Records: 123. Doris Dukes adopted daughter has ended her fight to gain control of the late billionaires fortune in exchange for a $65-million settlement from the estate. I was not aware of what management roles he might or might not have had. Chandi Duke Heffner was recognized for her outstanding support of the Marshall Legacy Institute's, landmine detection program. Woody Brock, who visited her with Oatsie Charles that summer, says, "It must have been 85 degrees outside, and she had on a white sweater and a roaring fire in every room. "Doris did this more for the president. Another time, at a college in upstate New York, Bobby [Farrah] didn't have her dancehe had her completely veiled, and she sat on the stage and played finger cymbals. One afternoon in February, the architect John Warnecke went to Shangri La for tea. Two years later she bought Falcon's Lair, the Beverly Hills house where Rudolph Valentino once lived. There was a gradual onset of a depressed relationship between Doris and Chandi, starting about the middle of 1990 and going progressively downhill. 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. ", Thomas Rybak maintains, "I personally believe that Chandi was pushed out by Bernard. Contrary to Heffner's version of events, he told me that he had prescribed anabolic steroids for Duke for her knee problems in late 1989 or early 1990. (After Duke's death, the trustees of her estate became defendants in this lawsuit.). He was later retried and acquitted. Chandi called Steve Levyhe did security for Doristo find out what to do. Born on 1940 to James Henry Roberts Cromwell and Doris Duke. . Years ago, she was talking about the things we all talk about nowthe environment, battered women and children, animal rights. Heffner, 40, a former belly dancer and member of the Hare Krishna, was left nothing by Duke and claimed the heiress was not of "sound mind and memory" when she rather feebly signed the new. Warmer storms could cause problems, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, Hyundai was poised to become Teslas top contender. She was not on steroids in the latter half of 1990, and this was not a mood swing. I called the California home and the other sites many times. [Chandi] is a monster. Doris wouldn't take a pill unless she really needed it. They hired him on Ferencz Soltesz's recommendation. That fall, she attended a tribute to Sophia Loren at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a fancy party afterward at Tatou, with Imelda Marcos, Rossellini, Natale, and Lafferty, who wore a ski sweater. People get annoyed with their kids. A member of Heffner's family said yesterday that it is likely Chandi Duke Heffner, who legally changed her name, will accept a settlement for several million dollars. We wouldn't sit in the main dining room. Miss Duke lives in a walled 2,700-acre estate in Hillsborough, and rarely attracted . Her telephone was not listed in the Los Angeles area. Her Newport artist pal Richard Banks said that that summer "Doris decided to do the whole social thing and she loved it. Chandi got a couple of the housemen, and they brought him to the Somerville hospital." The two camels were right outside the dining room on a blue tarpaulin. And the whispers about Duke's last years continue. Through shrewd investments and her legendary parsimony, she managed to more than triple her holdings. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. Duke is portrayed by her adopted daughter as a lonely, paranoid recluse in need of constant care. The press decided she had become an eccentric recluse. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Imelda stayed for a week, I think. While Lafferty was hospitalized, Rybak says, "Doris said to me, 'Tom, we are going to leave this up to you. I fumbled through an introduction. "There were clear indications of a growing trust, affection, and devotion between them. . Heffner told me that Duke was annoyed with Rossellini for falling behind on the rent on the New Jersey guesthouse. He's a sweet human being, and he seemed to be honest and fiercely defensive of Doris. Duke." There was a little alcove under the stairs, and the food would be nice but ordinary. . We had a nice dinner with appropriate toasts, and Franco entertained us with anecdotes and imitations. "She wasn't just one of those rich women who said, 'Restore me 60 houses.' ", Duke had a passion for the performing arts all her life. . ") An Irish-born orphan in his late 40s, Bernard Lafferty is recalled by guests at Duke's various houses mainly for his ponytail and gold ear stud, and for serving tea in full butler's uniform but barefoot. Lee told me, "Ten or 15 years ago, I went to sing in the Versailles Room at the old Bellevue, and Bernard was the manager of the room, and we became friends. Denise Hale recalls meeting Eduardo Tirella on the set of The Sandpiper, which was directed by her then husband, Vincente Minnelli, and having several dinners at Falcon's Lair. 