''Costumes, sets, musical scores,'' Mr. Unger writes, ''many of the best dancers, the entire repertory - even the works choreographed by Joffrey himself - were owned by her foundation.''. '', 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. My mom never told me how her best friend died. Ad Choices, Phil Ohs Best Street Style Photos From the Fall 2023 Shows in Paris, 5 Key Signs That Indicate Youre Going Through Menopause, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Have Been Asked to Leave Their U.K. Home. And when she discovered one of her Joffrey dancers didnt own a suit, she sent all the Joffrey men to Saks and all the women to Bergdorfs for formalwear. Apparently, Harkness liked to reward her boy-toys, because she soon made Castelli the artistic director of her ballet company. Please reach out to us to let us know what youre interested in reading. Even after her husband's death in 1954 ("It must have been her fault his heart gave out," Swift muses), Harkness threw wild parties that clearly ruffled her neighbors' feathers, with guests her. Born Rebekah Semple West on April 17, 1915, in St. Louis, Missouri; died on June 17, 1982, in New York City, second daughter and one of three children of Allen Tarwater (a stockbroker) and Rebekah Cook (Semple) West; attended Rossman and John Burroughs schools in St. Louis; graduated from Fermata, a finishing school in Aiken, South Carolina, She filled her fish tank with goldfish and Scotch. By 1982, the end was near for Harkness, yet tragically her son Allen wasnt there. Then a little-known ballet company, they spent the summers practicing and experimenting with new ideas. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? At Factinate, were dedicated to getting things right. She had a salon of sorts. Swift put up No Trespassing signs that they didnt like either. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. [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. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. Silver Gelatin. It is possible to write an edifying biography about an unedifying life. Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. An awning saved her life. AboutPressCopyrightContact. [24] It explores the Harkness' legacy and her company, Harkness Ballet.[25]. It was the second marriage for both of them. Socialite circles are infamously tight-lipped about their marriages, but theres almost no doubt that Rebekahs union with Pierce was a dismal affairand one day, she made a disturbing confession. Her 1955 tone poem, Safari Suite, was performed at Carnegie Hall, and in 1957 she released an album titled Music With a Heartbeat. Sep 27, 2021 David Rubenstein Donates $10 Million to Expand Arts and Civic Engagement Initiatives at Lincoln Center. In a matter of years, her life would go from classy to just plain messy. Blue Blood is the incredible story of almost limitless fortunes squandered completely within one extravagant lifetime. Generous, wasteful, willful, demanding and delusional, she broke with Joffrey to form the Harkness Ballet when he refused to perform the compositions she insisted on writing. Born April 17, 1915 Died June 17, 1982 (67) Showcase yourself on IMDbPro Add to list Credits It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. While at her fancy finishing school, Harkness didnt seem to care that her classmates were people with last names like Roosevelt. Instead, she scrawled in her scrapbook that she wanted to do everything bad. Well, she certainly achieved her goal. Their marriage produced one child: Edith Harkness and their marriage lasted harmoniously for 7 years when William Hale Harkness died 1 October 1954 leaving his entire fortune, that included a major share of Standard Oil, to Rebekah to do with as she pleased. Copyright 2022 SLM Media Group. ''We were the favorites,'' says a dancer. 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 In October 1948, Harkness gave birth to her first child with her second husband, a daughter Edith. Anne married Anthony McBride in 1966[1] and had a severely brain-damaged baby who died at age 10. Harkness definitely wasnt the most fiscally-responsible business woman, but she does have the distinction of being the strangest girl-boss in history. In the first verse of The Last Great American Dynasty, Swift sings that the ceremony was charming, if a little gauche / Theres only so far new money goes.. Before joining the team, she worked as a course lecturer while completing her Ph.D. in English Literature. 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. She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. Like this story? And she was just getting started. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. ''Money can buy anything.'' Scevers and Harkness brought out the worst in each other. Faced with Ediths grim drive to end her life, Harkness was coldly philosophical. And the dysfunction didnt end there. [16], In 1961, Harkness married Ben Kean (c.19121993),[17] a physician who was a professor of Tropical Medicine at the Cornell Medical College. ''You see,'' she said. Where Harkness had her Bitch Pack, Swifts group of friends had a much-scrutinized squad. . [10] In 1947, William Hale married Rebekah Semple West, [11] who was previously married to Dickson Pierce. 