that is it for us tonight. thank you for being with us. on monday the trump 2020 campaign is some of our guest we hope you'll join us. >> indian drawings 1,000 years old. >> we never even took time to look at them. >> what they discover rocks their world. >> there's one there, one there, one there. and look at that panel over there. >> we were blown away. >> they said, "we don't think you have a clue what you have here." >> they're betting the ranch on their strange inheritance. >> we've actually hung from a thread for a long time. >> the rock art's very, very valuable. >> but does it pay to own a national treasure? >> what does it feel like to have this wall in your family? ♪ ♪ >> i'm jamie colby, and, today,

i am in big sky country, 100 miles north of billings, montana. i'm here to meet a family who have lived here for nearly a century but only recently learned that an archeological wonder was staring them right in the face. >> my name is macie ahlgren. in 2000, my father died and left me this ranch. he also left me with the steep challenge of figuring out how to keep the family on the land. >> hi, macie. i'm jamie. >> hi. welcome to bear gulch. >> thanks for writing. and you said you had something extraordinary to show me. does it include bears? >> i have something much better. >> let's go. i'd love to see. bear gulch ranch, named after the creek that winds through the property, is the kind of place you envision when singing "america the beautiful." purple mountain majesty and all that. how many years has it been in your family?

>> since 1919. my grandfather came from minnesota. he and my grandmother and their two daughters moved here and decided to purchase this ranch. >> in the 1950s, macie's parents, james and ida, take over the 2,000-acre homestead. they raise cattle and pigs, farm wheat and hay. doesn't pay much, but it's enough to put food on the table for their three kids. when you're growing up on the ranch, what were your chores? >> you milk the cows. you feed the pigs. you learn to drive a tractor at an early age. >> but it's not all hard work. there are plenty of wide-open spaces for young macie to explore. she and her siblings especially like playing here -- a half-mile-long limestone cliff soaring 100 feet into the air. what did it look like to you as a kid? >> it was just a large canyon wall, but it had specific painted designs on it. as my dad so aptly put it, "indian signs on it."

>> indian signs like these. the rock walls are covered with them. but that doesn't strike macie or her family as all that remarkable. in this area, how unusual is it to find relics on your land? >> everybody has some sort of a unique thing on their ranch. people just didn't pay attention to it. we never even took time to hardly look at them. >> and macie doesn't think she'll look back when, after high school, she leaves the ranch for greener pastures. >> i ran away. [ laughs ] and i ended up marrying a guy from california, and we moved to california. >> california isn't exactly the promised land. after three kids and two marriages, macie finds herself as a working single mom. but by her late 30s, she's built up a good life for herself and her children. things aren't going as well for macie's father. >> my dad was an avid smoker all his life, as most cowboys are,

and he ended up with emphysema really bad. >> his illness makes it near impossible to work the ranch. making matters worse, cattle prices plummet in the late 1980s. >> the local loan agency called on the cattle loan, and they had to sell the cattle off. so it caused them to not have an income. >> after months of overdue loan payments, the bank seizes 1,800 of the ranch's 2,000 acres. the family's down to 10% of what they started with. it's not hard to see the writing on the wall. >> they were brokenhearted, but they didn't really know any other life, and it was home. >> and, at that point, it occurs to macie that it's still her home, too. she decides she must return to the ranch to help her parents out. in 1989, she gives up her high-paying job and moves her family to bear gulch. >> so, we all gave up the finer

things that we had. there was a lot of vacations cancelled. i mean, you just stayed at home and made life happen. >> easy adjustment for a kid? >> no. especially my ray. >> when i first moved here from the big city, i hated it. i absolutely despised it. >> why not just sell it all and get out? >> besides being home, it's beautiful. it's memories. you can't find it anywhere else. >> macie tells her parents she'll run the ranch and resolves to do whatever it takes to keep her family from losing the rest of their land. were the 200 hundred acres still a lot of work? >> oh, yes. it was a challenge, and i took it on. >> you must have really loved your parents. >> absolutely. >> there were times where mom worked three, four jobs just to make sure that we had a roof over our head and food to eat. >> did you ever say to yourself, "this stress is too much?" >> many times, but i just made

things work. >> while macie struggles to "make things work," the ranch gets a visit from an out-of-town couple, john and mavis greer. the greers introduce themselves as archaeologists. their speciality -- indian rock art. they've heard tales about the ranch's limestone cliffs and ask if they can take a look. the year is 1999. as an archaeologist, how many different sites had you been to in your career before you came here? >> oh, i've probably been to 1,000 before arriving here. >> so this wasn't on your, necessarily, like top-five places in the world you wanted to see? >> it was not. >> macie shrugs, then walks the greers the half-mile from the house to the wall. what was their reaction? >> they look at me in bewilderment and they said, "we don't think you have a clue what you have here." >> so, what do they have here? that's next. >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question.

