1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. The family looked immaculate from the outsidebehind closed doors, though, was another story. The Robert Joffrey Company summer workshop at Rebekah Harkness' Watch Hill estate in Rhode Island, July 1962. Harkness later donated $2 million to the William Hale Harkness Medical Research Building at the New York Hospital and supported medical research on Parkinson's disease. Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company. She had a marvelous time ruining everything, Swift crooned. She believed in reincarnation. Calling all Swifties and History Nerds! She went to Fermata, a South Carolina finishing school that had sheltered Roosevelts, Biddles and Auchinclosses. Little evidence is given in support of this thesis except that the two wrote a song together called ''Giggling With My Feet.''. Like this story? . Oh, but they had more tricks up their perfectly-tailored sleeves. The parties continued when she brought the entire Joffrey to Watch Hill in 1962 and 1963. She died June 17, 1982. Obviously, Rebekah was completely out touch with realityso her next move makes sense. She rang J. D. Salinger's bell dressed as a cleaning lady, having conceived the harebrained scheme that the reclusive writer's short stories be put to music. Her daughter Terry tried, unsuccessfully, to invalidate her will with the help of attorney Roy Cohn ( as in Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel Roy Cohn. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. In 1974, Harkness married again, this time to another doctor named Niels H. Lauersen. When she died in 1982, Harkness had demanded her ashes be put in a $250,000 jeweled Salvador Dal urn. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. The best new culture, style, and beauty stories from Vogue, delivered to you daily. Reportedly, she wanted these updates so that she could see as little of her children as possible. Rebekah Harkness, who also went by Betty, was the previous owner of Taylor Swift's Rhode Island home and serves as the inspiration for the third track on her latest album. Her parents packed Rebekah off to finishing school. Friends who knew Rebekah and William said that although the oil tycoon was a bit of an idiot, the new Mrs. Harkness was actually scared of himand for good reason. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. (Yes, the seaside mansion that was the setting for Taymerica.) From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. By Elise Taylor. In its day, the Harkness would train more professional dancers than any other company. All rights reserved. By 1982, the end was near for Harkness, yet tragically her son Allen wasnt there. [12] Though Rebekah grew up in a wealthy St. Louis family, her social status was elevated when, after her first divorce, she married William. Lets start from the beginning. Once she pretended to be a cleaning woman and approached the reclusive J.D. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/22/books/is-there-a-chic-way-to-go.html. Harkness was friends with a young Potter Stewart, whom she affectionately called "Potsie," and their relationship was written about by her biographer Craig Unger. Only his other flaws were far darker than this silly hobby. She moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from one bank to another for the pleasure of confusing her accountants. This had devastating consequences. [19] They divorced in 1977. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. So, how much is Rebekah Harkness worth at the age of 67 years old? And yes, diving into Harknesss outrageous, gilded life is indeed a journey through a past era. The couple divorced in 1977but Rebekahs life was about to take a much darker turn. The socialite was born in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. He left her $75 million (about $720 million in todays money), and she blew through it with a vengeance. Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. Near the end of her life, one friend noted that she walked like Frankenstein.. [3] Harkness would also continue to study dance and piano, and studied ballet with Victoria Cassau, who was a student of Anna Pavlova. Swift later connects herself to Harkness in the final moments of the song: Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / And then it was bought by me, Who knows, if I never showed up, what couldve been / There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a marvelous time ruining everything, I had a marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time / I had a marvelous time, Also in the song, Swift mentions some of Harkness antics. Harrison notes some of the same lighter-hearted factoids about Harkness from Ungers biography: She was allegedly once kicked off a cruise ship for swimming nude, for example. She developed an addiction to injections of B-vitamins, painkillers and testosterone. But why? Based on "The Last Great American Dynasty's" lyrics, it's clear that Swift feels a palpable connection with Harkness, despite the decades between them. She lived on champagne and injections - Vitamin B, testosterone, painkillers - as a result of which her bathrooms were splattered with blood and her muscles calcified. In a matter of years, her life would go from classy to just plain messy. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from Life to Compact Cars and Trucks to A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius. Well get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics youre interested in. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. But most people dont know the most chilling part. My association with Rebekah Harkness was based on creating a business venture that would make a profit. When she was still desperately clinging to her ballet dreams, Harkness decided to install an enormous, blue plastic Geodesic dome right smack dab in the middle of her front lawn as a formal practice space for her failing dancers. Harkness' passions for dance and music followed her into adulthood. I knew that she was going to take it badly, but I had no idea about the insane lengths she would go to just to get revenge and mess with my life. (Mr. Scevers has a stunning way of placing himself squarely in the center of every sentence he utters; he appears to believe that Rebekah Harkness's death happened more to him than to her.) . The couple took up residence in an enormous eight -kitchen, 21 -bathroom mansion (an arrangement that "effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a regular. The music video featured the beach and the waves from the house, just as Rebekah Harkness would have seen it. Fast forward 60 years, and another thin, rich, beautiful white woman bought Holiday House. All the essentials: top fashion stories, editors picks, and celebrity style. Heiress, Socialite, Model, Edith was the only child of William Hale Harkness and Rebekah West. ''We were the favorites,'' says a dancer. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Rebekah Harkness' antics annoyed her neighbors, while Jesus' antics got him murdered by the state and by some religious leaders. She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. Almost as soon as William Harkness kicked the bucket, Rebekah turned into one of the most tasteless, gaudy eccentrics the Western hemisphere had ever seen. [9] [14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. By 1956, she had even snagged a photo spread in Vogue, appearing in a neat, black Mainbocher dress with a white satin apron at her back. First, a brief biography: Born Rebekah Semple West in St. Louis in 1915, Harkness was a divorce whose second marriage was to Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness. She said she married her first, photographer Dickson Pierce, because she had nothing else to do. No surprise, that union ended in divorce. To zero peoples surprise, the Harkness family was utterly dysfunctional. Her daughter Edith jumped off roofs, swallowed pills and managed not to kill herself. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Salinger had the perfect stories for her music, so one day she disguised herself as a cleaning lady, knocked on his door, then tried to convince him to let her use his fiction. She married her second husband, Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, in 1947. Shed had a brief, unhappy marriage to a doctor in the early 1960s. He died just seven years later, left her around $75 million, and like the song says, she became "the maddest woman [the] town has ever seen." In the most fabulous way possible, of course. It was Rebekah Harkness - whose second of four husbands, William H. Harkness, died in August 1954 in The Westerly Hospital after being stricken by a heart attack in the mansion - who patronized . She did this in grand - if occasionally Marie Antoinette-ish -style. Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder after shooting a man in a brawl, her daughter Terry's child was born with brain damage and died at the age of ten and her other daughter Edith died of suicide, following numerous stays at mental health institutions. The critics, especially the New York Times Clive Barnes, savaged Rebekah. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. Her son, Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder. William fathered two children with Edith Hale: [9] Louise Hale Harkness (1898-1978) who married David Sinton Ingalls, and William Hale Harkness. If you hear oil and think Russian Oligarch rich, youd be pretty much right. Although Catherine's successor Queen Anne Boleyn suffered an infamously dark fate, Aragon's own life was somehow even more tragic. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. (''I'm glad Edith is gone,'' said the unquenchable Bobby Scevers. Besides taking pills, the poor girl also jumped off a roof on at least one occasion, and in response, Harkness only mused at her daughters various attempts. Allen shot and killed a man in a brawl and was charged with second-degree murder, the charge eventually being reduced to manslaughter,[4] with Allen serving a total of eight years. She spent a small fortune buying her way into the dance world, surrounding herself with dancers, musicians and choreographers. The caption read: A young woman with a surprising range of interests, Mrs. Harkness is a sculptor, a musician of professional standing (shes a member of ASCAP), a skier (shell soon off to her chalet in Gstaad with her three children for a holiday), and an active supporter of many charities. Below her in the spread? In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. Rebekahs parents might not have cared a whit about loving their daughter, but they sure as heck cared about what she looked like. Well, Harkness couldnt bear to be upstaged, so she unceremoniously fired Rhodes and doomed her own precious ballet company in the process. In other words, these pieces didnt exactly do justice to their surroundings. $ 12.19. Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a spoiled little rich girl. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Rebekah Harkness was born in 1915 to a rich, emotionally frigid St. Louis family. Her children, not so much. Donning a black chiffon Mainbocher dress with a white silk back-tied apron, she flashed a wry smile at the camera. The resulting damages to herself, her companies and her children were heartbreaking. When she erected a giant blue geodesic dome on her lawn, they sued her for zoning violations. Illustrated. She was 67.) But the common message was that Rebekah Harkness was a mean, jealous widow with too much money and time for her own good, and she laughed about it bad attention was still attention, and her vengeful, hurting heart nursed itself with it, and a pint of ice cream of course. [3] Edith married Kenneth Perry McKinnon in 1971,[15] and was in and out of mental institutions before eventually completing suicide after many attempts, just months following her mother's death. At least once, Harkness and her friends got up on a banquet table and performed a strip tease for the distinguished guests around them. She insisted that it perform ballets to scores she had written. When Joffrey refused to perform the schlock, Rebekahs revenge was brutal. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. Their Rhode Island estate, Holiday House, was the site of some raucous Gatsby-esque parties: Blue Blood recalls that Harkness once filled her pool with Dom Perignon (which, oddly, was not the only liberty she took with libations: its also said she put scotch in her fish tank). (Harkness reportedly cleaned her pool with Dom Prignon.) His other flaws were far darker than this silly hobby and an arts patron, but they as! Proved herself to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah Harkness called. 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