''We were the loved ones.'' Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. Money cant buy sense, and apparently Harknesss designer urn was far too small for her actual remains. In 1973, at 36 and with his grad-student days not far behind him, Lauersen married 58-year-old Rebekah Harkness, widow to William Hale Harkness, of the Harkness philanthropic dynasty. They didn't fit: ''Just a leg is in there, or maybe half of her head, and an arm,'' said one of Rebekah's friends. Nine servants and three cooks kept the place running. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet in 1966. He died just seven years later, left her around $75 million, and like the song says, she became "the maddest woman [the] town has ever seen." In the most fabulous way possible, of course. Rebekah and Bill Harkness had one daughter, Edith. Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks and Andrew Mellon owned homes there. After two years, Rebekah Harkness suddenly cut her ties to the Joffrey when Robert Joffrey, its founder and choreographer, wouldnt rename his company for her. 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.. She didnt help herself with her capriciousness. [16], In 1961, Harkness married Ben Kean (c.19121993),[17] a physician who was a professor of Tropical Medicine at the Cornell Medical College. It was the second marriage for both of them. The reason behind this is pure cruelty. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. But she annoyed the neighbors, alienated her children and provided a tempting target for critics. The critics, especially the New York Times Clive Barnes, savaged Rebekah. The 1982 case is mentioned in journalist Craig Unger's biography of Annabelle's mother, Rebekah Harkness, called "Blue Blood." The book, published in 1988, offers an unflattering snapshot . At Factinate, were dedicated to getting things right. [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. Before she passed, the socialite spent $250,000 to commission a bedazzled urn from none other than Salvador Dali. 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. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. Taylor Swift and Rebekah Harkness may have been born decades apart, but it seems they shared a talent for dominating the headlines. Yet its also impossible to avoid drawing parallels between Swift and Harkness. In 1957, Harkness keeled over at Holiday House while sitting for a sculpture Rebekah was working on, dead from a heart attack. (''I'm glad Edith is gone,'' said the unquenchable Bobby Scevers. But behind her perfect faade lies a chilling history. William Hale Harkness When she went to the doctors office, they found a frightening problem. 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. She once served them a cake with $10 bills baked into it. He was not convinced. The Harkness family had a reputation for its philanthropy. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. Rebekah Harkness, as seen in the December 1956 issue of. The Harknesses were married for a brief periodjust seven years. Shutterstock Advertisement 17. According to one story, Harknesss adoration for her grandchild vanished almost overnight. Equipped with a ludicrous amount of self-confidence, she did something supremely stupid. Mary and Edward Harkness were married in 1904. Lets start from the beginning. ''You see,'' she said. [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. Rebekahs son Allen once confessed how truly disturbing and sycophantic his mothers social circle was, describing the blackmailing lawyers, the weirdos, the people in the trances. Harkness also knew how to keep all of her adoring public in competition with each other, with each one of her lackies vying to become the favorite. Before her passing, she picked up her most dedicatedand most heartlessfan yet. Edith often used her mothers many, many pills to perform these attemptsand Rebekah was anything but empathetic. As yet another troubled member of the family, Allen had gotten into a fight, slain a man, and was eventually sentenced with manslaughter. 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. Today its pretty much forgotten, despite the tens of millions of dollars she spent on it. Her youngest daughter, Edith, had tried to commit suicide at the age of 15 by flinging herself out of a high rise in front of her. For what its worth, Allen called the years he spent in the clinkerand away from his motherthe happiest of his life.. 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. The only problem was that the urn was too small. She retaliated by dying a neighbors cat green. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Swift wrote and recorded a new album called Folklore. [18], In 1974, she married Niels H. Lauersen, another physician, who was 20 years her junior. Well, Rebekah Harkness was not to be outdone by anyone, and she commissioned her own Harkness Blue, which she used to upholster the velvet Louis XIV-style chairs she had placed in her dance studio. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. In 1974, Harkness married again, this time to another doctor named Niels H. Lauersen. According to her biographer, Craig Unger, Rebekah Harkness led a life littered with high Gothic tragedy. She was a poor little rich girl, and by the end of her life, she wasnt that rich. She also studied orchestration with Lee Hoiby and received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire, in 1968.[12]. All Rights Reserved. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. Her first major contributions were helping to fund the early . Christians have a tendency to do two things when exploring Jesus' death: downplay the role of the state, and interpret Jesus' feud with the Pharisees, in very anti-Semitic terms. (Watch it here.). Materials. ''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.''. So in 1977 she checked into Silver Hill, a rehab clinic in New Canaan, Conn. 1944). He appears to have been an embarrassing sort of man; he wrote and privately published a book called ''Totem and Topees,'' which he described as a ''conglomeration of uninteresting misinformation,'' and followed that with a book called ''Ho hum, the Fisherman,'' which, he said, did not ''have the excuse even of literary merit.'' We have estimated Rebekah Harkness's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. By Elise Taylor. REBEKAH HARKNESS earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in social work from the University of Utah. 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.. When she erected a giant blue geodesic dome on her lawn, they sued her for zoning violations. The New York Times described him as an embarrassing sort of man, and his hobbies completely back this up. Harkness, fittingly, belonged to an American dynasty. Where Harkness had her Bitch Pack, Swifts group of friends had a much-scrutinized squad. A philanthropist. She would also fill her lavish fish tanks with Scotch, even as living goldfish swam in them. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from Life to Compact Cars and Trucks to A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius. Well get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics youre interested in. Let the little creature die!'' 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. .more Get A Copy From . Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. ''I can't believe it took her this long to succeed.'') I knew of two other Harkness children and supposed that they belonged to the first marriage but now I know they were Rebekah's children by Allen . Illustrated. He left her $75 million (about $720 million in todays money), and she blew through it with a vengeance. According to Scevers, It was complete chaoseverybody running around signing wills and trying on different wigs. And when Rebekah actually passed on June 17, 1982, things only got weirder from there. All of the work and much of the music was original. Not just going to performances, but sponsoring entire ballet companies, buying up real estate for them and sending them on world tours. She even started a company of her own in 1964: the Harkness Ballet. In 1961, Harkness gave love another shot, marrying the prominent celebrity doctor Benjamin Harrison Kean. In 1956, Harkness burst onto the high society scene after. 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. One day, Harknesss antics were so extreme that they got her kicked off a cruise ship. . The most tragic detail? Rebekah Harkness Rebekah Harkness (1915-1982) Rebekah Harkness, born Rebekah Semple West, was one of the foremost American patrons of dance. West co-founded G.H. Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a spoiled little rich girl. And one particular woman-behaving-badly, eccentric socialite and arts patron Rebekah Harkness, surely would not have made pop music history as the inspiration for track 3 on Taylor Swift's critically acclaimed new surprise album, Folklore, if she hadn't gotten up to so many misadventures. $ 25.93. 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. Unfit for mothering, unfit for ordinary love, unfit - untrained - to be the caretaker of a great fortune, was she altogether silly or altogether bad? Making distraction rewarding since 2017. She used much of her inheritance to become a patron of the ballet, as well as to compose music. She said she married her first, photographer Dickson Pierce, because she had nothing else to do. No surprise, that union ended in divorce. Though the Harkness Ballet was floundering, there was one brilliant choreographer, Larry Rhodes, who received good press. Or, at least, a leg, half of her. Anne married Anthony McBride in 1966[1] and had a severely brain-damaged baby who died at age 10. Her son, Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder. She had a salon of sorts. Harkness had quite the life according to The New York Times (opens in new tab) . Yet this came with great tragedy: The baby, named Angel, was severely brain-damaged. She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. 432 pp. One could almost feel sorry for her. Now, a grown woman can do whatever she wants in her own bed, but this was a strange choiceand not because of the age gap. He later said his time in prison was the happiest of his life. Salinger, hoping to convince him his stories should be set to her music. ''Money can buy anything.'' Rebekah died on 17 June 1982 in Manhattan, New York, USA. Rebekah was previously married to Niels H. Lauersen, Benjamin Harrison Kean, William Hale Harkness and Dickson W. Pierce. Taylor Swift has once . They called her ballets worthless, her music crap. Besides despising Rebekahs children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. 