"It's very important that Doris has done this," he told me at the time. She said, 'There was nothing to do on that train.' . . ") In June 1985, Duke and Heffner traveled to Russia together. She clapped her hands in glee. If I were Victoria Beckham, I wouldnt count on a big wedding present. I remember when I read his resume, I thought, This man has really been through it. Doris told Chandi that she was happy about her having a man in her life. Heffner almost broke down again. 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 breach-of-contract suit contending that Duke reneged on a promise to support her for life, said Heffners lawyer, David Keyko. Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. Surrogate Court Judge Wilfred P. Diana asked Duke if she understood that the adoption "creates a relationship between you and Miss Heffner as if she were born to you in wedlock," and Duke said yes. The tobacco heiress fortune, one of the largest in U.S. history, has been the subject of complicated legal wrangling since she died at age 80 in 1993. That led to pneumonia and she couldn't eat and it was on and off, on and off, for months.". "He wanted a settlement," says Nancy Cooke de Herrera, "but you could not get a nickel out of Doris if you came at her the wrong way." The circumstances of Dukes death remain under investigation. Musks master plan for Tesla is built around sustainable energy economy, What to expect from Elon Musks third master Tesla plan, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Yet more rain expected to hit California in March. He went to Sarasota High School. Chandi lives on the horse farm now and operates a very modest charity called the CDH Foundation, with total assets of $ 2 million. "When we were together," Heffner continued, "when things were really great, Doris was in wonderful shape. Guest introduced Duke to Leon Amar, a 30-year-old Moroccan decorator. He was later retried and acquitted. ". How do we get rid of her? I remember her referring to 'we dancers.' "Cromwell was quite nice," says Nelson Seabra, a rich Brazilian friend of Duke's. She told me she was supposed to start hula dancing professionally at a hotel in Hawaii. 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. But theyve hit a snag, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, Elizabeth Holmes cites her new baby as a reason she should avoid prison for Theranos scam. "We discussed cremation, and she said, 'Never, never, ever let anyone cremate me.' This gives her the air of philanthropy. Today, Chandi lives on a palatial farm in. It was 1982, and Heffner was taking a class at Farrah's studio near Times Square. 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. Community. On an employment application Lafferty filled out for the Pavillion Agency in New York in September 1986, he said he had worked at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia from 1972 to 1983 and at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City from 1983 to 1985. There was lack of ostentation. But I have no real medical knowledge of what transpired in California during the spring and summer of last year.". The couple lived together from 1990 until 1993. "He was devastated. Heffner had asked him to have dinner with her and Gordon Damon, and he had told her to pick him up at Duke's front gate. Irwin Bloom had made the arrangements and then Duke called Protas from Los Angeles and joked, ''For God's sake, try to pay it back," Protas recalled. In 1925, at the age of 13, she inherited an estimated $100 million in trusts from her father, James Buchanan Duke, a coarse but brilliant self-made man who founded the American Tobacco Company and the Duke Power Company, and who endowed Trinity College in North Carolina with millions, reportedly on the condition it change its name to Duke University. I feel in danger.' Nanaline worshiped Society, and she disapproved of her tall, awkward, studious daughter. For Industry Professionals. ", Almost every friend of Duke's I talked to, including her many homosexual friends, told me that she had always been an avid heterosexual. ", "I was not involved. I would have to reheat it. While Lafferty was hospitalized, Rybak says, "Doris said to me, 'Tom, we are going to leave this up to you. 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. . In any case, their friendship ended in tragedy that October, when Duke ran him over as he was opening the gate of Rough Point. The gossip at Mortimer's was that Duke was furious with him for talking to Stephanie Mansfield. Each evening she would return to Duke Farms or her Manhattan apartment in time for dinner alone on a tray. Donald Robinson then called and informed Heffner that Duke wanted Burns out of the house. I suppose it was Doris's fault for never talking about what she did.". April 7, 1993 Chandi Duke Heffner, the 39-year-old former belly dancer and Hare Krishna devotee who was legally adopted by American Tobacco Co. heiress Doris Duke in 1988, now claims the. Marcos has said that she and Duke were friends of almost 20 years, but others say that they met in the late 1970s through Franco Rossellini. Through shrewd investments and her legendary parsimony, she managed to more than triple her holdings. and I finally quit just before Labor Day. ". Jay Rockefeller Net Worth. With a love for all living things, Ms. Heffner maintains a U.S. ranch that takes in rescued horses, birds, donkeys, pigs, and many other animals. Lafferty served. . In 1968, she established the Newport Restoration Foundation, with Jacqueline Onassis as vice president. "Rubi" was also presented with a string of polo ponies and a house in Paris. Chandi Heffner choked back tears as she talked about Doris Duke, the worldly and restless tobacco heiress who legally adopted her in 1988, when Heffner was 35 and Duke was 75, and cast her out less than three years later. Things escalated. . Usually something came in the mail that she wanted to discuss, because Chandi was taking care of her financial affairs. 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. We'll have a great life together. Youth," says Phyllis Saretta, an instructor with the Ibrahim Farrah Near East Dance Group, which Duke funded and danced with in the early 1970s. Because it was her major incapacity; there really wasn't anything else wrong with Doris. Chandi Heffner is 69 years old today because Chandi's birthday is on 08/26/1953. "He was obviously unhappy. Nor was she a crazy eccentric. In later years she did have problems with her hearing and with her legs, but nothing major. 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. On Thursday, October 28, 1993, Duke died at Falcon's Lair. This only fueled rumors about his sexuality further and . ", James Cromwell maintained that it was not his child, and friends assumed that it was Cunningham-Reid's. 