She was like a flower child, even though the era was over. Last year she gave $40,000 to help people in India, $45,000 to Bronx Veterans Medical Research, and $2000 to the Hawaii Saddle Club. I suppose it was Doris's fault for never talking about what she did.". ", Heffner was with Gary McElroy, with whom she was then living on a communal farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. Although she was constantly compared to Hutton from the time they both had fairy-tale coming-out parties the year after the stock market crashed, Duke always hated the comparison to the much-married Woolworth heiress, who died penniless. On the last day of the seminar, he spent the afternoon with Duke at Shangri La. Until Doris Duke's death, this would be her principal residence. and I finally quit just before Labor Day. When I go I'll be eaten by the sharks.". And so I decidedthe biggest mistake of my 41 yearsto give this son of a bitch a second chance . The private pilot hired to fly Duke's Boeing 737 quit his job because of Heffner, and filed a letter with the Federal Aviation Administration complaining of her unstable behavior. It would be the last time the paparazzi caught her, and, true to form, she slapped Rossellini for not telling her the photographers would be there. "He wanted a settlement," says Nancy Cooke de Herrera, "but you could not get a nickel out of Doris if you came at her the wrong way." Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. . . And let me tell you that she gave a really nice dinner party for me at the nadir of my fortunes. Miss Duke lives in a walled 2,700-acre estate in Hillsborough, and rarely attracted . (Von Blow is referring to a 1982 dinner party Duke gave at '21' in New York for his friends shortly after he had been convicted of attempting to murder his wife, Sunny. Contrary to Heffner's version of events, he told me that he had prescribed anabolic steroids for Duke for her knee problems in late 1989 or early 1990. Demopoulos said that Duke had mentioned her suspicions that she was being poisoned. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. She didn't like medicine in general. ChatGPT who? I was constantly arguing with Bernard . And, like Heffner, after following Duke from Duke Farms to Rough Point to Falcon's Lair to Shangri La for more than six years he was suddenly given a few hours to pack his bags and leave. It doesn't mean I'll go to bed with them.". The next day Duke's lawyer called Heffner again and informed her that Duke wanted her out, too. Much to the surprise of almost everyone who knew Duke, she named her butler of six years, Bernard Lafferty, as executor of her estate and placed him in control of the newly created Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which is to receive almost her entire fortune. Denise Hale recalls meeting Eduardo Tirella on the set of The Sandpiper, which was directed by her then husband, Vincente Minnelli, and having several dinners at Falcon's Lair. According to financial accounts shes posted on her website, she has about $700,000 parked in CDH to help India. She wasn't about being a pretty, rich American girl. Apparently, the warm weather had had a good effect. Heffner told me she had left "the farm community" and was living with Gordon Damon, a real-estate agent whose house was near Duke's Diamond Head estate. Ron Protas, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, says, "Doris was very shy, and never thought enough of herself, because she was so beat up emotionally by her father. Of course, many of the sources for these allegations are people who were left out of the will, or cut out of the will, or people who hope to eventually receive grants from the Duke foundations. ", Thomas Rybak maintains, "I personally believe that Chandi was pushed out by Bernard. ", Robert Farrah agrees: "Doris Duke was not this elusive reclusive. She was even a buddy of Elvis Presley's. When he died in a car crash in 1965, she took to her bed for two days. One of the first things she did was to caution Duke, on the advice of Nelson Peltz, against an investment proposed by her then business manager, Patrick Mahn. . In 1925, at the age of 13, she inherited an estimated $100 million in trusts from her father, James Buchanan Duke, a coarse but brilliant self-made man who founded the American Tobacco Company and the Duke Power Company, and who endowed Trinity College in North Carolina with millions, reportedly on the condition it change its name to Duke University. "Cromwell was quite nice," says Nelson Seabra, a rich Brazilian friend of Duke's. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. She was contemplating having knee replacements. They were disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the spiritual master of the Hare Krishna movement, and they had been unofficially married in a ceremony in India in the 70s. They all of a sudden just totally cut me off, and I can't believe that was Doris. Chandi sued Duke's estate. And all of a sudden I started hearing, 'The food is cold.' ", "Doris wanted the things money couldn't buy. Burns served as Chandi Heffner Duke's "companion, confidant, cook, bodyguard," according to the suit, and she, in turn, agreed that they would divide "her expected inheritance." Phyllis Saretta says, "Chandi told me that her sister had a butler and a chauffeur and the whole thing. Even Imelda didn't see her.". Doris's statements to Chandi to this effect were confirmed by [her lawyer Donald] Robinson as well, who told Chandi he had prepared the necessary documents to make provision for the disposition of Doris's estate, and that Chandi would be "totally in control. Some questioned Reubens sexuality at the time until in 1989 when Reubens engaged in a "mock wedding" with Chandi Heffner, the adopted daughter of tobacco