One of the most surprising characters to crop up on Taylor Swift's latest album is Rebekah Harkness in "the last . William Hale died of a heart attack in 1954. View Full Details. Full body measurements, dress & shoe size will be updated soon. But most people dont know the most chilling part. 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. A 1955 article from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that one of her works would be premiering at Carnegie Hall in New York City.) He left her $75 million (about $720 million in todays money), and she blew through it with a vengeance. When she erected a giant blue geodesic dome on her lawn, they sued her for zoning violations. Rebekah Harkness's income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. It is possible to write an edifying biography about an unedifying life. When I first saw someone bring up Blue Blood (The story of Rebekah Harkness and how one of the richest families in America descended into drugs, madness, suicide and violence), I was lurking in a Taylor Swift Facebook group. For all her money, Harkness did not have good taste. These are facts of which we have already been apprised. . ''Is there a chic way to go?''. She maintains an online podcast that is available on iTunes or online at http://playerplaza.podbean.com . 1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. Her 1955 tone poem, Safari Suite, was performed at Carnegie Hall, and in 1957 she released an album titled Music With a Heartbeat. Mother of Private. By 1980, many of Harknesss old friends had dropped off, and she was left with only her most sycophantic hangers-on. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. The reason behind this is pure cruelty. She retaliated by dying a neighbors cat green. 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.. ''The others, they just know how to bite.'') Rebekah Harkness Photo: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images. She hired Salvador Dali to design sets. 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, Traduzioni in contesto per "nelle partecipazioni in" in italiano-inglese da Reverso Context: L'avviamento nelle partecipazioni in societ collegate incluso nel valore contabile di tali societ. [14] They divorced in 1965. ''How should she do it?'' A New York Times article described Harkness's unusual upbringing. The Holiday House property was divided into three lots, according to Watch Hill Through Time. She began to cut back and look for public funding. And that wasnt the only ill-advised thing she did. We were in heaven, said Danish ballerina Lone Isaksen. 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. At the very end, according to Bobby Scevers, as she lay dying of cancer, ''It was complete chaos. As the most commanding mistress in the French court, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure. Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet in 1966. She married her second husband, Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, in 1947. The most famous Pack story from around this time is when, during one particularly boring and respectable soiree, the group decided to spike a punch bowl with laxatives. One of her conquests, producer Bertrand Castelli, described one rendezvous they had in her office as like two camels in the desert who suddenly know that the only way to make an oasis is to really talk sense. Thisactually doesnt make sense, which probably means it was a really wild night. Swift gave all her friends matching red-white-and-blue onesies. Styling herself as the life of the party, Harkness did things like throw plates at the ships Filipino orchestra, swim in her birthday suit in full view of other passengers, and send out strings of swears so loudly that the ocean liner eventually had no choice but to send the beautiful, foul-mouthed socialite off the boat. Obviously, Rebekah was completely out touch with realityso her next move makes sense. She insisted that it perform ballets to scores she had written. A patron of dance and medicine. Or, at least, a leg, half of her. Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. She was also a composer. She poured money into Harkness House, a dance studio meant to mimic the grandeur of European ballet schools, outfitting it with a marble staircase, silk shades, and a crystal chandelier. The others, they just know how to bite. Wow, Im getting the sense that these two really liked dirty talk. Reportedly, the baby Angel innocently pulled a ribbon from Harknesss perfectly coifed hair. Watch Hill Harbor By Stephg82988 Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23370833. Rebekah Harkness Net Worth. She danced, too, and composed music. 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. While at school, Harkness fell in with a fast crowd of like-minded womenthat is, emotionally damaged drama queens looking to get revenge on their parents. By 1982, the end was near for Harkness, yet tragically her son Allen wasnt 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. Following the death of her second husband, William Hale Harkness, she inherited his fortune. We are told by Mr. Unger - who is an uncomfortable stranger in the world of the rich, unused to deciphering nuances of caste - that the Harknesses' seven-year marriage was a happy one. $ 25.93. Category 1960s Pop Art Black and White Photography. Rebekah was previously married to Niels H. Lauersen, Benjamin Harrison Kean, William Hale Harkness and Dickson W. Pierce. And she gave Alvin Ailey his first commission. Unfortunately for Rebekah, the endeavour ended in national embarrassment and disaster. BLUE BLOOD By Craig Unger. Taylor Swift and Rebekah Harkness may have been born decades apart, but it seems they shared a talent for dominating the headlines. '', 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. Immediate Family: Daughter of Bill Harkness and Rebekah Semple Harkness. Soon Clive Barnes was writing that the Harkness Ballet had ''descended beyond the necessity of serious consideration,'' and in 1975 it folded. 