall. how did you meet edith? >> i always go visit the neighbors and give them my card so that if they have any problems, they know who to get ahold of, and i walked past her yard and introduced myself. she was actually very pleasant and said she was looking forward to the activity. >> turns out, edith wasn't watching garbo flicks because she "vanted to be alone."

that becomes clear with edith's beauty-shop appointment. she needs a ride, so she calls barry. not exactly what he was thinking when he dropped off his card, but what the heck? he drives her. they get to talking. >> a lot of people thought that she was against development, and that wasn't the case at all. it was more she just didn't want to go through the exercise of having to move. >> indeed, edith actually makes fun of the anti-development types, who, among other things, are trying to get landmark status for the local denny's. edith's view -- things get built, things get torn down. that's the way of the world. it wouldn't be their last car talk. soon, barry's co-workers call him "driving miss daisy." could you rattle off for me some of the errands you were asked to do for her? >> i would take her laundry out to be done. we would go get her lunch. i would take her to all of her doctor's appointments. >> she didn't pay you. >> no. she just needed it.

>> you're not a saint. >> nope. >> but his wife and two high-school-age children surely have the patience of job, when barry spends more and more time at edith's. >> i made her meals three times a day, seven days a week. on the weekends, basically, i'd stay there, and if not, then i had made sure that somebody else was there. >> barry isn't there one night when edith falls and lands in the hospital with broken ribs and a platoon of social workers insisting she should no longer live alone. then tag-teaming executives from the development company show up again with a deed ready to sign and another big fat check. >> they offered her $1 million and actually offered to buy a house for her in ballard and she refused that, also. >> $1 million for a little old granny and a new house in her neighborhood, and she says no. >> yes. >> what would you have done?

>> i would have probably taken the money and had somebody fanning me with big feathers and feeding me figs. >> the 84-year-old seen here turned down $1 million payout. >> it just adds to the edith macefield legend -- a story that can't help but go national. what's infuriating barry is that he believes he's cast as one of the black hats, trying to manipulate old edith into selling out. the truth, he says, is just the opposite. >> i promised her that, um, i wouldn't let them take her away and that she could stay there and die in her house. >> that's a really big promise. >> it is. and it became a lot bigger deal than, you know, i had originally anticipated. >> that's next. >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question -- where was america's first indoor shopping mall built?

the answer in a moment.

>> it's "b" -- minnesota. the southdale center in edina, the country's first fully-enclosed, climate-controlled mall, opened in 1956. >> in 2008, 86-year-old

edith macefield and her whitewood cottage stand in the way of a shopping mall. barry martin's job is to build that mall. but he's also made it his life's work to keep edith in her home. barry didn't even know edith two years before. now he just doesn't know what to make of her. >> she had a lot of stories to tell and she never really finished a story. >> but, boy, the way she drops names, you'd think she's forrest gump. like hitler -- she met him several times, ended up in a concentration camp, and was sprung by the fuhrer himself. benny goodman -- her cousin, she claimed -- he gave her her clarinet. tommy dorsey, the band leader -- once, when he was short on cash, she bought his sax. mickey rooney -- she taught him dance steps. and so on. barry has one thought -- edith's a wack job. >> i was thinking "crazy old

lady" for a while. >> but in the winter of 2007, edith's health suddenly declines. just as suddenly, the construction manager finds himself doing things he really never signed up for -- helping edith shower, use the bathroom, take her medicine, including insulin shots. a big question occurs to barry -- what happens when the mall is done and he moves to another job? what happens if edith lives to 100? that won't happen. in april 2008, edith is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. she declines treatment and, knowing she'll soon need someone else to make her decisions, gives barry her power of attorney. it's a big responsibility. did you really want it? >> i didn't really want it, and i didn't really understand exactly what all it meant. >> uh-oh. >> yeah, uh-oh. i said, "do you understand the power you're giving me?" and she said, "why do you think i chose you?" >> did you know all along that you were going to get that house? >> no.

i didn't know until after she asked me to become her power of attorney. then she said that she wanted to redo her will at that same time. >> barry's a bit sheepish, knowing many suspect him of angling for the house from the beginning. but that's her wish -- like her desire to die on the same couch as her mother three decades earlier. and on june 15, 2008, death does come -- as a friend -- to whitewood cottage. >> i promised her that i wouldn't let them take her away and that she could stay there and die in her house. >> does it make you emotional? >> it does. >> why? >> um... because i got to help her end her life the way she wanted to. >> the little house in the big mall is now barry's.

but soon he'll discover that, thanks to a hollywood blockbuster, edith macefield fans will claim it as their own. >> there were people out on the sidewalk taking pictures and leaving little notes and putting up balloons with messages on them. >> that's next. >> here's another quiz question for you. you've met barry martin, the construction manager in this story. the answer after the break. the world. i advance science that saves lives. i teach the immune system to attack cancer. i destroy brain tumors with nanoparticles. i see breast cancer others can't.

i pioneer bone marrow and stem cell transplants. i develop synthetic insulin to overcome diabetes. i create a biotech revolution with smart cancer drugs. i speed life-saving discoveries to life. i care. i cure. for over a century. i am the miracle of science with soul. and i live in city of hope.

>> it's "a", john ratzenberger. just a coincidence he's a dead ringer for barry martin, the

heir in this "strange inheritance" story. >> it's spring 2009, and barry martin is trying to figure out what to do with his strange inheritance -- a house he helped build a mall around. the owner, edith macefield, had died the year before, and barry assumes memories of her will fade, too. but then disney comes a-calling. it's ready to release an animated feature called "up." it's about a crotchety old man who, just like edith, refuses to sell his house to a developer. disney wants to use edith's house to promote the film. >> they wanted to put balloons on the house for their premiere here in seattle, so they came out and put balloons on the house and took a picture and that's how it became the "up" house. >> did you think it was a good idea? >> i thought it was rather funny, myself, and then after i saw the movie, there's actually some photographs that look very similar to the picture in the movie.

