rebekah harkness children
Harkness was surprisingly generous when it suited her, but also unpredictably bizarre. The family looked immaculate from the outsidebehind closed doors, though, was another story. Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a spoiled little rich girl. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Rebekah and Bill Harkness had one daughter, Edith. Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. The same fate befell the popular tunes she composed. The only problem was that the urn was too small. In 1973, at 36 and with his grad-student days not far behind him, Lauersen married 58-year-old Rebekah Harkness, widow to William Hale Harkness, of the Harkness philanthropic dynasty. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). Harkness died of cancer in 1982 in New York City. 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 . Her son Allen says the years he spent in prison were the happiest of his life. She went to Fermata, a. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. ''Kiss me,'' she commanded. All rights reserved. (Actually, it was a private My Favorite Murder crossover group, if you care.) I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. We were in heaven, said Danish ballerina Lone Isaksen. Rebekah Harkness, as seen in the December 1956 issue of. Her parties, always extravagant, now grew bizarre, with Harkness trying out new things like dyeing her chocolate mousse blue before serving it to guests or, in yet another notorious act, dyeing a cat green. When publicizing her ballet, Harkness became notorious for refusing to showcase any of her talented dancers in the promotional photographs. The building, according to Craig Unger, the author of this rich-man/eye-of-the-needle biography, was in a state of putrefaction, ''crumbling like Tara after the Civil War.'' Harkness had three husbands. [4], In the 1960s, Harkness became well known as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. All the extra rooms would give the nannies plenty of space to feed and bathe the babies without Rebekah having to know a thing about it. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. And then in 2020, the houses owner, Taylor Swift, wrote a song about Rebekah Harkness, called The Last Great American Dynasty. Though Rebekah channeled Marie Antoinette, her patronage of the Joffrey brought the company international fame. Were always looking for your input! And the dysfunction didnt end there. Though the Harkness Ballet was floundering, there was one brilliant choreographer, Larry Rhodes, who received good press. Lets start from the beginning. [22] In 2020, Swift wrote the song "The Last Great American Dynasty" for her eighth studio album Folklore (2020), in which she tells Harkness' life story and draws parallels between Harkness highly publicized life and her own. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a child who died at age 10. Rebekahs daughter Edith was clinically depressed and suicidal for much of her life (wonder why), and spent scores of years in and out of mental institutions following near fatal attempts at self-harm. Nine servants and three cooks kept the place running. In 1947, she married William Hale "Bill" Harkness, an attorney and heir to the Standard Oil fortune of William L. Harkness, which made her one of the wealthiest women in America. REBEKAH HARKNESS earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in social work from the University of Utah. The couple divorced in 1977but Rebekahs life was about to take a much darker turn. Being a patron of the ballet was Rebekahs passion. 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. Shutterstock Advertisement 17. In addition to her dancing career, Harkness also fancied herself something of a composer, and would often perform her original songs to polite reception at famed places like Carnegie Hall in New York. She got thrown off a cruise for swimming nude in the pool and swearing at the crew. Harkness had to do everything in styleeven when it came to moving on to the next life. 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. Rebekah died that same year after a long bout with cancer. One of the most surprising characters to crop up on Taylor Swift's latest album is Rebekah Harkness in "the last . Rebekah also loaded up on art and real estate. She all but fired him from his own company, then twisted the knife by taking most of his dancers with her to form her new, solo Harkness Ballet. Calling all Swifties and History Nerds! She once demanded Castelli to, Kiss me. Blue Blood: How Rebekah Harkness, One of the Richest Women in the World, Destroyed a Great American Family Craig Unger. That even the rich must die? '', After her divorce from W. Dickson Pierce, an upper-class advertising photographer, she chose for her second husband the Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who enjoyed a lofty social status, as her own family did not. She also expanded Holiday House to include eight kitchens, 42 rooms and 21 baths. 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. [2] Neither parent was involved in the upbringing of the children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies. The train wreck was now chugging along, and it wouldnt stop until Harkness took her last breath. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. In 1972, she bought an old theater near Lincoln Center and refurbished it on a grand scale as the first theater devoted exclusively to ballet. After her husband passed away in 1954, Harkness poured more money into her Watch Hill compound, installing 8 kitchens and 21 baths. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. The dancers, choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers and experimenters. The Harkness Theater opened in 1974, but by then Rebekah had started to run out of money. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. .more Get A Copy ''Blue Blood'' is edifying only insofar as it raises questions about what a biography should be. She is the inspiration behind Taylor Swift's 2020 song "The Last Great American Dynasty". In 1956, Harkness burst onto the high society scene after. According to her biographer, Craig Unger, Rebekah Harkness led a life littered with high Gothic tragedy. She was a poor little rich girl, and by the end of her life, she wasnt that rich. But according to An American Ballet Story. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. And she was just getting started. [1] Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company. . As she aged, Rebekah started to live off of champagne and injections, including testosterone and an assortment of pain medications. It makes no sense - and no sense is made of it. The Harkness Ballet would eventually have two touring companies, a youth ballet (which taught Patrick Swayze) and its own theater. The family spent summers at Watch Hill, then an old money, old Hollywood enclave overlooking Block Island Sound. Lucky: A Novel (inspired by Taylor Swift's folklore and the incredible true story of Rebekah Harkness): Parro, Kristina: 9781736923320: Amazon.com: Books Books Literature & Fiction Genre Fiction Buy new: $18.01 Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns FREE delivery Saturday, February 4 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet Company photographed at her estate in Watch Hill, R.I., 1964. Because of her misused muscles and her extravagant dependence on testosterone, Harkness began to lose her dancers elegance. Her first major contributions were helping to fund the early . Iyengar[4] and Salvador Dal, who would design her urn upon her death. '', This post-mortem mischief was going on at Harkness House, the East 75th Street town house headquarters of the Harkness Ballet Foundation, which Mrs. Harkness had modeled on the St. Petersburg Ballet School. She was the second daughter of three children to Allen Tarwater West, a stockbroker and co-founder of G. H. Walker & Co., and Rebekah Cook (ne Semple) West. Money cant buy sense, and apparently Harknesss designer urn was far too small for her actual remains. Or, at least, a leg, half of her. 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? Latest News on Rebekah Harkness . ''The others, they just know how to bite.'') Madame de Pompadour was the alluring chief mistress of King Louis XV, but few people know her dark historyor the chilling secret shared by her and Louis. 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. But the result was disastrous. According to Blue Blood, a book by Craig Unger, Harkness wrote in her scrapbook that at Fermata, she set out do everything bad. An example of her mischievousness? I just hit the ceiling. [4], On October 1, 1947, Harkness married William Hale Harkness (19001954), the son of William Lamon Harkness, both Standard Oil heirs. With her help, the Joffrey won international renownsomething she wanted for herself. In other words, these pieces didnt exactly do justice to their surroundings. Yet like so much of Harknesss life, what seemed beautiful on the outside was rotting on the inside. Making distraction rewarding since 2017. . But most people dont know the most chilling part. She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. When she was still just a young girl, the Harknesses noticed that their Betty was putting on weight, so they signed the pudgy girl up for dance and figure skating lessons to help her shed those unsightly pounds. Her parents did care that she looked good, according to Unger. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory, Swift says of the inspiration behind her album, Folklore. In 1915, Rebekah West was born in St. Louis to Mr. and Mrs. Allen Tarwater West. (Getty) When Taylor Swift released her latest album Folklore, fans were left wondering about the subject of her song 'The Last Great American Dynasty' - Rebekah Harkness.. Was she a fictional character drawn from the depths of Taylor's imagination, or had she once been a living woman with a tale to tell? Mr. Unger tells us that under the direction of the dancer-choreographer Larry Rhodes the company began to garner critical raves - whereupon Mrs. Harkness fired him. Love and Empowerment. Did Mommy and Daddy notice? (The music site NME is praising the tune as "a contender for the best Taylor Swift song ever written"; you can watch the official lyric video below.) Immediate Family: Daughter of Bill Harkness and Rebekah Semple Harkness. Shop for Rebekah Harkness at Walmart.com. Her son, Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder. According to one story, Harknesss adoration for her grandchild vanished almost overnight. In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. This arrangement effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a regular basis, theNew York Timescommented. Rebekah Harkness, the Scorned Socialite of Watch Hill, R.I. bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, discover and train many acclaimed dancers, regardless of their race, background or body shape, Dancer Lawrence Rhodes said it was one of the few times he was embarrassed, would train more professional dancers than any other company, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1653891, The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company. Although she came from a well-off Midwest family, William and his fortune put Rebekah into a different social stratosphere. She bought a mansion in Palisades, N.Y., a Manhattan penthouse and getaways in Nassau and Gstaad. They bought Eolia from Mary's sister and her brother-in-law, Jessie Stillman and William Taylor in 1907. But Rebekah made the most of it. Reportedly, the rest of her remains were placed in a Gristedes bag. Rebekah was born in 1915 to Allen and Rebekah West in St. Louis, Missouri. The Remarkable Tale of Grace Kellys Two Engagement Rings, The Prince and Princess of Wales Have a Rare PDA Moment at the BAFTAs, Emma Mackey on Channelling the Spirit of Emily Bront for Frances OConnors Not-Quite-Biopic, How Carolyn Bessette-Kennedys Favorite Prada Bag Became a Forever Classic, My Surreal Years Tutoring the Children of the Super-Rich. Trust company daughter, Edith the last Great American Dynasty '' with high Gothic tragedy a cruise for swimming in. In a Gristedes bag it raises questions about what a biography should be floundering, there was brilliant! His fortune put Rebekah into a different social stratosphere they just know How to bite. '' husband... According to Unger, a Manhattan penthouse and getaways in Nassau and.! Soon became the owner of a fact you just read overrode common sense and proportion she gave them off! Leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies of Bill Harkness had do... 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