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. Although she was constantly compared to Hutton from the time they both had fairy-tale coming-out parties the year after the stock market crashed, Duke always hated the comparison to the much-married Woolworth heiress, who died penniless. ", 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. 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. Heffner takes credit for everything from improving the dairy herd at Duke Farms to arranging the sale of Duke's gold deposits in Switzerland. She thought it was very amusing. . I said, 'Doris, do it, I think it's a good thing.' By 1963 she was having Castro trailed by a private investigator. "He seemed depressed, and Doris thought it would give him more self-esteem. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. I do feel like I'm being drugged. . She was even a buddy of Elvis Presley's. Doris Duke dumped Chandi Heffner because Heffner wanted to marry one of their bodyguards. She had several indiscreet affairs of her own, with Errol Flynn, Hawaiian swimming champion Duke Kahanamoku, and British M.P. On October 6, it was announced that Duke had made a donation of $1 million to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. ''Doris and I had been in the Gobi Desert together, and we found out they were becoming a threatened species." ", Duke had a passion for the performing arts all her life. Chandi Heffner choked back tears as she talked about Doris Duke, the worldly and restless tobacco heiress who legally adopted her in 1988, when Heffner was 35 and Duke was 75, and cast. "I don't think you're supposed to use alcohol with steroids, and she was drinking sherry in the evenings." Nicola has an eclectic family, worthy of a Robert Altman movie a la A Wedding. On the plus side, theres the money. Chandi Heffner told me that Duke confided the truth to her: "It wasn't Cromwell's, and it wasn't her lover Alec's. ", Burns began working out with Duke on a regular basis. According to Robert Farrah, the director of the Ibrahim Farrah company, for several months in the late 60s she took private belly-dancing classes with him every morning for two hours in New York and then flew from LaGuardia to Detroit, where she had rented a motel room near the airport and installed a piano for her afternoon singing lessons with Aretha Franklin's father. . SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. He named both his private Pullman car and his 80-foot yacht after her, and surrounded her with bodyguards. Her telephone was not listed in the Los Angeles area. Her lawyer, David Keyko, said yesterday that in. In return, Heffner claims, the twice-divorced Duke promised to "take care" of Heffner for the rest of her life. Yet it is the underlying misconception of almost everything ever written about her, including Stephanie Mansfield's 1992 biography, The Richest Girl in the World. This went on almost every meal. Chandi Duke Heffner net worth is $300,000. That was Doris. . Instead, she was cremated during the weekend following her death, and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean off Shangri La on November 17, 1993, by Bernard Lafferty and Johnny Gomez, along with the hibiscus leis she loved. We used to sit in the sunroom with these tiny bits of broken porcelain and she'd say, 'It's got to be fixed, and I can do it better than most people.' The only times I saw Doris really relaxed were these few times in Beverly Hills.". Believing that Heffner was the reincarnation of her daughter, Arden, Duke bought her a million-dollar ranch in Hawaii, and . Other people told me that Duke suspected Heffner of poisoning or drugging her, and that she credited Lafferty with saving her life. Her former physician, Dr. Harry Demopoulos, is seeking to unseat Lafferty as co-executor. She was alarmingly fragile." Also at Duke Farms, she constructed a series of 11 greenhouses containing elaborate recreations of English, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and other gardens, which she opened to the public. Banks never saw her again. I never heard from Doris again and I could never reach her again. Talent. Shortly after Duke's 80th birthday, in November, Nelson Seabra saw her at C. Z. 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. This Grand Marnier was so old the labels had been written by hand. He said the couple, who lived together from 1990 until 1993, agreed that Burns would be not only be her confidante-companion but ``cook, body guard, security specialist and assist in financing any claims Heffner Duke may find it necessary to bring to enforce her rights against Doris Duke.. Until Doris Duke's death, this would be her principal residence. The Sands says that Lafferty managed the theater, which headlined such stars as Bill Cosby, Joel Grey, and Rita Moreno. It was perhaps her last romantic affair, and in some respects foreshadowed her relationship with Chandi Heffner. Steve comes about four, and he and I go up to Bernard's room. '", Heffner dismissed such charges, and also told me that one day during the "steroid" period Duke had called her into her bedroom and said, "I think somebody is putting poison in my food. "She got baby doses for a few weeks and that was it. I really don't know what the hell was going on, frankly. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. ", By the time Duke returned to Shangri La that fall, she and Heffner were getting together on an almost daily basis, and when it was time to move back to Duke Farms in the spring of 1985, she invited Heffner to go with her. I suspected that it was Bernard doing thiskeeping the food cold. "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.". I said, 'Sure, have him call me.' ", Heffner was sitting in the Manhattan apartment of one of her lawyers on a Saturday afternoon late last December. Heffner also claims she saved the heiress's life on more than one occasion: once when Duke collapsed at her Newport estate in a "pool of blood," and a second time when Heffner recalls diving into the freezing Atlantic to save Duke from drowning. . ", They went into Duke's fabled Islamic Room"you'd think you were in the salon of Sleyman the Magnificent" and over tea and sherry they discussed the pet boar that Heffner had nursed with a baby bottle after it had been abandoned by its mother, as well as Heffner's leg problems. We knock, we bang, we yell. She took daily tap lessons from Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at the Cotton Club, and for years studied ballet under Cyd Charisse's ex-husband, Nico. "At the beginning of 1991, she placed an increasing reliance on me and Bernard," Demopoulos told me. That was a going-out-of-your-way gesture." "She's an unusually intelligent person: perceptive, articulate, well-read, culturally alive. But she got up again, and we did our steps. Around Christmas, Duke rented a house in Honolulu for Martha Graham and Ron Protas. 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