>> soon, edith's cottage and that of character carl fredricksen are associated as one. >> there were people out on the sidewalk taking pictures and leaving little notes and putting up balloons with messages on them. >> and inspirational, it sounds like. >> very. inspirational to different people for different reasons. kids loved it because they thought it was really the house from the movie. you'd see grown-ups crying on the sidewalk. >> she stuck to her guns, you know, even though she could have made a ton of money. >> this woman was kind of the last holdout. she wanted to keep her home, and that's huge. >> it's amazing. i can't believe that she held out. >> but by the time the movie "up" comes out, the nation is in a downer -- the great recession. and barry's real life is anything but a storybook fantasy. >> that was right about when we had our downturn. i was out of work. >> so, barry decides it's time to sell edith's house. she once turned down $1 million for the place, but the window on that offer closed long ago.

>> did she tell you she would be okay with you selling it? >> oh, yeah, and she told me to hold out until i got my price. >> what did you sell it for? >> i sold it for $310,000. [ cash register dings ] >> what did you do with the money, may i ask? >> paid for my kids to go to school. i invested the money and got money back monthly, and it made my house payment. >> that's not nothing. plus, barry says the new owners planned -- in the spirit of "up" -- to raise edith's house 20 feet off the ground and make a public tribute to her below. but they run out of money, and the house falls into foreclosure. >> what was your role in all this? >> i was hired by the bank to sell the house for them. >> the bank includes a provision in the face of pressure from local community groups who want an homage to their folk hero. >> one of the terms of the sale was that each person was required to memorialize edith in some way. >> 38 offers come in, but it's the 39th that wins --

at $450,000. [ cash register dings ] the buyer? the same folks who offered edith $1 million years before -- kg investments, now the manager of the shopping mall. they plan to knock the house down, eventually. so, ultimately, edith's house went to the organization that wanted to buy it all along. >> well, it's kind of neat in a way because she got what she wished for and the shopping center ended up being able to buy the property at a lot lower price than they originally had offered. >> will they do anything to remember edith? >> the ownership has committed that they'll put up a brass plaque that memorializes edith. >> it will be just one more way the ballard community pays tribute to its folk hero. there's also an annual edith macefield music festival. ♪ you can even get a tattoo of edith's house with the legend underneath -- "steadfast." for the heir in this "strange inheritance" episode,

that's further proof edith was misunderstood. maybe even, he'd discover, by himself. >> you must have learned an awful lot about edith once you started to go through her things. >> i learned a lot more than she had let me know. that's next. what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website -- strangeinheritance.com.

i want some more what's he doin? but, he can't look at him! it's just not done! please sir. i want some more more? more? more? more? please sir he has asked for... thank you

what? well he did say please sir yes he did and, thank you yeah. and thank you he's a wonderful boy (laugh) a delightful boy (all boys): thank you, thank you, thank you.

>> now back to "strange inheritance." >> barry martin doesn't just inherit edith macefield's home, but everything else she owned. >> wow, you must have learned an awful lot about edith, once you started to go through her things. >> i learned a lot more than she had let me know. >> and enough to question whether all her stories were as wacko as he once thought. >> did she have a vivid imagination, or do you think most of it was real? >> i'm a little -- i'm not

quite -- >> you still don't know. >> i still don't know. exactly. >> what did you find? well, evidence that she was benny goodman's cousin -- this album, inscribed "your cousin, benny goodman." and quite personal notes from a-list actors -- clark gable, katharine hepburn, spencer tracy, and errol flynn. >> there's charlie chaplin. there's tommy and jimmy dorsey. >> okay, okay -- nothing about meeting hitler or being a spy. still, it dawns on barry that the most valuable thing edith bequeathed to him could be her story -- now his. >> i had an agent contact me about writing a book, and she actually talked me into doing it. >> you ever write a book before? >> no, never written a book before, and she got me a ghostwriter, and we did it that way. >> what's the story? >> the story is basically about edith and myself and our little adventure and then the lessons that i learned. >> "under one roof" gets barry a

$75,000 advance from the publisher. and that's not all. >> actually in the process of making a deal with fox searchlight. >> did you ever think you'd be making a book and a movie about all this? >> no. i just about fall down on the floor laughing because it's hysterical to me. >> i think it could work. i'm picturing a "driving miss daisy" type of guy meets a female forrest gump and they go on a real-life "up" adventure. and definitely got to give john ratzenberger the lead. there's a scene in the movie "up" that sounds exactly like one edith might have had with barry. carl fredricksen, the man whose house the real-estate company wants to buy, says to the construction foreman, "tell your boss he can have my house." "really?" asks the foreman. "yeah, when i'm dead," growls carl and slams the door. i'm jamie colby for

"strange inheritance." thanks so much for watching, and remember -- you can't take it with you. tonight. see you monday night. good night from new york. maria: happy we can bid welcome to the program but we analyzed the week that was and helps positioning for the weekend. i'm very about aroma. coming up, equity international founder is my special guest this again. let's head over to the foxbusiness a room and get headlines. everything from wall street to main street this week. >> thank you. a week for the ages on wall street. the dow and s&p at historic highs this week as confidence in the strong us economy has been a key overlooking the trade tensions between china and