montana is america's fourth-largest state, behind alaska, texas, and california. so, what's the fifth-largest? the answer when we return. every cookie sold in the girl scout cookie program.

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in people skills, decision making, money management, goal setting, and business ethics. from one generation to the next, it's amazing how much you can learn from a cookie. the girl scout cookie program. think outside the box. >> it's "b," new mexico. it's also one of the driest,

averaging less than 14 inches of precipitation per year. ♪ >> macie ahlgren is a third-generation rancher here at bear gulch, a montana homestead that includes a half-mile-long, 100-foot-high limestone cliff, covered in unusual native american paintings and etchings. did you ever have it studied? >> not at all. >> just a regular part of life. >> it was, yes. >> that is, until a visit from archaeologist mavis greer, along with her husband, john, in 1999. so, you came here to this spot the first time? >> we did, bushwhacking up through the weeds and up to here. >> how far up here did you have to come before you had an initial reaction? >> this is as far as we needed to go. we were blown away already by the variety of figures.

>> while many sites require hours of searching to find even a few scattered traces of rock art, the wall at bear gulch is covered in it. there's one there, one there, one there. and look at that panel over there. they're one after another. >> and more as we go down the wall. >> the greers have never seen so many different types of native american rock art all in one place. they tell macie the site deserves an extensive evaluation. did you know, at that point, "i maybe have something very, very special"? >> the thought went through my mind that, "wow. maybe it is more than just a few drawings." >> but it's just a passing thought. the struggle to keep the ranch operating doesn't allow her much more than that. she also watches her kids flee, just as she did, right after high school. ray, for one, doesn't fare so well.

>> i wanted nothing more than to get out of here. and i bounced around from state to state. i was headed down a pretty, pretty dark road for a while. >> and then, in march 2000, just a few months after the greers' visit, macie's father, james, passes away at age 77, leaving macie bear gulch ranch. her inheritance includes that cliff and its strange markings. >> he asked me to please take care of mom and to take care of the place and not just sell it off. it had ended up in my hands and it was my responsibility to take care of it. >> meantime, the greers spend a half-decade trying to raise cash and assemble the right team to do their study. in 2005, they finally return to bear gulch. >> they organized a group to come and record every drawing at the site. it was a two-week venture.

>> the drawings and engravings, referred to as pictographs and petroglyphs, range from the size of a pen cap to a scene 23 feet long. take a look. there are handprints... animals... hoof prints... and even a rare childbirth scene. >> it's the only one on the northern plains. there are other scenes that show pregnancy, but this is the most explicit birthing scene. >> that looks explicit. she's giving birth. and this? >> over here, we have her spouse, who is simulating the birth in order to draw the evil spirits toward him and away from the baby. >> is that in lieu of an epidural? >> i think that it wouldn't probably help the wife all that much. [ laughs ] >> the greers are most amazed by the vast number of works that depict warriors carrying giant shields. there are so many that all of the other rock-art sites in the northern plains together don't have as many shield-bearing warriors as bear gulch.

and why warriors? >> this place appears to have been a location that people came to prior to going to war. and they drew their shields with the design that they hoped was going to bring them power and was going to bring them victory. >> the shields show a variety of battle designs, including bears, bison, and deer. other shields depict the extended hand of a supernatural hero, reaching out from the heavens to protect the warrior. they sound sacred then. >> they are. and they're definitely sacred today. >> in total, the greers and their team identify 3,000 individual pieces of rock art, making bear gulch one of america's largest indian rock-art sites and also one of its best-preserved. >> the painted parts of the rock art here are made from red ochre. and it will bind to the rock and actually become part of it, so

that's why it lasts so long. >> how long? macie is thunderstruck when she learns the age of the relics. like hundreds of years old? >> way more than that. thousands of years old. >> it's an unparalleled glimpse into the past, a national treasure, and macie owns it. so, can she cash in on her strange inheritance and save her home on the range? were people banging down your door? that's next. >> here's another quiz question for you. the answer when we return.

