Keyko said that $800,000 was paid to Heffner on Friday. . 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. They didn't. 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. I fumbled through an introduction. [15] She studied singing with Estelle Liebling, the voice teacher of Beverly Sills, in New York City. After the war, she moved to Paris and wrote for the magazine Harper's Bazaar. "He was marvelous," says Claus von Blow, who later became Duke's neighbor in Newport. Also in Duke's collection were over 2,000 bottles of rare wine (worth over $5 million) and the extraordinary Duke collection of fine jewels. She had episodes of pneumonia, she had clots in her veins, and some of those clots may have traveled to her lungs. In any case, their friendship ended in tragedy that October, when Duke ran him over as he was opening the gate of Rough Point. In 1968, she established the Newport Restoration Foundation, with Jacqueline Onassis as vice president. We use cookies to personalize & enhance your experience. [Chandi] is a monster. The will provides Lafferty with an executor's fee of up to $5 million, a lifetime annuity of $500,000 a year, and commissions, which could run into the millions annually, as a trustee of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and of three other closely related new foundations: the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of Endangered Wildlife, the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of New Jersey Farmland and Farm Animals, and the Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art. On Sunday he was feeling unwell, and on Monday Sally Blake found that he had died "peacefully in his sleep". Doris told Chandi that she was happy about her having a man in her life. to see possible education history including where and when they attending high school and college, and a complete list of her high school class list. Demopoulos wasn't the only one to notice a change in Duke's attitude after Heffner was out of her life. . This stuff was from Miss Duke's father. In 1966, a few days after Duke suddenly shut down the record company she had started for Castro, he broke her jaw, according to Mansfield, and she fled to Newport with Eduardo Tirella, a handsome young set designer. The only times I saw Doris really relaxed were these few times in Beverly Hills.". He used to take her to Gold's Gym." (After Duke's death, the trustees of her estate became defendants in this lawsuit.). [11] She received large bequests from her father's will when she turned 21, 25, and 30; she was sometimes referred to as the "world's richest girl". The next morning, the day after Valentine's Day, James Burns remembers, Duke told Heffner she had a dentist's appointment and left the house with Bernard Lafferty. We'll have a great life together. A Hare Krishna, sort of, Chandi went to Hawaii in the late 1980s and inveigled herself into the life of another billionaire, Doris Duke, the richest woman in the world. . . At age 46, Duke started to create Duke Gardens, an exotic public-display garden, to honor her father James Buchanan Duke. She left behind $1.2 billion and. 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. I almost feel . Heffner told me that "even back in high school I began kind of a quest to see if there was more to life," and that after a trip around the world, she ended up in Hawaii, meditating, surfing, and exercising polo ponies. [24] The collection is on public display at her former home in Honolulu, Hawaii, now the Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, & Design. Heffner also said that as next of kin she would have requested an autopsy, but she was never officially notified of Duke's death, and by the time she learned of the cremation, it was too late. 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. On rare occasions I got Bernard. He also instilled in her an almost reflexive inability to trust people. To this day he maintains, "A lot of injustice was done to me. Duke." [51], When Doris' father died, he left a fortune valued at $100 million,[52] with the largest share going to Duke and her mother. By any standard, Bernard Lafferty was not a conventional choice to oversee a billion dollar legacy. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. She had had several leg operations, after a riding accident, but she participated in the seminar. I think this was the steroid thing happening. Currently, Chandi is single. "Buck" Duke was obsessed with his only child. "I was not aware of his drinking problem when I placed him there, but I did inform Chandi [before sending him to Doris Duke's]. This should be some rehearsal dinner! . But the war was by no means over. "I looked upon Bernard as a member of the small Doris Duke family," says Donald Robinson. He was very good at repairing old costumes and fabric. Pee Wee Herman - Here's What His Love Life Was Really Like - TheThings [35], In 1966, Eduardo Tirella, curator of Duke's art holdings for the previous decade, decided to leave for a career in Hollywood as a production designer. ", "I was not involved. His mother was a teacher, while his father fought as a pilot during WWII. Chandi lives on the horse farm now and operates a very modest charity called the CDH Foundation, with total assets of $ 2 million. Sources at Duke's estates, however, portrayed Heffner in a different light. He died as he had lived in recent years, in flamboyant splendour, in his 8,000 sq ft Los Angeles home, a $2 million Bel Air fantasy, decorated with enormous silver urns, formal oil paintings and. She was having a real whirl." I feel in danger.' We knock, we bang, we yell. Because of the legal wrangling, not a penny of Duke's bequest has gone to charity so far, though the total amount billed by lawyers in the challenges has reached $50 million. Apart from the awesome power flowing from control of the Foundation, Lafferty also stood to earn an executor's fee of up to $5 million, a lifetime annuity of $500,000 a year and annual commissions which could run into millions. Duke Kahanamoku went in after her and saved her. Chandi Heffner - $29,000 in Political Contributions for 2004 Doris Duke had difficulty remaining in one place, and whenever she arrived somewhere, she had the desire to go somewhere else. [56] As the Maharishi's International Academy of Meditation, the ashram became the focus of global attention five years later when the Beatles studied there.[57]. He could barely speak.". "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. Doris was into it, too. Lafferty served. Doris Duke's Final Mystery | Vanity Fair | March 1994 ", Thomas Rybak maintains, "I personally believe that Chandi was pushed out by Bernard. She grew up near Towson, an upper-middle-class suburb of Baltimore, and graduated from Notre Dame Prep, a private Catholic girls' school, in 1971. "She got baby doses for a few weeks and that was it. "She forgave Rubi everything," says Reinaldo Herrera, even his subsequent marriage to Barbara Hutton. Do you think you could help him out?' "She out-Leona Helmsleyed Leona Helmsley," Duffy said of Heffner. It was a really loving daughter-mother relationship. ", James Cromwell maintained that it was not his child, and friends assumed that it was Cunningham-Reid's. At that point she proceeded to run the stricken man over resulting in his death. Because of her great wealth, Duke's marriage to Rubirosa attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department, which cautioned her against using her money to promote a political agenda. 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. In addition, Duke had a collection of artwork, which was said to include works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Monet, as well as her valuable collection of Islamic and Southeast Asia art and furniture. Doris wouldn't take a pill unless she really needed it. In 1987, Heffner handled the negotiations for Duke's most talked-about acquisition: two Bactrian camels, which were thrown in as a sweetener on the deal to purchase a 19-passenger Boeing 737-300 for $25 million. . I asked Phyllis Saretta what she thought the attraction was. According to a frequent guest at Duke's various houses, Duke became more and more upset with Burns: "Doris told me that James started to strut around the place as if he was Mr. 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. 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. . . Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. Lafferty was accused of conspiring to kill his terminally ill employer with morphine. The gossip at Mortimer's was that Duke was furious with him for talking to Stephanie Mansfield. I asked Doris and she said, 'Yeah, it's fine.' . . Later on we would sleep together and Doris would come in most mornings and sit there on the bed with us and talk. ", Another of Duke's intimates said that the real reason her closest friends were in favor of the adoption was that "Doris had contemplated suicide, and we thought we could have some peace of mind that she wouldn't kill herself as long as Chandi was around. She was so distressed about losing the baby. Probability theory. ", "Doris wanted the things money couldn't buy. "He was so attentive," Banks says. She thought it was very amusing. These trustees now control all assets of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which Doris Duke directed should support medical research, anti-vivisectionism, prevention of cruelty to children and animals, performance arts, wildlife, and ecology.