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. In court papers, Heffner -- a Baltimore native -- says the two women met in Hawaii in 1981. "We kept it to ourselves for months, until around July 1990. . "You know, fate is strange. It will be wonderful.' . Duke scoffed, "Oh, come on. In a peculiar arrangement, in 1988, the 76-year-old Duke legally adopted the 35-year-old Heffner and bought her a $1 million ranch in Hawaii, where the two lived together as mother and daughter. "I was not aware of his drinking problem when I placed him there, but I did inform Chandi [before sending him to Doris Duke's]. "They did not meet in dance class," he insists. He also instilled in her an almost reflexive inability to trust people. Usually something came in the mail that she wanted to discuss, because Chandi was taking care of her financial affairs. "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." . Chandi lives on the horse farm now and operates a very modest charity called the CDH Foundation, with total assets of $ 2 million. Ignoring Chandi Heffner, the latter-day flower child whom she adopted in 1988, Duke left control of the bulk of her fortune to Bernard Lafferty, her butler of six years. Other people told me that Duke suspected Heffner of poisoning or drugging her, and that she credited Lafferty with saving her life. I hired him to come out [to Los Angeles] and work for me, to kind of be my majordomo here. One of the first things she did was to caution Duke, on the advice of Nelson Peltz, against an investment proposed by her then business manager, Patrick Mahn. Heffner Duke, adopted in 1988 when she was 38 and the heiress was in her 70s, could not be reached for comment. Brooklyn Beckham, whos 21, has announced hes marrying Nicola Peltz, 25. "She out-Leona Helmsleyed Leona Helmsley," Duffy said of Heffner. "She forgave Rubi everything," says Reinaldo Herrera, even his subsequent marriage to Barbara Hutton. Peggy Lee told me that she had spoken to Duke on the phone several times in her last months, and that Duke had made a donation to an AIDS charity that Lee is involved with. 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. "I couldn't quite keep up, so I was in the back of the class. ", Another of Duke's intimates said that the real reason her closest friends were in favor of the adoption was that "Doris had contemplated suicide, and we thought we could have some peace of mind that she wouldn't kill herself as long as Chandi was around. also assured Chandi that she would be the heir to Doris's estate in return for Chandi devoting herself to Doris and to the running of her affairs. Heffner spent almost six months on and off in two Honolulu hospitals, because she also developed a heart problem. Community. "Chandi works very hard for Doris. All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; Companies; Keywords; In 1966, a few days after Duke suddenly shut down the record company she had started for Castro, he broke her jaw, according to Mansfield, and she fled to Newport with Eduardo Tirella, a handsome young set designer. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. He was the legendary Latin lover Porfirio Rubirosa, the former son-in-law of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. ", 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. "Sometimes people are attracted to the thing they fear the most.". "And later on, for a while, on Irwin Bloom, the financial manager. She had received another $10 million of her inheritance in 1937, and would receive at least as much in 1942. Meanwhile, Heffner is holed up on her Hawaiian ranch. Paul and his family moved to Sarasota, Florida, when he was nine years old. Duke left most of her money to charity and named her butler, Bernard Lafferty, co-executor of the estate. Doris said, 'Do you have time for a drink?' On the last day of the seminar, he spent the afternoon with Duke at Shangri La. The circumstances of Dukes death remain under investigation. That was Doris. Love. She started taking piano lessons before she went to school, had pianos in every one of her houses as well as in the black lacquered living room of her Park Avenue penthouse, and played every afternoon. One evening Steve Levy said that Miss Duke wanted him to administer a urine test on me. She got right up like a trouper and fell right down again. "That was quite an event. ", Thomas Rybak, who had been working as Doris Duke's chef for several months when Lafferty was hired in May 1987, at a salary of about $500 a week, paints a different picture. The baby's death profoundly affected Duke, and she even hired psychics to try to. I suspected that it was Bernard doing thiskeeping the food cold. SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. And the person who could best illuminate Doris Duke's declining days, Bernard Lafferty, refused to talk to me. "Io sono molto contento. "Ferencz said, 'We had a butler who was fired. Like all of her houses, it was guarded by fierce Dobermans or German shepherds. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Heffner claims she gave up her own life to immerse herself in being a companion to the eccentric Duke: helping to manage the Duke Farms dairy, advising her on financial matters, overseeing her "disorganized and run-down estates," selling gold deposits from her myriad Swiss bank accounts and hiring a bodyguard to protect her from kidnappers. In 1969, socialite C. Z. And he would tell me, 'Miss Heffner's complaining.' Doris Duke dumped Chandi Heffner because Heffner wanted to marry one of their bodyguards. I remember that most: that she seemed very happy with her life at that period. And Doris said, 'How about the one next to you?' One night at dinner, she told me, 'You know, my father always said no one would ever love me except for my money, and to be very careful.' Doris loved it. The gossip at Mortimer's was that Duke was furious with him for talking to Stephanie Mansfield. Doris was into it, too. "He was devastated. LOS ANGELES (AP) _ An ex-Marine sued the adopted daughter of late tobacco heiress Doris Duke for $33 million in palimony, claiming he gave up three years of his life to encourage her friendship with Duke. 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. Duke last made news in 1988, when she posted the $5.3 million bail for her close friend Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines First Lady. Jay Rockefeller Net Worth. 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. 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. And he had quite a history. 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