>> it's "d," new york. the largest city in the country also has the largest indigenous population, with more than 100,000 native americans. >> macie ahlgren is desperately trying to save her family's montana ranch, but the debts are mounting. she hopes to capitalize on her strange inheritance -- this giant cliff, which, she's just learned, is one of the country's leading sites for native american rock art. so macie starts a home business, figuring people will pay to see the pictographs. were people banging down your door? >> no. i had like three people the first year. >> the first year? >> the first year, the first summer. >> the site's remote location, far from any major city or interstate, doesn't help. macie creates a website and does some advertising. word starts to spread...slowly.

by 2012, she's getting 100 tourists a year -- not exactly a thriving enterprise. >> it took a lot of patience and hard work. it took a lot of being there every day at 10:00. >> one thing macie knows would really put bear gulch on the tourist map -- if the greers would hurry up and publish their findings. then macie's mother, ida, falls seriously ill and is put in a nursing home. bills pile up. ida knows full well she's added to her daughter's crushing debt burden. how'd she react? >> she was heartbroken, but at the same time, i convinced her that it was okay. >> at long last, in spring 2012, the greers finally release their study. why did it take seven years to publish that book? >> the book is this thick with 3,000 individual figures, and each one's described in there. just is very time-consuming. >> news of bear gulch and its staggering number of artworks spreads like a prairie fire.

folks from around the world are suddenly booking tours. >> and once people started coming, pretty soon, the newspapers started coming along. >> how many people do you estimate come there every summer? >> every year, it seems to be more and more. last year was roughly 1,500. >> is it generating any revenue? >> oh, yes. absolutely. >> about $10,000 a year. hardly a windfall, but the supplemental income, along with grazing fees and a limestone quarry, are enough to stabilize the ranch's finances and keep the land in the family. but macie can still use more money. if you could come up with a dollar amount that it would take to make all your dreams come true for this property and to pay off the loans, what is that number? >> it would have to be somewhere around $200,000. >> she definitely needs more help, too. while you still have the vim and vigor to do this, there will come a day where someone else will have to take this over.

that "someone" rides to the rescue, while macie finds out what the ancient drawings might really be worth. >> the rock art's very, very valuable. this should be preserved and protected and made available for more people to view. >> 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 switched to liberty mutual, because they let me customize my insurance. and as a fitness junkie, i customize everything, like my bike, and my calves. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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♪yeah ♪(rock music) ♪you can't do this, you can't deny♪ ♪they feed us lines, but i won't act♪ ♪and all good things will come to pass♪ ♪but the truth is all you have to have♪ ♪and would you lie for it?

♪cry for it? ♪die for it? ♪would you? ♪i believe ♪believe we're still worth the fight♪ ♪you'll see there's hope for this world tonight♪ ♪i believe, i believe >> now back to "strange inheritance." ♪ >> bear gulch pictographs, run by macie ahlgren, is the newest tourist attraction in central montana. >> it feels really great, and i hope that we can find a way to share it with anybody that wants to come. >> one of those eager to come is brad hamlett, a collector of native american relics. >> this is something that was

done probably thousands of years ago, and it speaks to us today. it's truly american history. >> hamlett's also a montana state senator. >> this site needs to be part of a public park system, preserved and protected, researched, and made available for more people to view. >> if so, you'd think senator hamlett would lead the effort to find public money to help macie, but that's a hard sell, he says. >> the problem the state has is -- they don't have a lot of money to do things with. everybody's got the things that they think are the most important, and the sad thing is -- you can't fund them all. >> he wonders, however, if macie might be able to find a philanthropist who would pay her to put a conservation easement on the property, preserving the site for posterity. hamlett thinks such a deal could net the family at least $1 million, giving them the funds to build out a first-class

tourist destination. >> the trails need to be widened out. we need to have a visitors center. there's just a lot of things that we absolutely can't afford to do it. >> wait. did he say, "we"? yep. turns out macie's son ray, who, like his mom, left the ranch as soon as he finished high school, is drawn back to the place. >> i remember, the last words my grandfather ever spoke to me -- he told me to take care of my mom. and i feel that that's what i've been doing. right here is the nose of the bear. >> and he's found a new calling as the lead tour guide. >> giving these tours has definitely changed my life for the better. i have never been doing as well as i am now. >> he's even come up with his own theories about some of the ancient native american figures and symbols. >> go ahead and turn around and put your back right here. >> okay.