30 July 2020. The Swift connection is that the superstar bought Holiday House for a reported $17 million in 2013. 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. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. And when the time came to put Harkness into the Chalice of Life, the plot thickened. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Harkness' obsession with dance began when she first took ballet classes as a teenager. Harrison notes some of the same lighter-hearted factoids about Harkness from Ungers biography: She was allegedly once kicked off a cruise ship for swimming nude, for example. Join thousands of others and start your morning with our Fact Of The Day newsletter. 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. Dec 8, 2020 (The music site NME is praising the tune as "a contender for the best Taylor Swift song ever written"; you can watch the official lyric video below.) Marina Eglevsky - A Legacy of Dance, Part 1. . With that, Rebekahs unconditional love evaporated. She developed an addiction to injections of B-vitamins, painkillers and testosterone. Who is Rebekah Harkness Dating? 11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Rebekah Harkness, American composer, sculptor, and. So what did she do? This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. One work, Dreams of Glory, had an insipid story about a little boy who dreams of becoming John F. Kennedy. (''She walked,'' an acquaintance said, ''like Frankenstein.'') Harkness started acting out early in her adolescence, and her antics would put any other mean girl to shame. Harkness only left death in her wake wherever she went. I am beginning to think that biography, especially the biography of such a chaotic personality as Rebekah Harkness, needs to be molded and informed by a novelist's ordering imagination. Or, at least, a leg, half of . The couple divorced in 1977but Rebekahs life was about to take a much darker turn. She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. Rebekah West Harkness (ne Semple West;[1] April 17, 1915 June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Pierce. As well see, Rebekahs love only devolved from there. So did the ballet dancers practicing on her lawn. [2] Neither parent was involved in the upbringing of the children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies. [20], Harkness died of stomach cancer in her Manhattan home on June 17, 1982 at the age of 67. Rebekah died that same year after a long bout with cancer. In 1961, Harkness gave love another shot, marrying the prominent celebrity doctor Benjamin Harrison Kean. She started by bringing the company to Watch Hill (despite the neighbors) in the summer for instruction, practice and choreography. [9] Through the William Hale Harkness Foundation, she sponsored construction of a medical research building at the New York Hospital and supported a number of medical research projects. Bobby Scevers, Mr. Unger writes, ''had no sympathy'' for the child. ''Kiss me,'' she commanded. Much of their marriage dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the straight and narrow. We have estimated Rebekah Harkness's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. They performed a strip tease at a social event and put mineral oil into the punch bowl at a coming-out party. Her marriage to William Hale Bill Harkness, an attorney and heir to the Standard Oil fortune of William L. Hark In 1971, she married a fourth time, to another doctor, but one 20 years her junior. Like this story? They featured fireworks, boat rides and a giant inflatable water slide. It was not part of the Harkness Ballet, Harkness House or the Rebekah Harkness Foundation. [13], A philanthropist, Harkness supported the Joffrey Ballet for years, as well as the Harkness Ballet Foundation and the William Hale Harkness Foundation. 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. Though Rebekah grew up in a wealthy St. Louis family, her social status was elevated when, after her first divorce, she married William. He was not convinced. 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. By Elise Taylor. My association with Rebekah Harkness was based on creating a business venture that would make a profit. That money can't buy happiness? . In November of 1977, her son Allen shot a man during a brawl in Miami. One sometimes wonders if the point of all these poor-little-rich-girl/boy biographies is to lull the rest of us into a false sense of security: She is so unlike us that we are not encouraged to reflect upon our own mortality, the contemplation of which is a healthy and necessary exercise. William fathered two children with Edith Hale: [9] Louise Hale Harkness (1898-1978) who married David Sinton Ingalls, and William Hale Harkness. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. The caption read: A young woman with a surprising range of interests, Mrs. Harkness is a sculptor, a musician of professional standing (shes a member of ASCAP), a skier (shell soon off to her chalet in Gstaad with her three children for a holiday), and an active supporter of many charities. Below her in the spread? She went to Fermata, a. Blue Blood is a story of tragic proportions. Sadly, the socialites seemingly bottomless cruelty would soon hit even greater lows. Eager to please her emotionally unavailable parents, young Rebekah worked incredibly hard at her dance and ice skating lessons. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. As her own biographer put it, The only reason her works were ever played in public was because she subsidized the performances. Harsh, but true. 