[71]. "When we were together," Heffner continued, "when things were really great, Doris was in wonderful shape. Despite the negation, after Duke's death, the estate's trustees settled a lawsuit brought by Heffner for $65 million. ", Like many of her friends, Protas is unclear about when Duke went into the hospital for the operations on her knees, or when she came out. Things escalated. "Her legs were almost starting to atrophy from lack of exercise." According to the Mansfield biography, Cromwell asked her on their sexless wedding night what his annual income from her would be. Duke may have been infatuated, but friends of Tirella's told me that he was unabashedly gay. Guest introduced Duke to Leon Amar, a 30-year-old Moroccan decorator. Sometimes he acted as the butler, others as a general assistant. "Bernard got out of the hospital. She also donated funds to support and educate black students in the South who were disadvantaged because of racism. He flew to Newport, where Duke was staying at Rough Point, on October 6, to collect his belongings and let Duke know that he was leaving her employ. Heffner Duke, adopted in 1988 when she was 38 and the heiress was in her 70s, could not be reached for comment. The headboard of his bed was carved from the door of an old Vanderbilt mansion. It happened on a train to California. I came back clean as a whistle. You can live in the manner that I live and have this lifestyle. Ambassador to Canada and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. When their mutual belly dancing instructor introduce Duke to 32-year-old Hare Krishna devotee Chandi Heffner in 1985, Duke decided that Heffner was the reincarnation of her lost baby daughter . And along about March, I sent flowers and candy to her California home. . Chandi Heffner is a small, sturdy woman with thick black shoulder-length hair and bone-white skin. That's not the Doris I knew. The 20 foot high bedroom in which he was found was draped in wine red velvet and lit by a Venetian chandelier. As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work. In an earlier will, Demopoulos had been named executor[68] and challenged Lafferty's appointment. In a settlement signed Thursday by Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth, Chandi Duke Heffner, 42, dropped claims to the $1,2-billion estate and dropped a . "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.". She was very happy doing that.". Virtually inseparable, the two women shuttled back and forth between Duke Farms, Duke's Newport estate "Rough Point" and her palatial Indo-Persian "Shangri-La" in the exclusive Diamond Head section of Oahu. "That's what the picture was worth," said one of Lafferty's lawyers, "but here you had maybe 15 lawyers arguing over it and running up the bills.". Doris Duke - Facts, Death & Mansion - Biography They talked constantly, and Nelson and Claudia used to go to lunches quite often with Chandi and Doris. It doesn't mean I'll go to bed with them.". ", Nonetheless, Duke seemed increasingly pleased with Lafferty. Newport police declared it an accident, and her friends still swear that it was. Lance, and several other experts who reviewed the evidence, concluded that it was far more likely that Duke had deliberately run Tirella over out of rage at his decision to leave her for Hollywood. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, First Republic up in air as regulators juggle banks fate, 8 best interview questions to land a top job, Bank rates are up. . Subscribers have complete access to the archive. She's getting better.' 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.". . John Warnecke was told by Johnny Gomez, Duke's elderly caretaker in Honolulu, that "she was so full of beans, she decided to have both knees done at one time, and one knee got infected and she had to have another operation. "One hears all sorts of stories about how Rubi started in life, that he was Trujillo's sort of 'Press the doorbell, you answer the doorbell, and he went bang-bang.' The two exchanged their "vows" at Duke's Hawaiian mansion, but it was revealed the whole thing was a hoax. According to Heffner, Duke suffered heart palpitations in Moscow and was afraid to be alone, so for the rest of the trip they shared hotel rooms. Ron Protas also told me that Duke had a fear of fire, and that when he told her about "the terrible experience" of scattering Martha Graham's ashes, Duke said, "It's never going to happen to me. Heiress' Adopted Daughter Sued For $33 Million In Palimony - AP NEWS It would be her last trip to Europe, and she also visited Poland with Brazilian grande dame Aime de Hereen. Three of Duke's residences are currently managed by subsidiaries of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and allow limited public access. BILLIONAIRE'S HEIR OUT OF PLACE - The Washington Post During this period, Duke also plunged into three large-scale public projects. 