chandi heffner 2020

She had received another $10 million of her inheritance in 1937, and would receive at least as much in 1942. Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands Marketplace Lead, Benelux Uber Sep 2019 - Jun 2020 10 months. I remember her referring to 'we dancers.' Nicolas mother, Claudia, has a sister we havent forgotten about. According to the 1993 Forbes Four Hundred list, Doris Duke was the 18th-richest woman in America, not far behind cosmetics billionairess Este Lauder. ", Nonetheless, Duke seemed increasingly pleased with Lafferty. ", The day after the adoption, the economist Woody Brock went to lunch at Duke Farms with Duke's New Jersey neighbor Jane Engelhard. Adam Smith followed a century later with direct consideration of the . He also said that she had lent $600,000 for his company, Health Maintenance Programs, Inc., in 1989; the loan is to be converted into stock, according to the will. Heffner also said that Duke confided that she thought her mother had wanted to abort her. "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." (Marcos was eventually acquitted, and returned to the Philippines.). Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. ", In either March or April, Demopoulos said, he received a call from Irwin Bloom, who told him that he had been fired by Duke. She was wearing a dark-blue turtleneck, old Levi's, cotton socks, and scruffy moccasins. And the person who could best illuminate Doris Duke's declining days, Bernard Lafferty, refused to talk to me. . Therefore, Rubirosa had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. Ron Protas also told me that Duke had a fear of fire, and that when he told her about "the terrible experience" of scattering Martha Graham's ashes, Duke said, "It's never going to happen to me. Duke was the only child of J.B. "Buck" Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Co. and later endowed Duke University in Durham, N.C. [15] Display construction began in 1958. 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. She also donated funds to support and educate black students in the South who were disadvantaged because of racism. This was an adoption on both sides of love, deep affection, respect, companionship and common interest, he said. Chandi Heffner is a small, sturdy woman with thick black shoulder-length hair and bone-white skin. . 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. "One hears all sorts of stories about how Rubi started in life, that he was Trujillo's sort of 'Press the doorbell, you answer the doorbell, and he went bang-bang.' [61] After her death, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation was established in 1996, supporting four national grant making programs and Doris Duke's three estates, Shangri La, Rough Point, and Duke Farms. A district attorney ruled that there was "no credible evidence" to support the allegation, however, and Payette was ultimately discredited and jailed, trailing a lengthy record of theft from wealthy patients. She was not on steroids in the latter half of 1990, and this was not a mood swing. Duke's legacy is now administered by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, dedicated to medical research, prevention of cruelty to children and animals, the performing arts, wildlife and ecology. Meanwhile, Bernard said he wasn't feeling well and went back up to his room. It was a really loving daughter-mother relationship. Charlene Gail Heffner goes by the name Chandi Duke Heffner. For access to this information, contact Doris's statements to Chandi to this effect were confirmed by [her lawyer Donald] Robinson as well, who told Chandi he had prepared the necessary documents to make provision for the disposition of Doris's estate, and that Chandi would be "totally in control. As the organization grew, she set up a program exclusively focused on serving people in rural communities where money, jobs, health care, and education are scarce. "When we were together," Heffner continued, "when things were really great, Doris was in wonderful shape. Everything good I could say about Bernard, I do. A day after returning home from this second surgery, she suffered a severe stroke. "Sometimes people are attracted to the thing they fear the most.". John Warnecke was told by Johnny Gomez, Duke's elderly caretaker in Honolulu, that "she was so full of beans, she decided to have both knees done at one time, and one knee got infected and she had to have another operation. According to a half-page biography released by Howard J. Rubenstein Associates, Bernard Lafferty was born in Ireland in 1945 and immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago. Guest introduced Duke to Leon Amar, a 30-year-old Moroccan decorator. [36], What Lance was able to find showed that Duke's account of the incident had changed and was inconsistent with the evidence. . I fumbled through an introduction. But the war was by no means over. (Burns dismisses reports that he was once a Chippendales dancer: "Not that I haven't been asked. 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. Lafferty can appoint the bank that will serve as the estate's co-executor, and three of the four other trustees of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ", Almost every friend of Duke's I talked to, including her many homosexual friends, told me that she had always been an avid heterosexual. The cause was progressive pulmonary edema resulting in cardiac arrest, according to a spokesman. They didn't. The following February, Farrah repeated the seminar, and it was apparently then that Chandi Heffner entered Doris Duke's life. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. "That's what the picture was worth," said one of Lafferty's lawyers, "but here you had maybe 15 lawyers arguing over it and running up the bills.". $473,000 in today's dollars[37] was divided among Tirella's eight siblings when Duke was found negligent after a trial five years later. Her first husband, James R. Cromwell, called Duke "my frigidheiress" and engaged in a lengthy court battle to win a financial settlement. Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. Her stage name was Sahda. And Doris said, 'How about the one next to you?' The press decided she had become an eccentric recluse. These are just some of the accusations, strange rumors, and conspiracy theories that I heard concerning the last years of Doris Duke's life: Her estate is really worth at least $2 billion. It doesn't mean I'll go to bed with them.". After testy negotiations with local authorities, she finally shipped the pieces to New Jersey and installed them in her indoor tennis court. [17] In 1945, Duke began a short-lived career as a foreign correspondent for the International News Service, reporting from different cities across the war-ravaged Europe. 