''Kiss me,'' she commanded. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. And then there were herthree children. She traveled a lot. When Joffrey refused to perform the schlock, Rebekahs revenge was brutal. She also expanded Holiday House to include eight kitchens, 42 rooms and 21 baths. She died June 17, 1982. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. [9] [14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. Only his other flaws were far darker than this silly hobby. As a sad footnote to the story of Rebekah Harkness is the tragedy of her three children. Rebekah Harkness's Net Worth: $1-5 Million Age, Height & Body Measurements Rebekah Harkness has been died on 17 June 1982. The two purchased a mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which they nicknamed Holiday House. Blue Blood is a story of tragic proportions. Salinger, hoping to convince him his stories should be set to her music. Perhaps most tragically, Rebekahs little granddaughter Angel had passed just before Rebekah herself; she was just 10 years old. All Rights Reserved. For a time, Rebekah Harkness appeared to be enamored of the passive child, called Angel. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. 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. I want to look away, but I just cant. Anyone can read what you share. The rich socialite whose judgment sometimes lapsed was just too good a target. Please let us know if a fact weve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect its inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. Rebekah Harkness asked. [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. Thomson Asks States to Sue the U.S.", "Out of Prison, Doctor Hopes to Regenerate His Lost Fame", "Taylor Swift is buying into a rich Watch Hill tradition", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rebekah_Harkness&oldid=1121521087, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 November 2022, at 18:59. Rebekah Harkness, composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet, photographed in her office in 1964. Harkness took up dancing and ice skating to lose weight and was highly disciplined in both endeavors. They complained she cared more about the dancers than she cared about them. 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. However, the connection between the two women, despite being eras apart, may go beyond mere real estate. In the eyes of many, she had betrayed him. A patron of dance and medicine. Jean Stein and George Plimpton did that brilliantly in ''Edie,'' the biography of poor Edie Sedgwick. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. [12] Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. So in 1977 she checked into Silver Hill, a rehab clinic in New Canaan, Conn. 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. View Rebekah Harkness results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. AboutPressCopyrightContact. Much of their marriage dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the straight and narrow. 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. She blew through her fortune on the boys and the ballet. (Harkness was an avid patron of the arts and founded her own company, Harkness Ballet. 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. Rebekah Harkness's height Unknown & weight Not Available right. One song, The Last Great American Dynasty, is about Rebekah Harkness. [19] They divorced in 1977. She got thrown off a cruise for swimming nude in the pool and swearing at the crew. While Bill Harkness was alive, he and Rebekah threw raucous parties every weekend. Oh, but they had more tricks up their perfectly-tailored sleeves. Swift gave all her friends matching red-white-and-blue onesies. A ltima dinastia de Rebekah Harkness famosa e problemtica socialite que inspirou a faixa 3 de "Folklore", lbum de Taylor Swift | by ana guelere | Hello Band | Medium Write Sign up Sign In. In 1954, something curious happened to Rebekah Harkness: Her oil tycoon husband passed. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. Harkness started acting out early in her adolescence, and her antics would put any other mean girl to shame. In addition to her marriage, Harkness also became well known for her personal eccentricities, as well as her contributions to the arts. Then in 1947, she married Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who brought her into the serious money class. Unfit for mothering, unfit for ordinary love, unfit - untrained - to be the caretaker of a great fortune, was she altogether silly or altogether bad? Everyone advised her to get her affairs in order, but as well soon see, things didnt work out so neatly for Rebekah Harkness in the end. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Swift wrote and recorded a new album called Folklore. Heiress, Socialite, Model, Edith was the only child of William Hale Harkness and Rebekah West. She attended the Rossman School and John Burroughs School in St. Louis, and then the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, which she graduated from in 1932. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 44 Rebekah Harkness Pictures Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 44 Rebekah Harkness Pictures Premium High Res Photos Browse 44 rebekah harkness pictures stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Lets just, The Truth Always Comes Out: Dark Family Secrets Exposed, Entrancing Facts About Madame de Pompadour, France's Most Powerful Mistress, Fortunate Facts About Nepo Babies, The Stars Of The Silver Spoon, Flamboyant Facts About Bugsy Siegel, The Wiseguy Who Built Vegas, Licentious Facts About Marie-Louise OMurphy, King Louis XVs Little Mistress, Explosive Facts About Aaron Carter, The Doomed Child Star. Ugh. In 2020, Swift then penned the song the last great american dynasty, which tells Harknesss twisted story for the world. So what did she do? This story was updated in 2022. Lets start from the beginning. Rebekah Harkness was born in 1915 to a rich, emotionally frigid St. Louis family. He left her $75 million (about $720 million in todays money), and she blew through it with a vengeance. At the same time, she studied music composition and dance. She filled her fish tank with goldfish and Scotch. Rebekahs parents might not have cared a whit about loving their daughter, but they sure as heck cared about what she looked like. 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. Rebekah Harkness was one of the world's richest women, the Standard Oil heiress and founding patron of the Harkness Ballet. Their antics soon became legendary. 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. When Swift bought the house, a local writer for The Day reminded her of the time a body washed up on the beach under her Watch Hill mansion. . '', 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. 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. People already thought she had betrayed Joffrey, but they now watched in horror as she ran her ballet into the ground. She had spent the 1987 equivalent of $38 million on a failed enterprise. Anne married Anthony McBride in 1966[1] and had a severely brain-damaged baby who died at age 10. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. .more Get A Copy [2], After graduating in 1932, she and a group of female friends formed the Bitch Pack, a sub-culture of local debutantes who enjoyed subverting society events, including lacing punchbowls with mineral oil and performing stripteases on banquet tables. The St. Louisborn socialite is the subject of the singer-songwriter's "The Last Great American Dynasty.". Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Although William Harkness came from a well-respected family that was supposed to give Rebekah even more of the status she craved, William himself wasa total fool. Harkness drew glares for her parties at Holiday House, as did Swift: Who could forget the frenzy over her celeb-studded Fourth of July bash? She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. Mary took a portion of the estate to start Camp Harkness in 1920 for children with polio. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915 June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Press photo of Rebekah Harkness in 1966 with two o her Harkness dancers. Watch Hill Harbor By Stephg82988 Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23370833. Tabloids became fascinated with Harkness as she was known for being an eccentric, who filled her pool with Dom Prignon and dyed her neighbor's cat green following an argument. All of the work and much of the music was original. Once she pretended to be a cleaning woman and approached the reclusive J.D. Yet like so much of Harknesss life, what seemed beautiful on the outside was rotting on the inside. Donning a black chiffon Mainbocher dress with a white silk back-tied apron, she flashed a wry smile at the camera. Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a spoiled little rich girl. (Watch it here.). 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 Instead, she was reared by a series of nanniesand thats not even the worst part. Taylor Swift bought the former Holiday House in 2013 for a reported $17.75 million in cash. St. Louis, MO 63119 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. Before joining the team, she worked as a course lecturer while completing her Ph.D. in English Literature. Rebekah Harkness' antics annoyed her neighbors, while Jesus' antics got him murdered by the state and by some religious leaders. Putting mineral oil in the punch at her sisters debutante ball. (No such record could be found, but the famous Surrealist artist did design the $250,000 jewel-studded urn that held herashes. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a child who died at age 10. Rebekah Harkness Rebekah Harkness (1915-1982) Rebekah Harkness, born Rebekah Semple West, was one of the foremost American patrons of dance. Obviously, Rebekah was completely out touch with realityso her next move makes sense. The caption read: "A young woman with a surprising range of interests, Mrs. Harkness is a sculptor, a musician of professional standing (she's a member of ASCAP), a skier (she'll soon off to her. De . The Robert Joffrey Company summer workshop at Rebekah Harkness' Watch Hill estate in Rhode Island, July 1962. Rebekah died that same year after a long bout with cancer. She was also a composer. 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. But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." Rebekah had already had two children with her first husband, Allen and Anne "Terry" Pierce, and she then had one more child with William, a daughter named Edith. 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. 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