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. "She designed those houses and she saw to every color," says Newport artist Richard Banks. Chandi Heffner's Biography | Muck Rack In joint court documents filed by Miss Duke and Miss Hefner and read by Robinson over the telephone, Miss Hefner said: This adoption will enable me to work with Doris to continue my participation in the kind of fulfilling and intimate relationship that only a daughter and her legal mother can enjoy.. She was hospitalized from February 2 to April 15. ", 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. London, United Kingdom . ", Oatsie Charles had a one-word explanation: "Loneliness. I never heard from Doris again and I could never reach her again. [52] The best-known lawsuit[67] was initiated by Harry Demopoulos. After her death, numerous pieces were donated to The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Walters Art Museum of Baltimore.[60]. "It was shocking," Heffner told me. Until Doris Duke's death, this would be her principal residence. The reason it didn't last long was she didn't want them. The two camels were right outside the dining room on a blue tarpaulin. That was Doris. [69], Litigation involving 40 lawyers at 10 law firms tied up the Duke estate for nearly three years. But neither was he the one dimensional cartoon character - a malevolent, greedy, tall tale spinning, illiterate, possibly murderous drunk - as portrayed by much of the media. Chandi Heffner - $16,758 in Political Contributions for 2016, Campaign Finance, Money, American politics, American political campaign contributions, presidential campaign contributions See $$$ From Your Zip Code $10,618,476,973 in Contributions for 2020 Election Home Money Search Top 25 Candidates Election News About Data Updated on 7/11/2020 Despite the negative publicity, she fought her husband in the courts for five years, until he gave in. We would go into the kitchen, just the four of us. Duke was twice divorced and had no other children. [citation needed], Duke cultivated an extensive art collection, principally of Islamic and Southeast Asian art. Everything good I could say about Bernard, I do. And Nicolas first cousin on her fathers side is the great New York broadcaster and filmmaker Perri Peltz, whose father was Nelsons older brother. Belief persists today in Newport that there was a coverup facilitated by Duke "blood money". Chandi Heffner - $7,100 in Political Contributions for 2020, Campaign Finance, Money, American politics, American political campaign contributions, presidential campaign contributions "You know, fate is strange. "There were clear indications of a growing trust, affection, and devotion between them. She reportedly paid his second wife, actress Danielle Darrieux, $1 million to agree to an uncontested divorce. "There was such a myth about Doris being a solitary person and not going out, so when she showed up somewhere, it was an event. "He was obviously unhappy. Chandi's ethnicity is unknown, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; and religious views are listed as unknown. [15] Display construction began in 1958. And he confirmed that he had been named an executor when Duke revised her 1987 will in March 1991. Enzo Natale concurs: "Chandi and Bernard were twins.". Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes. [41][42][43] They divorced in 1943. [40] Cromwell was a New Deal advocate like his wife; Duke used her fortune to finance his political career. She told me that in the months prior to her fall from grace one of Duke's doctors was injecting her with steroids, for knee problems, and that the psychological side effects of "the substance enabled the other people to talk her into whatever they wanted. Shortly after Duke's 80th birthday, in November, Nelson Seabra saw her at C. Z. Within months she established the Newport Restoration Foundation, which has since renovated 84 of the city's colonial era buildings. Nelson Peltz is financing Chandi Heffner's legal battle. It wasn't until the following winter, however, Burns told me, that he became romantically involved with Heffner. Guido Pagani - Co-Founder & CEO - Hivebound | LinkedIn In 1992, at the age of 79, Duke had a facelift. In the car, Chandi was saying, 'Oh, she's such a nice lady, and the house is gorgeous!' Heffner pleaded on his behalf and asked to speak to Duke, but Robinson told her that Duke was tired. When Duke came of age, she used her wealth to pursue a variety of interests, including extensive world travel and the arts. Once a day, she meditates in her "deity room," which is filled with golden statues from India. After Bloom was fired, Protas was told the loan was being reviewed. Two years later, against her mother's wishes, she married James Cromwell, who was 16 years older than she, and whose family had lost its fortune in 1929, and embarked on a two-year honeymoon through the Middle East and Asia. And he called from a pay phone, and I felt so sorry for this guy, I said, 'Come to Somerville.' Guest's in Old Westbury: "She came by helicopter. Paul and his family moved to Sarasota, Florida, when he was nine years old. Chandi Heffner is a small, sturdy woman with thick black shoulder-length hair and bone-white skin, Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored . 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. There were four witnesses, including Dr. Charles Kivowitz, a fashionable Beverly Hills internist. She also asked to be buried at sea. "We discussed cremation, and she said, 'Never, never, ever let anyone cremate me.' We had a nice dinner with appropriate toasts, and Franco entertained us with anecdotes and imitations. . Doris said, 'Do you have time for a drink?' In published accounts of Duke's break with Heffner, Bernard Lafferty, who was worried about Duke's health, had called Rossellini in Europe a few weeks earlier and told him, "Something is really wrong here. Duke was spending the spring, as usual, at her 2,700-acre Duke Farms, in Somerville, New Jersey. And then Chandi said something that took me aback: 'Bobby, I can't understand why you have a friend like that and yet you're struggling to have a dance publication. Ms. Heffner also strives to encourage the continued production of handicrafts, and ensures that there is a market for them by purchasing these products from their makers. Miss Duke lives in a walled 2,700-acre estate in Hillsborough, and rarely attracted . Franco Rossellini assured everyone that he was all for it. New York magazine reported after her death that she had a knee operation at U.C.L.A. She said, 'There was nothing to do on that train.' [27][15], Duke was cremated 24 hours after her death and her executor, Bernard Lafferty, scattered her ashes into the Pacific Ocean as her last will specified. In an interview after Duke's death a few years ago, Lee was unstinting in her support for Lafferty: "Everything good I could say about Bernard, I do. [16] During World War II, she worked in a canteen for sailors in Egypt, taking a salary of one dollar a year. [44] In 1988 Duke adopted 32-year-old Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. We'll travel together. In November 1991, Duke had a new will written, naming Irwin Bloom and Chemical Bank as executors. Learn how your comment data is processed. That led to pneumonia and she couldn't eat and it was on and off, on and off, for months.". When he went to pick her up, Lafferty told him, "Always keep me informed, so that I can be sure everything works." 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. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. 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. The DDCF also controls funding for the three separate foundations created to operate Duke's former homes: the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Duke Farms and Newport Restoration Foundation. ", "When one of Doris's love affairs ended, there was always great drama," says her friend Consuelo Crespi. 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. Chandi Heffner is 69 years old today because Chandi's birthday is on 08/26/1953. Nor - in spite of the spot that he was holding on the wall for it - did he ever get the $450 dollar painting. Chandi called Steve Levyhe did security for Doristo find out what to do. ", Though she still would occasionally joke, "I haven't had any greens lately," which Nancy Cooke de Herrera says was Duke's code for sex, she seemed to be settling down. Heffner claims she gave up her own life to immerse herself in being a companion to the eccentric Duke: helping to manage the Duke Farms dairy, advising her on financial matters, overseeing her "disorganized and run-down estates," selling gold deposits from her myriad Swiss bank accounts and hiring a bodyguard to protect her from kidnappers. . In the late 1980s, Duke donated $2 million to Duke University to be used for AIDS research. Her total net worth, including all property, was valued at $5.3 billion. Call your pilot tonight and leave immediately and go to Los Angeles and get checked up.' HEFFNER, CHANDI MS. KAMUELA, HI 96743: SELF-EMPLOYED/RANCHER: $2,000: 07/23/2003: P: BUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC - Republican: Search: Contributors: Individual's Name: About Chandi Heffner | Flickr One night at dinner, Heffner told me, "Doris said to me, 'You're my daughter reincarnated. If so, wrote Donders, "interposing into the process some new components of . She was so alive. By 1963 she was having Castro trailed by a private investigator.
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