>> now spread your arms out. perfect. directly above your head is a headdress drawn in the wall. just to the right of that is a bison. now, on december 21st, when the sun rises, it will actually rise in a direct straight line in front of you. i believe that is when they would actually pray for hunting or good crops. so, having all of these little bits and pieces all come together like a puzzle -- it just made sense. >> talk about coming together like a puzzle. a sacred wall native americans used to record their tales of war, family, nature, and the supernatural. a millennia of moons later, it's entrusted to a montana family who come to appreciate anew that there's something magical about

bear gulch. is it fair to say that rock art saved your ranch? >> yes. >> it's done something else that's made macie ever-grateful. it's drawn together her family's generations, too. >> i think grandma and grandpa look down on us every day with smiles on their face. >> what does it feel like to have this wall in your family? >> lately, a dream come true. >> native americans are not the only ones who wanted to tell their stories on these walls. in the late 1800s, a wagon trail ran right by these cliffs, a good place to stop and water the horses and mark your arrival on the western frontier. as you can see, the graffiti date all the way back and include dozens of names. so thousands of years from now, it may be some other archaeologist's turn to look at these scratchy letters and wonder, "who the heck wrote this stuff? and what on earth were they thinking?" i'm jamie colby. thanks so much for watching

"strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. ♪ >> i am hoop. >> i'm baird jones. >> two eccentrics from new york's disco days. >> if you were on baird's list, your social life was assured. >> two oddball art collections. >> all right. >> mel brooks, david bowie, art carney, muhammad ali. >> but the weirdest thing about this story... >> and it's really solid. nothing's going to fall off. >> ...is how the square from the burbs ends up with both. >> i can only imagine this driving around the streets of new york. >> will this two-for-one strange inheritance -- >> i've got $150, can get a $175? once, twice. first piece sold. >> ...ultimately add up? [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ]

[ bird caws ] >> i'm jamie colby, and today and i'm in the pocono mountains of pennsylvania on my way to meet an heir with a head-spinning story that will take us back to 1970s manhattan, the era of punk rock, disco and wild parties at studio 54. >> my name is hugh hooper. back in 2008, my brother hoop received a very strange inheritance. when he died three years later, he left one twice as strange to me. >> hugh, hi. i'm jamie. >> how are you doing, jamie? nice to meet you. >> so great to meet you. you know, i don't come out of manhattan for just anything, but i heard your inheritance is way cool. >> it is. it's crazy. but you can keep manhattan. i'll take the country. >> all right. let's see it. >> you wanna see it? go ahead. >> absolutely. hugh's strange inheritance is actually two separate art collections that belonged to two separate people.

here's some of the first, parked on the pathway outside his home. what is this? >> well, this is hoop's cars. they call this the musicmobile. >> christmas albums, paul simon. [ playing notes ] it still works. and this is just a fraction of the far-out fleet he inherited. >> everything you could imagine, trucks, cars, little bmw isettas where you had to get in between the headlights. >> they do need a little bit of repair. >> well, i don't have the heart to touch it. >> that's because the creator of the auto art is his dearly departed brother, steven douglas hooper. >> this is me and my brother. >> steven is born in 1946 and raised in clifton, new jersey. according to big brother hugh,

he's a cutup from an early age. >> my brother was normal until he was about 8, and then he changed. >> uh-oh. what happened? >> he started acting like stan laurel and mugging and dancing around. and he always had this crazy sense of humor. >> the brothers are drawn down two very different paths. hugh joins the army. little steven idolizes pop-art sensation andy warhol and the psychedelic painters of the 1960s. he wants to be part of that scene. >> as he got into high school, he just got totally into art. >> steven takes a few classes at a small art college. big brother hugh gets married and starts a family. >> where did he get the money to pursue a passion and not have to get a real job like the rest of us? >> well, steven had a job. he worked in a book binder. he operated a forklift. >> but when their mother has a serious health setback, the brothers must figure out a plan. >> we decided not to put her