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. [3] Harkness would also continue to study dance and piano, and studied ballet with Victoria Cassau, who was a student of Anna Pavlova. Image courtesy Holiday House, Courtesy Google, Maxar Technologies. (Harkness reportedly cleaned her pool with Dom Prignon.) [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. Who is Rebekah Harkness Dating? As it turned out, this was the beginning of her ignominious end. The book is available for purchase on Amazon for $195, but a May 1988 New York Times review by the late journalist Barbara Grizzuti Harrison clues us into the reported inner world of Harkness as published in the book. First, a brief biography: Born Rebekah Semple West in St. Louis in 1915, Harkness was a divorce whose second marriage was to Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness. Or, at least, a leg, half of . This is where Rebekah really started getting a tarnished reputation, and things got so bad that no amount of money could fix her downfall. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. Why? Join thousands of others and start your morning with our Fact Of The Day newsletter. When she died in 1982, Harkness had demanded her ashes be put in a $250,000 jeweled Salvador Dal urn. Besides despising Rebekahs children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. Extravagant Facts About Barbara Hutton, The Poor Little Rich Girl, Tragic Facts About Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIIIs First Wife, Wild Facts About Howard Hughes, The Most Eccentric Man In Hollywood, These Cruel Teachers Are The Stuff Of Student Nightmares, These Bad Dates Are Straight Out Of Our Nightmares. Walker & Co. with George Herbert Walker, grandfather and great-grandfather of the Bush presidents. Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet in 1966. . Rebekah struggled with drugs and alcohol. Taylor Swift's, new song titled 'The Last Great American Dynasty' is about Rebekah Harkness, the scandal-ridden socialite who once owned the Watch Hill, Rhode Island mansion Swift purchased in 2013 Not really. Harkness later admitted that she married the poor schmuck because she had nothing else to do. In fact, Rebekah had a much loftierand extravagantdestiny in mind for herself. A New York Times article described Harkness's unusual upbringing. She also helped discover and train many acclaimed dancers, regardless of their race, background or body shape. Want to share other feedback? [19] They divorced in 1977. Much of their marriage dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the straight and narrow. People called it the Taylor Swift Tax, though it never became law. 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 . All rights reserved. The socialite was born in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. Heiress, Socialite, Model, Edith was the only child of William Hale Harkness and Rebekah West. She attended finishing school at Fermata in Aiken, South Carolina, from 1929 to 1932, before pursuing advanced instruction in harmonic . The story of Rebekah Harkness is way more complicated than Taylor Swift lets on. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. 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. They dubbed themselves the [W]itch Pack and, after graduating in 1932, set about trying to wreak havoc on the socialite scene, one gala at a time. She retaliated by dying a neighbors cat green. She married her second husband, Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, in 1947. To zero peoples surprise, the Harkness family was utterly dysfunctional. Rebekah Harkness was one of the world's richest women, the Standard Oil heiress and founding patron of the Harkness Ballet. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). Though Harkness took those nasty testosterone injections to strengthen her body for dance, the medicine actually had the opposite effect. Taylor Swift tells the story of "The Last Great American Dynasty" in her Folklore track about one of the wealthiest women in America, Rebekah West Harkness. I don't want this screaming baby over my room! She applied herself with a rigid, frightening discipline that would become her trademark later in life. The Holiday House property was divided into three lots, according to Watch Hill Through Time. Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. (Her reasoning was thus: I hope the beauty of Harkness House will persuade some of these people that ballet need not be dingy and that by their patronage they are contributing to the splendid and glamorous.) Yet disagreements over artistic direction led to the companys disbanding in 1970. When she got out, she sold her Palisades mansion to the Isley Brothers. Once she pretended to be a cleaning woman and approached the reclusive J.D. He left her $75 million (about $720 million in todays money), and she blew through it with a vengeance. Eolia was one of their seven homes and reputed . A week after her death on June 17, 1982, the mortal remains of Rebekah Harkness were toted home by her older daughter Terry in a Gristede's shopping bag. Craig Unger, a former editor at New York magazine, appears to be dazzled by all this, although it is sometimes hard to tell whether his breathlessness arises from approval, disapproval, sadness, awe or simple bewilderment. [9][14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. When Harkness planned to put Angels nursery over top of his room, Scevers snapped, Let the little creature die! Unfortunately, he was one of the few people still by Harknesss side when the end came. St. Louis, MO 63119 With thanks to Blue Blood by Craig Unger and The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company by Sasha Anawalt. [18], In 1974, she married Niels H. Lauersen, another physician, who was 20 years her junior. 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