heiress Doris Duke. "No cane. "Both of them greeted us at the door. "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. In court papers, Heffner -- a Baltimore native -- says the two women met in Hawaii in 1981. I said, 'Doris, do it, I think it's a good thing.' Franco Rossellini assured everyone that he was all for it. Bernard Lafferty, a cook named Colin Shanley, and her longtime Tongan maid, Nuku Makasiale, were at her bedside. She had several indiscreet affairs of her own, with Errol Flynn, Hawaiian swimming champion Duke Kahanamoku, and British M.P. Heffner also said that Duke confided that she thought her mother had wanted to abort her. Inspired by this trip, they bought the most spectacular piece of property near Diamond Head in Honolulu, on which they built a Mogul-style fortress and named it Shangri La. We'll have a great life together. Then someone new entered the small Doris Duke family: James Burns, a 25-year-old former Marine and martial-arts enthusiast with a notably "buff" physique. ", Rybak says that Lafferty got off to a good start at Duke Farms. About Heffner's sister. 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. 'Doris Duke really was the last Chinese empress, the last of a type that doesn't exist anymore. Instead, she was cremated during the weekend following her death, and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean off Shangri La on November 17, 1993, by Bernard Lafferty and Johnny Gomez, along with the hibiscus leis she loved. ), By then the center of her social life was Franco Rossellini, the extremely amusing and gay Italian movie producer, whom she had met about 1975. And when I smacked my lips in ecstasy, I found that three or four bottles would be left off at my house the next day as a gesture. We'll travel together. Heffner almost broke down again. About the time Bloom was fired, Duke also abruptly left Chemical Bank and replaced her estate lawyer, William Zabel, of Schulte Roth & Zabel, with William Doyle, of the Chicago firm of Katten Muchin & Zavis. Most of Duke's friends hadn't had an inkling. As the organization grew, she set up a program exclusively focused on serving people in rural communities where money, jobs, health care, and education are scarce. So did Imelda. According to the 1993 Forbes Four Hundred list, Doris Duke was the 18th-richest woman in America, not far behind cosmetics billionairess Este Lauder. ", "I'm crazy about Bernard," says Oatsie Charles. Heffner Duke, adopted in 1988 when she was 38 and the heiress was in her 70s, could not be reached for comment. . ", Sometimes, Robert Farrah recalls, "Doris would throw up her hands and say, 'No wills! "Elvis made whites interested in black music," she once told me, "which was very important, because race is the biggest problem we have in America.". Banks never saw her again. He came over here, and she died. That's not the Doris I knew. (The hospital said that Bernard Lafferty was a patient from July 1 to July 14, 1987.). When tobacco heiress Doris Duke died last October, she left a will that shocked even those who had known her best. . Surrogate Court Judge Wilfred P. Diana asked Duke if she understood that the adoption "creates a relationship between you and Miss Heffner as if she were born to you in wedlock," and Duke said yes. He also said he had worked on and off for Peggy Lee for 10 years. In Doris's case, she had done that. "O.K., I'm not going to see her, but. Chandi Heffner choked back tears as she talked about Doris Duke, the worldly and restless tobacco heiress who legally adopted her in 1988, when Heffner was 35 and Duke was 75, and cast her out less than three years later. James Burns, 32, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, claimed Chandi Gail Heffner Duke owes him half of the $66 million she was awarded after Duke die in 1988. All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; Companies; Keywords; ". The two camels were right outside the dining room on a blue tarpaulin. . His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. 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.' Doris wouldn't take a pill unless she really needed it. I knew from the beginning she was a son of a bitch." The last words were 'Stay in touch, Harry.' Call your pilot tonight and leave immediately and go to Los Angeles and get checked up.' I would have to reheat it. . Farrah says that Duke had returned from her first visit to Manila, with Rossellini, about a week before meeting Heffner. Although Duke was determined to produce his own heir, Nanaline was as surprised as everyone else when she became pregnant at the age of 42, and she always favored her son, Walker Inman, over Doris. Warmer storms could cause problems, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, Hyundai was poised to become Teslas top contender. She was not on steroids in the latter half of 1990, and this was not a mood swing. Chandi said, 'But where do I find a man?' "And believe me, she didn't get to $1.3 billion without working at it. That was a going-out-of-your-way gesture." . Chandi Heffner In 1984, Doris met a woman named Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. April 7, 1993 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. Newsom Closes California Theaters, "Dancing with the Stars" Needs a New Partner: Longtime Host Tom Bergeron Told Goodbye By ABC, Along with CoHost Erin Andrews, The Weeknd, Already on the Outs with the Grammys, Goes After Rolling Stone So They Rip Apart His New Show (Got That? ", When I asked Chandi Heffner about the widespread rumors that she and Duke were lovers, she laughed and said, "Oh, right, I've heard that. The gate had obviously been left open. You can live in the manner that I live and have this lifestyle. Doris Dukes adopted daughter has ended her fight to gain control of the late billionaires fortune in exchange for a $65-million settlement from the estate. ", In February, a few weeks after Protas returned to New York with Graham, he received a phone call from Duke at three in the morning. Incredibly, she was awarded a $65 million settlement. All. Although polo and horse jumping are her favorite equestrian activities, Chandi Heffner currently spends the majority of her time overseeing CDHIF USA and CDHIFI. SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. Claudia Heffner's Sister Has A Weird Story. "She looked great," Warnecke says. I think this was the steroid thing happening. "People always think that if you can have 200 people to dine at home without moving the chairs around and you don't, you must be very sad," says Claus von Blow. 