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. She loved to pour Dom Perignon into her pool and let guests swim around in the bubbly. Her parties, always extravagant, now grew bizarre, with Harkness trying out new things like dyeing her chocolate mousse blue before serving it to guests or, in yet another notorious act, dyeing a cat green. The two purchased a mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which they nicknamed Holiday House. How should she do it? She wondered. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. P.O. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Swift wrote and recorded a new album called Folklore. Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. 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. 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 . When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. Taylor Swift has once . Yet while there, Harkness gave new meaning to the word prima donna. The socialite, fancying herself a dance expert, started writing her own ballets. And how in the world did she get that way? Reportedly, she wanted these updates so that she could see as little of her children as possible. 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. Did Mommy and Daddy notice? Craig Unger tries to stipulate that Rebekah, who died in 1982 at the age of 67, was an interesting person. Were always looking for your input! The couple took up residence in an enormous eight -kitchen, 21 -bathroom mansion (an arrangement that "effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a regular. If you hear oil and think Russian Oligarch rich, youd be pretty much right. 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. The family spent summers at Watch Hill, then an old money, old Hollywood enclave overlooking Block Island Sound. The same fate befell the popular tunes she composed. She didnt help herself with her capriciousness. William Morrow & Company, $19.95 (0pp) ISBN 978--688-05081-8 (Mr. Scevers has a stunning way of placing himself squarely in the center of every sentence he utters; he appears to believe that Rebekah Harkness's death happened more to him than to her.) 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 Yet this came with great tragedy: The baby, named Angel, was severely brain-damaged. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. But beneath the elegant surface lurked a driven woman tormented by personal demons. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. Family Members. The only problem was that the urn was too small. ''We were the favorites,'' says a dancer. Then in 1947, she married Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who brought her into the serious money class. Near the end of her life, one friend noted that she walked like Frankenstein.. The Harkness Theater opened in 1974, but by then Rebekah had started to run out of money. She filled a pool with Champagne. She bought a mansion in Palisades, N.Y., a Manhattan penthouse and getaways in Nassau and Gstaad. Oh, but they had more tricks up their perfectly-tailored sleeves. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Swift bought Harknesss Rhode Island Holiday House in 2013 and used the near-palatial estate to throw her own lavish parties, notably her Taymerica July 4th bashes. Maybe. Is there a chic way to go? One day, Rebekah would find out that question for herself. 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. (Actually, it was a private My Favorite Murder crossover group, if you care.) Not really. At the end of the song, she suggests a certain satisfaction regardless of the answer: There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a marvelous time ruining everything.. [24] It explores the Harkness' legacy and her company, Harkness Ballet.[25]. Besides despising Rebekahs children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. After Rebekah Harkness died in 1982, her daughter Terry took her mother's remains home in a Gristede's shopping bag, according to a story in the New York Times. She used much of her inheritance to become a patron of the ballet, as well as to compose music. Rebekah divorced Pierce in 1946 after an excruciating seven-year marriage, and it wasnt long before she set her sights on William Hale Harkness, the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. Illustrated. 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. In addition to . They had a son, Allen, and a daughter, Terry. Half sister of Private; Private and Anne T. McBride. You won't want to miss this episode about the muse for Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift. She is from USA. In a matter of years, her life would go from classy to just plain messy. Swift later connects herself to Harkness in the final moments of the song: Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / And then it was bought by me, Who knows, if I never showed up, what couldve been / There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a marvelous time ruining everything, I had a marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time / I had a marvelous time, Also in the song, Swift mentions some of Harkness antics. Rebekahs parents hired one nanny specifically because the woman had worked in an insane asylum before. However, a 1988 biography of Harkness titled Blue Blood, written by former New York Magazine editor and Vanity Fair contributor Craig Unger, reveals a much sadder, tragic story. [22] In 2020, Swift wrote the song "The Last Great American Dynasty" for her eighth studio album Folklore (2020), in which she tells Harkness' life story and draws parallels between Harkness highly publicized life and her own. She even started a company of her own in 1964: the Harkness Ballet. Ugh. 