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. Rebekah Harkness had ambition and drive. For one, her emotionally frigid parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with raising her. Husbands hiding things from wives, mothers from children, and generation from generation. Was she power or pawn? (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.) Watch Hill Harbor By Stephg82988 Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23370833. Harkness definitely wasnt the most fiscally-responsible business woman, but she does have the distinction of being the strangest girl-boss in history. Still, when you marry for money, you earn every penny. BOX 191606 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. Aw, how sweet. Live better 1944). 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. The Pack didnt stop at putting poisonous substances into punch bowls; they also got very rowdy at these gatherings. Though Harkness took those nasty testosterone injections to strengthen her body for dance, the medicine actually had the opposite effect. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. He had a daughter and a granddaughter who became the actress Elizabeth Montgomery. Besides taking pills, the poor girl also jumped off a roof on at least one occasion, and in response, Harkness only mused at her daughters various attempts. $ 18.79. Rebekah Harkness' antics annoyed her neighbors, while Jesus' antics got him murdered by the state and by some religious leaders. ''Blue Blood'' is edifying only insofar as it raises questions about what a biography should be. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. 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 the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. 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. . In recent years, Harkness has gained new fameor infamybecause of her connection to Taylor Swift. She dyed a cat green. Dancer Lawrence Rhodes said it was one of the few times he was embarrassed to be in a ballet. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Now she has one more posthumous title: muse. And how in the world did she get that way? [1] Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company. The same fate befell the popular tunes she composed. Rebekah Harkness spent much of the Standard Oil fortune she inherited on the ballet. She once dressed as a waitress at one of them so she could eavesdrop on the guests. ''Kiss me,'' she commanded. [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. They performed a strip tease at a social event and put mineral oil into the punch bowl at a coming-out party. Family Members. Her children, not so much. 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. She started by bringing the company to Watch Hill (despite the neighbors) in the summer for instruction, practice and choreography. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. Edith spent her life in and out of mental institutions, finally committing suicide in 1982. 1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. $ 12.19. Or, at least, a leg, half of . It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. An avid dance enthusiast who had studied ballet and Spanish dance, her second marriage - to Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness - made her one of the wealthiest women in America. Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. 11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Rebekah Harkness, American composer, sculptor, and. So what did she do? (Yes, the seaside mansion that was the setting for Taymerica.) She maintains an online podcast that is available on iTunes or online at http://playerplaza.podbean.com . She was brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. I don't want this screaming baby over my room! In addition to the three kids she has with Jamie, Rebekah has two children, Megan and Taylor, from previous relationships. Wade, teaches a dance school for children and directs 2 dance companies, one providing performing opportunities for children and one for adults. Mary took a portion of the estate to start Camp Harkness in 1920 for children with polio. 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. Rebekah Harkness keeps his personal and love life private. It donated Harkness Tower at Yale, Harkness Commons at Harvard and Harkness Pavilion at New York Hospital. It bought her the services of George Skibine, Marjorie Tallchief, Alvin Ailey, Erik Bruhn and Andy Warhol, but it did not guarantee her success. Being a patron of the ballet was Rebekahs passion. Rocky Finds His Heart. Guests would find needles in her bathrooms, their walls spattered with blood. People already thought she had betrayed Joffrey, but they now watched in horror as she ran her ballet into the ground. With that, Rebekahs unconditional love evaporated. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). Half sister of Private; Private and Anne T. McBride. She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. , teaches a dance school for children with polio for booze and pills undid her, '' the. Her first, photographer Dickson Pierce, because she had nothing else to do site constitutes acceptance of our Agreement! Biographer, Craig Unger, Rebekah Harkness was practically destined to become a little... Times he was behind the bars of a vast number of properties, and she through! Thirsted for acclaim as a waitress at one of them the New York,.. The estate to start Camp Harkness in 1920 for children and provided tempting! The mark, Let the little creature die, Craig Unger, proved... Doctor named Niels H. Lauersen, another physician, who received good press, we sometimes miss mark... 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