in a nursing home, so my brother gave up his job at the book binder, and i just paid the bills. my brother was like my hero. he took care of my mother. it's my obligation. we're blood of blood. >> in the early 1980s, with their mom in stable health, steven rents a studio in the edgy east village neighborhood of manhattan. and there, in his mid-30s, he begins to shine. hugh's now the guy with the wife and daughter in jersey, running a trucking company. so, it's not his scene, but he loves steven's stories. >> he showed up at a party one night in greenwich village. he was wearing a bright blue tux with black fleur-de-lis. he looked across the room. somebody else had the same tux. it was tiny tim. they became best friends. >> the goofy falsetto-voiced tiny tim is just one of hoop's famous, near famous, or used-to-be-famous acquaintances, and he's driven to achieve fame, too. when he gets his hands on an old

bmw isetta, he covers it in psychedelic fur. the first hoop mobile is born. >> i am hoop, the self-proclaimed king of art. >> my brother loved to introduce us as twins, and then everybody would go, "hmm." we didn't even look like we knew each other. i was military. he was hippie. >> it's not easy to become a well-known artist. you have to do one more outrageous thing after another. >> that means turning more and more cars into zany sculptures. he's the canvertible and the voodoo volkswagen. >> he actually had a van. he cut the front end off of another van. he bolted it on the back of his. he had two front ends. he said, "i don't know if i'm coming or going. it's the time machine." he covered it in clocks, and he drove all over the place. >> around this time, hoop meets a new york preppie name baird jones, who also likes hanging with the glitterati and who has his own

unique artistic vision. you're about to hear about the other half of hugh hooper's strange inheritance. >> this is a picture that james dean drew. this is tony bennett. >> signed "bennett." >> they're all signed. >> signed by muhammad ali, adolf hitler, charles manson, buddy hackett, paul mccartney and more. that's great. >> vincent price. >> after the break... >> but first our "strange inheritance" quiz question. which '70s hard rock band switched gears to cut the solid-gold disco hit "i was made for loving you"? kiss, iron maiden or the ramones? the answer when we return.

>> so, which '70s hard rock band switched gears to cut the disco gold record "i was made for loving you"? it's a, kiss. the song's cowriter, paul stanley, said he wanted to prove it was easy to make a disco hit. >> so, where were we? oh, right. in the middle of a story about how hugh hooper came into inherit not one but two strange art collections. one was a fleet of car sculptures created by his younger brother, steven, also known

as hoop or the king of art, if you please. the second collection, as you're about to see, was curated apparently at significant cost by a classic new york character named baird jones. >> baird had a standard preppy uniform. khaki pants, baseball hat, and would send out these little invitation cards. >> author marianne macy met baird in the early '80s, when he's known as the columbia university grad student who throws the best parties in town. >> he was from a "social register" family. he had numerous graduate degrees. >> baird starts collecting art created by pop-culture celebrities, like these scribbled drawings by miles davis and jimmy stewart. others are by stars who are also artists, like anthony quinn and david bowie. baird works for clubs and discos like the famed

studio 54, where he's a doorman and party promoter. >> he was extraordinary at getting together really unlikely combinations of people from preppy to downtown grunge. >> the young nightlife impresario rubbed shoulders with hundreds of new york celebs. he leverages those connections to moonlight as a gossip-column tipster. >> besides inviting me to all of his events, he used to provide gossip-column items for me. >> richard johnson is a longtime editor for the ultimate big apple gossip column, the new york post's page six. why did people love him? was it his personality or his connections, his ability to throw a good party? >> i imagine that there's a lot of couples out there now with children, who met at one of baird's party. >> no one knows when and where

baird and hoop meet but by the early '80s, they're best buds. they love andy warhol and discover synergy in merging the psychedelic stars with the disco ball. baird and hoop join forces prompting east village artists at in clubs such as max's kansas city, palladium, and webster hall. >> they were big parties. you know, i mean, they were sort of cheesy. he would say on the invites, "copious hors d'oeuvres." so, they'd be 10 people deep. you'd be lucky if you could get one drink before they closed the open bar. >> some events feature baird's growing celebrity art collection. by baird's counting, he spends over a million dollars to add works by bob dylan, dee dee ramone, vincent price, and buddy hackett. he also snatches up works by simply notorious figures -- john gotti, adolf hitler, charles manson,

