Lafferty can appoint the bank that will serve as the estate's co-executor, and three of the four other trustees of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Born on 1940 to James Henry Roberts Cromwell and Doris Duke. . "Cromwell was quite nice," says Nelson Seabra, a rich Brazilian friend of Duke's. She didn't like medicine in general. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. Guest's in Old Westbury: "She came by helicopter. He rushed to complete what was then the most expensive house on Fifth Avenue in time for her birth at home, on November 22, 1912. One time we were performing at an Arab party at this catering hall in Brooklyn called the Venetian Manor, and Doris and I were partners. On Thursday, October 28, 1993, Duke died at Falcon's Lair. People get annoyed with their kids. (Other sources say the meeting took place in 1985.) I think somebody is trying to kill me.". The baby's death profoundly affected Duke, and she even hired psychics to try to. One of Heffner's lawyers says that he has 18,000 documents concerning Duke's business and legal affairs, many of which Chandi had "attended to.". Youth," says Phyllis Saretta, an instructor with the Ibrahim Farrah Near East Dance Group, which Duke funded and danced with in the early 1970s. At a 1990 lunch at Duke Farms for Lord Carrington, then chairman of Christie's, according to Oatsie Charles, "Chandi's attitude toward Doris was awfully offhand. After Heffner returned to Hawaii, she kept in touch with Farrah and Saretta, and in February 1983 helped them organize a Middle Eastern dance seminar in Honolulu. This was the fifth time that Duke had rewritten or revised her will since Heffner's banishment 26 months earlier. We used to joke that she'd outlive me. That evening, I sent up dinner and Chandi came downstairs and said, 'Tom, Bernard just dropped the entire tray.' "She wasn't just one of those rich women who said, 'Restore me 60 houses.' Like Heffner, Amar quickly became involved in the running of Duke's houses, business affairs, and charities. So I fixed another tray and brought it upstairs. She was so distressed about losing the baby. Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes. He went to Sarasota High School. Quite suddenly, early in 1991, Doris called me in distress from Hawaii and said that she was leaving in an urgent way for California and she had become fearful of Chandi. . Chandi Heffner and Doris Duke were having a lesbian affair. Then she became pregnant and had a premature daughter named Arden, who lived only 24 hours. A member of the Duke family, who requested anonymity, said yesterday, "I think Doris will turn it over to her lawyer and say, 'Crush her.' She has also been involved in equestrian sports and was the owner of the horse Authentic, whose rider took home the Gold Medal in show jumping for Team USA at the 2004 Athens Olympics. In 1945, Duke began a short-lived career as a foreign correspondent for the International News Service, reporting from different cities across the war-ravaged Europe. Banks never saw her again. They had done the whole kitchen togetherthe carpentry, everything. Shes the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. We used to sit in the sunroom with these tiny bits of broken porcelain and she'd say, 'It's got to be fixed, and I can do it better than most people.' Lee told me, "Ten or 15 years ago, I went to sing in the Versailles Room at the old Bellevue, and Bernard was the manager of the room, and we became friends. LOS ANGELES (AP) _ An ex-Marine sued the adopted daughter of late tobacco heiress Doris Duke for $33 million in palimony, claiming he gave up three years of his life to encourage her friendship with Duke. Also at Duke Farms, she constructed a series of 11 greenhouses containing elaborate recreations of English, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and other gardens, which she opened to the public. "It was ironic that the man Doris loved the most was the greatest gigolo of all time," says Marina Cicogna. "We concentrated on her leg-muscle group," he said. Duke last made news in 1988, when she posted the $5.3 million bail for her close friend Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines First Lady. ", Donald Robinson, who represented Duke in the Marcos matter, recalls going out to Duke Farms after Imelda Marcos posted bail in New York: "The group was Imelda and her lawyer, one of her daughters, Franco Rossellini, his friend Enzo Natale, Chandi, and Doris. Duke Kahanamoku went in after her and saved her. In May, a New York judge approved a plan to send the bulk of her estate to charity. There's no question that Bernard was more than just a butler. I said, 'Doris, do it, I think it's a good thing.' We'll travel together. "She got us our first booking, in that black church in New Jersey. The court also gave Doris title to the Fifth Avenue house, which she gave to New York University in 1957, and Rough Point, a huge Vanderbilt "cottage" in Newport. "She told me she was bored silly, and the palace was so froufrou. Lafferty has released few details about Duke's final illness. I never heard from Doris again and I could never reach her again. The two women developed a deep bond almost instantly. When Doris was only 14, she successfully sued her mother to stop her from selling Duke Farms, the estate her father had created out of New Jersey flatlands, including a 30-room mansion with an indoor pool and indoor tennis courts, artificial lakes, and man-made hillocks. Her estate, said one family member yesterday, is valued at more than $1 billion. A Peltz-family friend told me that, contrary to reports in the press, "there