Diksha Sundriyal
In Stephen Gaghan’s 2016 crime drama, ‘Gold,’ Matthew McConaughey plays the role of Kenny Wells, the owner of a mining company who discovers a new mining opportunity in Indonesia. With the help of a geologist, Michael Acosta, Kenny finds a large reserve of gold, which turns his company into an overnight success. While his professional life flourishes, his personal life goes through some ups and downs, especially when it comes to his romance with his long-time girlfriend, Kay. Like a lot of things in the movie, her character is much closer to fiction than to the reality that inspired the story.
Kay is a Fictional Addition to the Retelling of a Real Scam
As often happens while adapting a true story for the screen, some things have to be fictionalized to serve the plot. Kay’s character is one of those fictional additions. Kenny Wells’ character is loosely based on David Walsh of Bre-X, the company at the heart of the scam. While Kay remains Kenny’s girlfriend throughout the film, Walsh was married for a long time to his wife, Jeannette Walsh (neé Toukhmanian). Though much like Kay was a support system for Kenny, Jeannette also supported her husband through the early and rough stages of his business.
When David laid the foundation of Bre-X, he didn’t have much capital to go on with, so he operated from the basement of his house in Calgary, which he shared with Jeanette. She helped him establish the business and was a part of its day-to-day workings. Later, when Bre-X got involved in the gold mining in Borneo and took off, Jeanette played a greater role in the company. Till 1996, she held the title of the corporate secretary of the organization. Reportedly, she was one of the beneficiaries when Walsh, along with Michael de Guzman and John Felderhof, pulled out their stake in the company to cash in $100 million.
Jeanette also got her brother, Robert, to invest in the business, and he also held a significant stake in the company. When Bre-X went bankrupt, and the truth about its lies surrounding the gold mine came to light, both Jeanette and her brother were also pulled into the legal struggles along with Walsh and his two other partners. During the trial, Jeannette is said to have underplayed her role in the company, as she testified that her role was nothing more than a typist, even though her title was secretary.
During the investigation into the fraud, the Walshs’ bank froze their money, but the couple fought the bank’s decision and won their $36 million back. Similarly, Jeanette’s name is also found in several other legal documents relating to the scam and its investigation. However, beyond that, there is little to no information about her. It is known that she moved to the Bahamas with her husband in 1998 and continued to live there even after his death later in the year. Apart from this, little to nothing is known about her as she stayed away from public scrutiny and only came forward when the law required her to show up at court, which hasn’t been a lot, especially since all charges and lawsuits against her husband and his company seem to have been dropped.
Read More: Gold (2016): Is Washoe Mining Based on a Real Gold Mining Company?