and john wayne gacy. his art shows attract even more bold-face names. >> he kept a database, and so he could mail out, you know, 5,000 invitations at a time. if you were on baird's list, you know you're going to run into a 100 people you know. you're bound to see hoop. he sort of had the same crew always there. >> but every great party comes to an end. and in 2007, concern is spreading among baird's closest friends, like marianne macy. >> you know, the 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. lifestyle had to change. he didn't look healthy. people's lifestyles changed, and baird was still out there doing a lot of the same stuff. >> do you want to do it afterwards? >> no, right now is cool. >> i think it was more like work for him later. >> on february 21, 2008, baird jones, life of the party circuit, is found dead in his apartment. he's 53 years old. do you remember when you heard he had passed?

>> i was shocked. i mean, he was way too young to die, and i didn't know that he had ever had any health problems. >> an autopsy reveals it was a heart attack. in his will, baird gives all his property to his good friend hoop, an estate said to be worth $2 million, not including his celebrity art collection. how surprised was he that he had gotten this inheritance? >> he was pretty surprised. he, he didn't expect it, really. >> i think it would just like baird to take care of his buddy, and that's what he did. >> do you want to see a bunch of the celebrity art downstairs? zero mostel. here's a, a jack kevorkian. >> the inheritance doesn't change hoop much. he busies himself with his cars, which are written up in the new york times. he's even interviewed by geraldo and featured in indie films. >> this is my matchbox mobile. i was commissioned by the toy company mattel.

they gave me 500 cars. you can play with it, too. >> but as fate would have it, hoop's wild ride is coming to an end as well. >> tell me what happened. >> he had a rash. he just thought it was psoriasis. and then he got this one rash that didn't disappear, and it continued to get worse. >> the diagnosis -- cancer. >> my artwork gives me inspiration to keep going. i get up, and i look out the window, and i said, "i got to do a little more to that car today." [ barking ] >> hoop keeps up his life as an artist and new york character with help from his older brother. >> i gave him all kinds of nutritional stuff. he had no side effects from the chemo at all right until the very end. >> in september 2011, hoop dies at the age of 64. >> it's a hole in your life when

you lose part of your family. nothing can fill it. >> hoop leaves everything to his big brother, hugh. >> we were opposites but totally bonded. what was mine was his, and what was his was mine. >> and now, what's hugh's are two strange inheritances in one, and as you're about to see, a big dilemma. what to do with it all? >> here's another quiz question for you. these three pictures are from the baird jones celebrity art collection. can you guess which was painted by leonardo dicaprio? "a," "b," or "c"? the answer after the break. want more from your entertainment experience?

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>> so, which of these pictures from the baird jones collection was painted by leonardo dicaprio? it's "c." for the record, "a" was painted by jonathan winters, and "b" by dinah shore. >> in 2011, hugh hooper comes into his strange inheritance, two bizarre art collections created and curated by a couple of quintessential new york city characters. the first was his eccentric brother, hoop, who produced dozens of wacky sculptures from various automobiles. the second came from hoop's preppy party-planner pal, baird jones -- a large collection of artworks by a vast array of famous and notorious figures. he focuses first on his brother's car sculptures. two things are immediately clear. he has no place for them, and there's no place

to sell them. >> all the fun in these cars had been had because he isn't here. >> so, hugh lets his brother's friends cart away any hoop mobiles they fancy. but, hugh, aren't you a little concerned that you'll lose that connection to him? >> no. no, the connection isn't in things. the connection's in your heart. >> hugh is less emotionally attached to the second weird art collection. the hundreds of celebrity paintings and drawings that he inherited through his brother from baird jones. who's that? >> okay. that's the queen of monaco. >> ooh. >> grace kelly. >> so, there's royalty. >> yes. >> jimmy stewart. >> jimmy stewart. >> yeah. >> harvey. that was the character. >> john gotti, "bikini," nice. you know what he was thinking about. >> that's one of my favorites. >> remember, baird jones spoke about spending a million dollars to acquire all this artwork. hugh decides to auction it all off.

