Immediate Family: Daughter of Bill Harkness and Rebekah Semple Harkness. Category 1960s Pop Art Black and White Photography. After his brief interlude in the oasis, Mr. Castelli was made the artistic director of the Harkness Ballet. Scevers, as it turned out, was a self-identified gay man, and couldnt have been in the relationship for romance. Oh my God, the question here is: What didnt she do? 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. 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. A philanthropist. I knew that she was going to take it badly, but I had no idea about the insane lengths she would go to just to get revenge and mess with my life. De . See, Rebekah thought that notoriously reclusive writer J.D. Harkness' passions for dance and music followed her into adulthood. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915 June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. The parties continued when she brought the entire Joffrey to Watch Hill in 1962 and 1963. [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. $ 25.93. 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? [2] Neither parent was involved in the upbringing of the children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies. She once demanded Castelli to, Kiss me. Her body had been slowly falling into disrepairthose injections hurt far more than they helpedand she started complaining of a mysterious stomach ailment. Because of her misused muscles and her extravagant dependence on testosterone, Harkness began to lose her dancers elegance. "Anne Pierce, 1962 Debutante, Married to Anthony McBride", "Rebekah West Harkness, 67, Patron of Dance and Medicine", "Harkness, Rebekah (19151982) | Encyclopedia.com", "Harkness Ballet Takes the Bid Step to Broadway", "Patrician of the Dance; Rebekah West Harkness", "The Dance: Rebekah Harkness Ballet Goes Dutch; Madrigalesco' Given American Premiere 3 Other Works Offered as Troupe Returns", "Harkness House Opened as Home For Ballet Arts; Lynda Johnson Attends -- City s Medal Given To Woman Donor", "The Humble Beginnings Of an Elegant Mansion", "The story of Rebekah Harkness is way more complicated than Taylor Swift lets on", "Miss Edith H. Harkness Wed To Kenneth Mckinnon, Lawyer", "Benjamin H. Kean, Shah's Physician, Dies at 81", "Notes on People; Gov. (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.) A terrible story is told here. Rebekah Harkness Photo: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images. Like this story? 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. Their antics soon became legendary. They had a son, Allen, and a daughter, Terry. Rebekah and Bill Harkness had one daughter, Edith. I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. This is where Rebekah really started getting a tarnished reputation, and things got so bad that no amount of money could fix her downfall. The ashes were placed in a $250,000 jeweled urn made by Salvador Dali. We are meant to take comfort and a measure of relief from our difference - though, as we know but do not frequently wish to remember, the grave awaits us all. Latest News on Rebekah Harkness . Wealthy, elegant, and beautiful, Harkness seemed to have it allfrom her oil baron husband to her notoriously raucous parties. [4] Harkness also surrounded herself with other well-known creatives, like yogi B.K.S. One of her administrators described how Harkness would come to the office in pink and blue leotards, literally stand on her head, and demand to have serious conversations while she performed her acrobatic work. Live better Dec 8, 2020 Harkness took up dancing and ice skating to lose weight and was highly disciplined in both endeavors. 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. . Romance and heartbreak (and revenge) ballads make up the primary focus of most albums; however, her newest album, Folklore, which debuted today, features a song, titled "The Last Great American Dynasty," about a New England philanthropist and patron of the arts, Rebekah West Harkness. Rebekah Harkness, as seen in the December 1956 issue of. Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company, ensuring she grew up comfortably. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIIIs rejected queenbut few people know her even darker history. It makes no sense - and no sense is made of it. The others, they just know how to bite. Wow, Im getting the sense that these two really liked dirty talk. Rebekah Harkness asked. Pierce. And the dysfunction didnt end there. Harkness was jealous to an absolute fault, and even to her own detriment. 1944). By James Crowley On 7/24/20 at 12:22 PM EDT. After that, Rebekah really let it all hang out. She even hosted a ballet workshop there for 20 dancers from the Robert Joffrey Company (now known as the Joffrey Ballet) in 1965. By 1956, she had even snagged a photo spread in Vogue, appearing in a neat, black Mainbocher dress with a white satin apron at her back. Instead, she was reared by a series of nanniesand thats not even the worst part. Eolia was one of their seven homes and reputed . This story was updated in 2022. Then in 1947, she married Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who brought her into the serious money class. 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. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. . Several hours later, the top of the urn - called the Chalice of Life - was somehow, by unknown agencies, uncovered. Yet this came with great tragedy: The baby, named Angel, was severely brain-damaged. So what did she do? (Perhaps this is a tale that inspired the Swift lyric, She had a marvelous time ruining everything.) Fittingly, she and her finishing school friends dubbed themselves the Bitch Pack. People reported that Harknesss lavish marble bathrooms were often splattered with blood, and that her muscles had begun to calcify. The Remarkable Tale of Grace Kellys Two Engagement Rings, The Prince and Princess of Wales Have a Rare PDA Moment at the BAFTAs, Emma Mackey on Channelling the Spirit of Emily Bront for Frances OConnors Not-Quite-Biopic, How Carolyn Bessette-Kennedys Favorite Prada Bag Became a Forever Classic, My Surreal Years Tutoring the Children of the Super-Rich. William Hale died of a heart attack in 1954. In December 1956, she even appeared in the pages of Vogue. Unfortunately for Rebekah, the endeavour ended in national embarrassment and disaster. The building, according to Craig Unger, the author of this rich-man/eye-of-the-needle biography, was in a state of putrefaction, ''crumbling like Tara after the Civil War.'' Their wedding took place at 730 Park Avenue, which was Williams apartment. But according to An American Ballet Story. 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. He received a prison sentence of 15 years, but didnt bother to get in touch with his mother. At the same time, she studied music composition and dance. Rebekah had always been well-off as a childas you might guess from the string of nannies who raised herbut marrying William Harkness thrust her into an entirely different tier of high society. The couple divorced in 1977but Rebekahs life was about to take a much darker turn. Harkness definitely wasnt the most fiscally-responsible business woman, but she does have the distinction of being the strangest girl-boss in history. The rich socialite whose judgment sometimes lapsed was just too good a target. Wade, teaches a dance school for children and directs 2 dance companies, one providing performing opportunities for children and one for adults. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. And she was just getting started. Edith often used her mothers many, many pills to perform these attemptsand Rebekah was anything but empathetic. Why? 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 She maintains an online podcast that is available on iTunes or online at http://playerplaza.podbean.com . She was born April 17, 1915 to a wealthy St. Louis stockbroker Allen Tarwater West and his trophy wife Rebekah. Harkness had quite the life according to The New York Times (opens in new tab) . 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. He was in prison. . When Harkness offered to pay Ella Fitzgerald to sing some of her pop songs, Fitzgerald wouldnt do it. Rebekah West Harkness also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Rebekah Harkness keeps his personal and love life private. Swift gave all her friends matching red-white-and-blue onesies. Putting mineral oil in the punch at her sisters debutante ball. 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. [2], After graduating in 1932, she and a group of female friends formed the Bitch Pack, a sub-culture of local debutantes who enjoyed subverting society events, including lacing punchbowls with mineral oil and performing stripteases on banquet tables. When she went to the doctors office, they found a frightening problem. For a time in the 1950s, socialite Rebekah Harkness was true American royalty. She moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from one bank to another for the pleasure of confusing her accountants. They complained she cared more about the dancers than she cared about them. The question Swift would have you ask is how much of this reputation was deserved and how much was the result of gossip or judgmental peers. One of Harknesss final acts in her role as ballet maestro was also her most embarrassing. Instead, she put herself front and center, natch, and the pictures were often just of her doing lift after lift and living out her Dirty Dancing dreams. Please reach out to us to let us know what youre interested in reading. Though Harkness didnt seem to care that he was using her, she probably should have. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a severely retarded and disabled child. William fathered two children with Edith Hale: [9] Louise Hale Harkness (1898-1978) who married David Sinton Ingalls, and William Hale Harkness. The reason behind this is pure cruelty. But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." Rebekah was previously married to Niels H. Lauersen, Benjamin Harrison Kean, William Hale Harkness and Dickson W. Pierce. When she died in 1982, Harkness had demanded her ashes be put in a $250,000 jeweled Salvador Dal urn. Dancy Mason is the Editor-in-Chief at Factinate. Besides despising Rebekahs children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. 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.'' All rights reserved. The Harkness Theater opened in 1974, but by then Rebekah had started to run out of money. Rebekahs parents might not have cared a whit about loving their daughter, but they sure as heck cared about what she looked like. Ironically nicknamed The Chalice of Life, the morbid monument stood right at the intersection between tacky and lavish, just like Rebekah herself. For one, her emotionally frigid parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with raising her. [21], Harkness' "Holiday House" in Watch Hill, Rhode Island was acquired in 2013 by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. ''Money can buy anything.'' She developed an addiction to injections of B-vitamins, painkillers and testosterone. Making distraction rewarding since 2017. . She began to cut back and look for public funding. All Rights Reserved. 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. Reviewers agreed he was one of the companys only shining lights. 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. 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. Harkness started acting out early in her adolescence, and her antics would put any other mean girl to shame. Harkness had no problem dropping Joffrey like a hot potato when he wouldnt support her dismal vanity projects. 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? The two purchased a mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which they nicknamed Holiday House. When Harkness was 24 years old, she decided it was high time to marry, and she chose Dickson W. Pierce, an upper-class photographer, as her first husband. I myself wouldn't give the time of day to anyone who cleaned her pool out with Dom Perignon, put mineral oil in the punch at her sister's debutante ball and (all in the middle of the Great Depression) got tossed off an ocean liner for shouting obscenities, throwing dinner plates at an orchestra of Filipinos gamely playing the American national anthem, and offending the sensibilities of her fellow passengers by swimming nude - for which actions she counted herself witty. 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. Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. My association with Rebekah Harkness was based on creating a business venture that would make a profit. Her daughter Edith jumped off roofs, swallowed pills and managed not to kill herself. It had hand-carved Louis XIV chairs and a huge mural that featured the companys dancers as well as Rebekah Harkness in the nude. Rebekah Harkness was born in 1915 to a rich, emotionally frigid St. Louis family. 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. She dyed chocolate mousse blue. She rang J. D. Salinger's bell dressed as a cleaning lady, having conceived the harebrained scheme that the reclusive writer's short stories be put to music. Then a little-known ballet company, they spent the summers practicing and experimenting with new ideas. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. The pair was horribly mismatched, with Lauersen a whopping 20 years younger than his bride. When Rebekah decided to renovate her Rhode Island mansion, she demanded that it have a whopping eight kitchens and 21 baths. Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder after shooting a man in a brawl, her daughter Terry's child was born with brain damage and died at the age of ten and her other daughter Edith died of suicide, following numerous stays at mental health institutions. See the article in its original context from. Her parents did care that she looked good, according to Unger. [4], In the 1960s, Harkness became well known as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. While a kinder critic likened it to a lavish ladies powder room, less-generous experts compared it to a Staten Island beauty parlor. Ouch. 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