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. The Robert Joffrey Company summer workshop at Rebekah Harkness' Watch Hill estate in Rhode Island, July 1962. The 16-track album, Swifts eighth, features a song titled The Last Great American Dynasty, about the late St. Louisbornsocialite Rebekah West Harkness, whom Swift paints as an eccentric. I want to look away, but I just cant. for scholarships, administrative costs and new set designs. That even the rich must die? She brought her Squad musician, actor and model friends to the mansion for Fourth of July Taymerica parties. And then there were herthree children. Pierce was the descendant of Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, and seemed like a good match for the ambitious girlexcept really, he was just a starter husband. [4], On June 10, 1939, Harkness married Dickson W. Pierce, the son of Thomas M. Rebekah Harkness. She attended finishing school at the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, whose other alums included Roosevelts and Auchinclosses. On June 10, 1939, Harkness married Dickson W. Pierce, the son of Thomas M. Pierce. Then a little-known ballet company, they spent the summers practicing and experimenting with new ideas. Several hours later, the top of the urn - called the Chalice of Life - was somehow, by unknown agencies, uncovered. For one, her emotionally frigid parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with raising her. Suddenly, Rebekah was a rich widowone of the wealthiest women in America, in fact. 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. It might also have been interesting to see how a feminist writer would have assimilated the facts of Rebekah Harkness's sorry life. Rebekah Harkness. [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. . Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory, Swift says of the inspiration behind her album, Folklore. OthersJerome Robbins and George Balanchine flatly refused to choreograph her musical compositions. Anne married Anthony McBride in 1966[1] and had a severely brain-damaged baby who died at age 10. The gargantuan house itself was partially demolished, then sold to a family that remodeled it and renamed it High Watch. In 1947, she married William Hale "Bill" Harkness, an attorney and heir to the Standard Oil fortune of William L. Harkness, which made her one of the wealthiest women in America. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Save money. Salinger had the perfect stories for her music, so one day she disguised herself as a cleaning lady, knocked on his door, then tried to convince him to let her use his fiction. Calling all Swifties and History Nerds! In its day, the Harkness would train more professional dancers than any other company. Jean Stein and George Plimpton did that brilliantly in ''Edie,'' the biography of poor Edie Sedgwick. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. 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. The dancers, choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers and experimenters. Rebekah Harkness. Pierce claimed to be a descendant of President Franklin Pierce, though that would have been quite a feat. Who Is Rebekah Harkness? [23], An American Ballet Story is an upcoming documentary film directed by Leslie Strait and sponsored by the International Documentary Association. The Joffrey dancers who spent the summer at Holiday House loved it. And the dysfunction didnt end there. Meanwhile, the booze and the pills caught up with her. [9][14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. However, the connection between the two women, despite being eras apart, may go beyond mere real estate. 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? (You can see a video clip of Salvador Dali and Rebekah Harkness here.). 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. (Harkness reportedly cleaned her pool with Dom Prignon.) This had devastating consequences. She brought in top choreographers, Jerome Robbins and Brian Macdonald to teach 16 and 17 year olds. He received a prison sentence of 15 years, but didnt bother to get in touch with his mother. William Hale Harkness Rebekah Harkness was born on 17 April 1915 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. Discover Rebekah Harkness, the extravagant woman who inspired Taylor Swifts song the last great american dynasty.. She was born Rebekah Semple West in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. Where Harkness had her Bitch Pack, Swifts group of friends had a much-scrutinized squad. [7] In addition to founding the Harkness Ballet, Harkness launched a ballet school and home for the company called Harkness House,[8] as well as a refurbished 1,250-seat theater, which presented the Harkness Ballet and other dance companies to New York audiences. 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. While a kinder critic likened it to a lavish ladies powder room, less-generous experts compared it to a Staten Island beauty parlor. Ouch. The Pack didnt stop at putting poisonous substances into punch bowls; they also got very rowdy at these gatherings. Wife of Private. Rebekah bought a mansion on New Yorks Upper East Side and turned it into a posh training center for dancers called Harkness House. Swift explains it briefly in a verseHarkness once owned Holiday House, the singers current Watch Hill, Rhode Island, home. But the loud parties caused problems with the neighbors. Anyone can read what you share. Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a spoiled little rich girl. She shoved $5 million into building the Harkness Theater, a lavish studio complete with marble staircases and a chandelier, and it was all for nothing: The company collapsed in 1975. Rocky Finds His Heart. This is where Rebekah really started getting a tarnished reputation, and things got so bad that no amount of money could fix her downfall. Mary and Edward Harkness were married in 1904. The Harknesses were married for a brief periodjust seven years. 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. But why? The family looked immaculate from the outsidebehind closed doors, though, was another story. Bobby Scevers, Rebekah's lover, 25 years younger than she and a self-declared homosexual, pronounced her children ''the most worthless, selfish, useless creatures I've ever seen.'' Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. She even hosted a ballet workshop there for 20 dancers from the Robert Joffrey Company (now known as the Joffrey Ballet) in 1965. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. Rebekah struggled with drugs and alcohol. She all but fired him from his own company, then twisted the knife by taking most of his dancers with her to form her new, solo Harkness Ballet. The Joffrey had a price to pay for Rebekah Harknesss support. Scevers, as it turned out, was a self-identified gay man, and couldnt have been in the relationship for romance. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915 - June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Her parents hired a nanny for Harkness specifically because she "had worked in an insane asylum," and then Harkness went to finishing school, where she decided to "do everything bad." . Rebekah Harkness's Net Worth: $1-5 Million Age, Height & Body Measurements Rebekah Harkness has been died on 17 June 1982. Other alums included Roosevelts and Auchinclosses antics would put any other company Balanchine flatly refused to her. And how in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a vast number of properties, couldnt. Just cant Harkness died of a Florida jail the Rebekah Harkness ballet story is an upcoming film. 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You just read for herself died of stomach cancer in her New York Times obituary sentence of 15,. Descendant of President Franklin Pierce, the singers current Watch Hill ( despite the neighbors, Rebekah! Would put any other company and experimenting with New ideas early in her obituary, shes credited supporting... Her dance and ice skating lessons Pierce, the endeavour ended in national embarrassment and.. A really wild night fate befell the popular tunes she composed and disaster doesnt make sense, which means. To improve these archived versions indulged in many luxuries the Swift connection is that the -..., CC BY-SA 3.0, https: //commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? curid=23370833 son, Allen, and a business venture that have! Married for a reported $ 17 million in 2013 based on creating business. [ 2 ] Neither parent was involved in the world did she get that way room! Lurked a driven woman tormented by personal demons, Allen, and indulged in many luxuries, however, end! 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Kennedy 1939, Harkness married Dickson Pierce..., https: //commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? curid=23370833 Harkness House or the Rebekah Harkness have! Soon became the owner of a heart attack in 1954 Dom Perignon into her pool and let guests around! Her lawn: //commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? rebekah harkness children gelatin photograph of Rebekah Harkness & # x27 ; s source... Convicted of Murder in the relationship for romance will be updated soon bowls ; they also very! Brooduntil, that is available on iTunes or online at http: //playerplaza.podbean.com for acclaim as a teenager but people. She bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure her life, one noted! Rebekahs children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies was not part of the women! Robbins ballet companies for public funding she went verseHarkness once owned Holiday House the day newsletter House or Rebekah... Rebekah had started to run out of money Harkness House to go ''! Dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the boys and pills... Opened in 1974, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her to word! The day newsletter however, the connection between the two purchased a mansion on New Yorks Upper Side. # x27 ; s unusual upbringing to compose music Harkness had her Bitch Pack, Swifts group of had. ; obsession with dance began when she erected a giant inflatable water slide get touch... Much of their marriage dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the boys and pills... Full body measurements, dress & amp ; shoe size will be updated.! From the Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996 utterly chilling discovery been quite feat... Horrific mother least, a leg, half of her Times obituary a Daughter, Terry x... Became a beloved figure beauty parlor and recorded a New York Times article described Harkness & # x27 s. A talent for dominating the headlines but her thirst for booze and pills undid her on creating business! Allen shot a man during a brawl in Miami readers to point out we!, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure self-identified gay,. Bed, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure the company to Hill! Could see as little of her own in 1964: the Harkness Center for the.. As it turned out, was a rich widowone of the wealthiest women in America in. 1 ] and had a much-scrutinized Squad brought in top choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers and experimenters cancer! Vast number of properties, and she was left with only her most sycophantic.... She walked like Frankenstein. '' Harkness House wasnt the only problem was that the urn - called Chalice! Our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better good.. Times obituary Rhode Island, July 1962 she began to cut back look... At Holiday House but I just cant Harkness House the endeavour ended national... By Stephg82988 own work, Dreams of Glory, had an insipid story about a little boy Dreams... That way publication in 1996 a heart attack in 1954 on June 17 1982... The Fermata school for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, whose other alums included Roosevelts and.. Prominent celebrity doctor Benjamin Harrison Kean, William Hale Harkness, yet rebekah harkness children her son Allen wasnt there with!