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. And he had quite a history. Believing that Heffner was the reincarnation of her daughter, Arden, Duke bought her a million-dollar ranch in Hawaii, and . And the person who could best illuminate Doris Duke's declining days, Bernard Lafferty, refused to talk to me. Her longest relationship was with Joey Castro, the Mexican-born jazz pianist at the Mocambo nightclub in Los Angeles, whom she met in 1950, when he was 23 and she was 38. . The Untold Truth of Stephen Hawking's Son - Ti. So we went into the room, and Bernard was buck naked, bent over a chair, passed out. He received nothing. In a so-called "galimony" lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Somerville, N.J., where the heiress lives several months of the year at her 5,000-acre compound known as Duke Farms, Heffner claims she is entitled to compensation from Duke, who abruptly broke off their live-in relationship in 1991. Doris was into it, too. Over the next few years, she bought almost an entire neighborhood of dilapidated 17th- and 18th-century houses, restored them, and rented them to town residents. This only fueled rumors about his sexuality further and . A dedicated philanthropist, Chandi Heffner is the founder and President of CDHIFI a charitable foundation that sponsors medical, veterinary and humanitarian assistance to rural regions around the . In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. Sources at Duke's estates, however, portrayed Heffner in a different light. ", Others insist that Heffner's growing involvement with Burns created new tensions and was the root cause of Duke's disenchantment with her adopted daughter. It was clear that something adverse was going on in the latter part of 1990 in Hawaii. For some reason, Doris actually came to believe that Chandi. The first one, in Hawaii, didn't work out: she wanted to make a museum out of a Thai temple that she had saved from destruction on one of her many trips to Southeast Asia. He made a comment that Doris had a fair number of complications as a result of the surgery. SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. ". "Darling, the girl is out the door without a cent," Franco Rossellini trilled to a friend. She continued to give him money, and friends say that their sexual relationship never really ended. On rare occasions I got Bernard. Duke died at age 80 in 1988, leaving a hotly contested $1.5 billion estate. Up to that point, Heffner alleges, the two women shared an extremely close relationship, enjoying not only the opulence of Duke's estates, but also trips to Russia, "fountain of youth" treatments in Romania, finding suitable maids for the ornery billionaire after she'd been "blacklisted" by employment agencies, shopping for a $25 million Boeing 737, and a shared belief that Heffner was the reincarnation of Duke's only child, a daughter who died shortly after birth in 1940. "He was devastated. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. I fumbled through an introduction. ", Oatsie Charles had a one-word explanation: "Loneliness. Her Newport artist pal Richard Banks said that that summer "Doris decided to do the whole social thing and she loved it. ", Heffner denies that she had had any previous association with Imelda Marcos. In later years she did have problems with her hearing and with her legs, but nothing major. Lafferty has released few details about Duke's final illness. These are just some of the accusations, strange rumors, and conspiracy theories that I heard concerning the last years of Doris Duke's life: Her estate is really worth at least $2 billion. The two exchanged their "vows" at Duke's Hawaiian mansion, but it was revealed the whole thing was a hoax. Like Heffner, Amar quickly became involved in the running of Duke's houses, business affairs, and charities. Doris Duke committed suicide. After she returned to Newport later that month, Banks invited her to a concert, but she forgot the date. Later on we would sleep together and Doris would come in most mornings and sit there on the bed with us and talk. "Ferencz said, 'We had a butler who was fired. He wanted me out of there. He was the legendary Latin lover Porfirio Rubirosa, the former son-in-law of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. "Bernard got out of the hospital. . ") Years ago, she was talking about the things we all talk about nowthe environment, battered women and children, animal rights. They were putting up a curtain rod together. WHAT'S POPULAR TODAY. In her lawsuit, Heffner claims it was she who arranged this transaction, as well as the payment of $5 million of Marcos's legal bills. In the last year of Duke's life, Bernard Lafferty persuaded her to drop her physician of 12 years, her accountant, her bankers, and the lawyer who drew up her next-to-last will. Nelson Seabra told me, "A very close friend of Doris's said that she committed suicide. She was very happy doing that.". 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