was never any rivalry of any kind at any time between Claudia and Chandi. ", Dr. Harry Demopoulos, an early promoter of antioxidants and megavitamins, whose patients include Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone, had been Doris Duke's personal physician since 1981. We had a nice dinner with appropriate toasts, and Franco entertained us with anecdotes and imitations. She told me she was supposed to start hula dancing professionally at a hotel in Hawaii. . I usually got one of the help. They would helicopter over to Somerville from their estate in Bedford, New York.". Nor was she a crazy eccentric. Miss Duke, 75, adopted Chandi Hefner, who owns extensive property in Hawaii, and has been living with her for three years, attorney Donald A. Robinson said. The only times I saw Doris really relaxed were these few times in Beverly Hills.". . She wasn't sure if she wanted to have a baby, but she said by the third month an incredible mother instinct took over. Subscribers have complete access to the archive. All. Heffner is also claiming her right to inherit two trusts which Buck Duke created in 1917 and 1924, on the ground that she is his lineal descendant and grandchild. "He was marvelous," says Claus von Blow, who later became Duke's neighbor in Newport. ". On October 6, it was announced that Duke had made a donation of $1 million to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Nine months earlier, she had sued her adoptive mother for breach of contract, claiming that she had promised to maintain her in the Duke lifestyle for the rest of Heffner's life and to make her the principal heir of her estate. Chandi Duke Heffner, the 39-year-old former belly dancer and Hare Krishna devotee who was legally adopted by American Tobacco Co. heiress Doris Duke in 1988, now claims the reclusive 80-year-old billionaire reneged on her promise to make Heffner the sole beneficiary of her estate. Her Newport artist pal Richard Banks said that that summer "Doris decided to do the whole social thing and she loved it. She had had several leg operations, after a riding accident, but she participated in the seminar. Chandi sued Dukes estate and wound up inheriting $65 million. Musks master plan for Tesla is built around sustainable energy economy, What to expect from Elon Musks third master Tesla plan, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Yet more rain expected to hit California in March. He had also treated Chandi Heffner, and counted both women as friends. She had received another $10 million of her inheritance in 1937, and would receive at least as much in 1942. I do feel like I'm being drugged. ", In late 1990, he said, "I detected a growing unhappiness on Doris's part. According to her New York Times obituary, the cause of death was "pulmonary edema resulting in cardiac arrest." I called the California home and the other sites many times. "Bernard got out of the hospital. When she was a cult member of Hare Krishna she got adopted by a Billionaire Heiress of a Tobacco company and Philanthropist, Doris Duke when she went to Hawaii in the 1980s. "She moved very well for that kind of dancingwe called it Middle Eastern, or danse orientale, but essentially it's belly dancing. "She used to come and see me and just cry," says singer Peggy Lee, who was friendly with Tirellaand who would later employ Bernard Lafferty as a butler. ", After Thanksgiving, as she had for five decades, Duke left for Hawaii. I turned and saw her on the floor. We were joking around, because we both had bad knees. Once Chandi was adopted she took over Dukes life. Who can help student-athletes cash in? Woody Brock, who visited her with Oatsie Charles that summer, says, "It must have been 85 degrees outside, and she had on a white sweater and a roaring fire in every room. So did Imelda. He made a comment that Doris had a fair number of complications as a result of the surgery. She had episodes of pneumonia, she had clots in her veins, and some of those clots may have traveled to her lungs. And he would tell me, 'Miss Heffner's complaining.' In 1995, Chandi Heffner Duke, the disinherited adopted daughter, reached a $65 million settlement with Mr. Lafferty and the estate. "Whenever she walked into your room, she made the room," recalls Mercedes Bass. Doris loved it. Lafferty had been working for Nelson and Claudia Peltz for the previous seven months, and Rybak says, "The Peltzes put him in a 28-day program. Finally, one of her new lawyers, Mr. Doyle, got it back on track. I tried to see her the following week when I was in California, and there were about a dozen times since then that I called when I made trips to California, where I would simply get a response on the other end of the line that was: 'Miss Duke is doing well. Phyllis Saretta told me that Duke performed with the Farrah company four or five times, wearing a long black wig. ), HBOs Hit Show The Last of Us Finally Vaults Over 1 Million Viewers on Main Channel. "She out-Leona Helmsleyed Leona Helmsley," Duffy said of Heffner. I think she said when she came home from the hospital she began swimming out into the ocean, just swimming and swimming, not caring whether she lived or died. She was ahead of her time. . Heffner told me, "Doris used to call James 'Teach.' "And believe me, she didn't get to $1.3 billion without working at it. Today, Chandi lives on a palatial farm in. ", By the time Duke returned to Shangri La that fall, she and Heffner were getting together on an almost daily basis, and when it was time to move back to Duke Farms in the spring of 1985, she invited Heffner to go with her.
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