>> this is muhammad ali. >> in the ring. >> in the ring. >> hugh, you're going to sell this? >> yes, i am because who's going to enjoy it? nobody's getting any chance to look at it. that's what art is for, it's for people to appreciate. >> you think it's worth anything? >> i would imagine it is. what, i don't know. >> he's about to find out. let's open up at $1,500. $1,600, $1,700, $1,800. >> what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, srangeinheritance.com.

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♪oh i miss you, you know ♪let me go home ♪it will all be alright ♪i'll be home tonight ♪i'm comin back home >> now, back to "strange inheritance." >> in june 2016, hugh hooper's ready to auction off what's left of his strange inheritance, a trove of celebrity artwork collected by a preppy new york party promoter named baird jones. jones is said to have poured more than a million dollars into the collection

before he died and willed it to hugh's brother, hoop. hugh chooses robert rogal of rogallery in long island city to handle the sale. mel brooks, peter falk, jimi hendrix, adolf hitler. >> quite a weird collection but a lot of name-brand material. >> it's the steven hooper, a.k.a. "hoop," celebrity art collection. >> and off we go. internet and phone bidders are standing by. >> opening price on this one is $100. >> it starts quietly with a work entitled "self-portrait with butterfly" by the famous french mime, marcel marceau. >> at $100, $100 and quarter now. got a bid of, go $125. at $125 now, at $125, last call. sold at $100. mel brooks. >> this cartoon scribble by a famous funny man fares somewhat better.

>> $400. peter falk. >> detective columbo beats that easily. >> $600. this john gotti. >> crime pays a little more. >> "bikini on mars," sold for $1,100. we continue. "horror hospital," ink and marker drawing, dee dee ramone. we're at $1,300 right now, looking for $1,400, $1,400. give me $1,500. sold at $1,500. >> and remember that muhammad ali painting called "sting like a bee"? >> $1,500, $1,600, $1,700, >> it packs a bit more punch. >> all done -- $2,800. >> alas, that's the biggest celebrity hit of the night. >> buddy hackett, sold, $250. rudy giuliani, $800. >> at this rate... >> david bowie, sold at $550. jimi hendrix. >> ...baird jones' million-dollar investment in celebrity art... >> sold at $300. henry fonda.

>> ...is looking like a big bust. >> pass it. pass, and we'll pass. moving along. >> this color-pencil doodle by actor ed asner starts with an minimum bid of 400 bucks. >> any bids, $400? and we'll pass. [ buzzer sounds ] >> will matthew broderick do any better? >> any bids at $100? >> $100 only. >> nope. >> and we're passing. [ buzzer sounds ] and we have now "courtyard of the old residency in munich." the artist is adolf hitler. we'll start at $50 and now $75. we're looking for $75 on this. last call, we're at $100. sold at $100 and glad to have it pass me. >> out of the 300 works put up for auction, about a third of them sell. the grand total, 43k. hugh expresses surprise if not disappointment. >> it was some things that didn't sell that really i thought would sell very easily. but i think it was a good sale,

and it also honors my brother, and that's very important to me. >> the unsold items include works by james dean, fred astaire, phyllis diller, and kurt vonnegut, which, come to think of it, is a pretty good start to a invite list for yet another cosmic-art happening baird and hoop are surely planning wherever they are. >> it will be a long time before we see anything like them. they were both really unusual people. together they were fantastic. >> so much that's hip in one generation is totally uncool to the next. old uncle hoop once drove his niece, hugh's daughter, to school in one of his hoop mobiles. the teen was mortified. after that, all hugh had to say to keep her in line was, "watch out, young lady, or uncle hoop will be driving you again tomorrow." i'm jamie colby. thanks for

watching "strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. ria " begins right now. ♪ >> from the fox studios in new york city, this is maria bartiromo's" wall street." maria: happy weekend. welcome to the programming that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. i'm maria bartiromo. we have another jam-packed program this weekend. coming up, blackrock's rick reider is with me overseeing $2 trillion in assets under management in fixed income among other areas, in blackrock's firm of almost $6 trillion of assets under management. later on, minneapolis federal reserve president and ceo neel kashkari will be here as well. a big story for the market this is week was the inverted yield curve when short-term interest rates are