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. Chandi said, 'But where do I find a man?' [52] The best-known lawsuit[67] was initiated by Harry Demopoulos. The headboard of his bed was carved from the door of an old Vanderbilt mansion. '", 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. Then she became pregnant and had a premature daughter named Arden, who lived only 24 hours. Duke turned up at the Ritz in Paris that October walking with a cane. . He was very good at repairing old costumes and fabric. He had also treated Chandi Heffner, and counted both women as friends. Then [Franco and I] didn't see Doris anymore. [citation needed], Duke cultivated an extensive art collection, principally of Islamic and Southeast Asian art. Just last May Lafferty agreed to relinquish his control of the estate in a settlement that left him with $4.5 million in executor's fees and the half million dollar annual income. [55], In 1963, Duke funded the construction of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram on land leased from the state forestry department of Uttar Pradesh in India. But Lafferty was always a one off, one of life's great eccentrics, and he was certainly more than a jumped up waiter whose salary "never topped $200". Menu. Immediately prior to going to work for Duke, he was employed by Heffner's sister Claudia and her husband, Nelson Peltz, one of the leading takeover tycoons of the 80s. (Von Blow is referring to a 1982 dinner party Duke gave at '21' in New York for his friends shortly after he had been convicted of attempting to murder his wife, Sunny. [36], In Duke's account of events she said Tirella, who had been driving, got out at the gate to open it, leaving the engine running but with the parking brake engaged and the transmission in park. The last words were 'Stay in touch, Harry.' And that's how the relationship evolved. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. ", Rybak says that Lafferty got off to a good start at Duke Farms. Bernard Lafferty recently lunched in Manhattan with William Luers, president of the Metropolitan Museum, which was left $10 million by Duke. Chandi has taken control of this Reputation Profile & made sections private. She wasn't about being a pretty, rich American girl. . Doris bought her a sprawling horse farm worth then 30 years ago over a million bucks. We came out from opposite sides of the stage, and I got to the middle and she wasn't there. There were four witnesses, including Dr. Charles Kivowitz, a fashionable Beverly Hills internist. She is asking for compensatory and punitive damages in an unspecified amount "to support her for the rest of her life in the style she had enjoyed" while serving as a companion to the eccentric billionaire. On April 5, 1993, one week after Heffner had sued her, Duke signed her last will, cutting off her adopted daughter in brutally explicit terms: I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her to attempt to benefit financially under the terms of either of the trusts created by my father. In addition to providing medical care, food, and veterinary care, Ms. Heffner . Chandi Heffner is the president and founder of CDH International Foundation (CDHIF), a US-based organization that supports humanitarian, medical, and animal service projects for the private nonprofit society CDHIF India. Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes. And she was so frail. Newsom Closes California Theaters, "Dancing with the Stars" Needs a New Partner: Longtime Host Tom Bergeron Told Goodbye By ABC, Along with CoHost Erin Andrews, Tony Nominations Are Coming on Tuesday with Some Big Names in the Races Including Sean Hayes, Wendell Pierce, Jessica Chastain, Danielle Brooks, Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford, Box Office: Super Mario Eyes $500 Mil This Week, Beau Goes Wide, Judy Blume Blooms, George Foreman Gets Grilled. When he went to pick her up, Lafferty told him, "Always keep me informed, so that I can be sure everything works." She was contemplating having knee replacements. "They did not meet in dance class," he insists. Of course, many of the sources for these allegations are people who were left out of the will, or cut out of the will, or people who hope to eventually receive grants from the Duke foundations. When he died in a car crash in 1965, she took to her bed for two days. "The butler word they like," Lafferty lamented at the time, "because the butler always did it. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. As Heffner fights to undo the will, she speaks exclusively to BOB COLACELLO, who delves into the mystery of Duke's final years. If I were Victoria Beckham, I wouldnt count on a big wedding present. They sparkled in his earring, in his bracelet and his watch. Lafferty served. The 20 foot high bedroom in which he was found was draped in wine red velvet and lit by a Venetian chandelier. A. once a week wherever we were. The next day Duke's lawyer called Heffner again and informed her that Duke wanted her out, too. [citation needed], Even more sensational accusations were made by a nurse, Tammy Payette, who contended that Lafferty and a prominent Beverly Hills physician, Dr. Charles Kivowitz, had conspired to hasten Duke's death with morphine and Demerol. Of course, they had a very attractive life. Miss Duke, 75, adopted Chandi Hefner, who owns extensive property in Hawaii, and has been living with her for three years, attorney Donald A. Robinson said. In addition, Duke had a collection of artwork, which was said to include works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Monet, as well as her valuable collection of Islamic and Southeast Asia art and furniture. Ferencz Soltesz [the Peltzes' majordomo] told me he's an excellent butler so long as you keep him off the bottle. "It was strange. Duke Kahanamoku went in after her and saved her. Nor was she a crazy eccentric. Amsterdam Area, Netherlands Investment Banking Associate Morgan Stanley Jul 2016 - Jun 2019 3 years. In 1969, socialite C. Z. In 1992, at the age of 79, Duke had a facelift. And then the wine was $1,000 a bottle; it came from her father's cellars. Yet there were smaller indignities such as the ridiculous row about releasing a painting of Doris Duke which he said she disliked and had given to him when he asked for it. Under Chandi Heffner's leadership, CDHIF provides funding and support to a number of animal programs that benefit work . Virtually inseparable, the two women shuttled back and forth between Duke Farms, Duke's Newport estate "Rough Point" and her palatial Indo-Persian "Shangri-La" in the exclusive Diamond Head section of Oahu. 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. You felt that she was going to break. Chandi got a couple of the housemen, and they brought him to the Somerville hospital." He has an alcohol problem, but he's a basically good person. "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]. Because of the legal wrangling, not a penny of Duke's bequest has gone to charity so far, though the total amount billed by lawyers in the challenges has reached $50 million. I suspected that it was Bernard doing thiskeeping the food cold. Even Imelda didn't see her.". ", Heffner wryly noted that Bernard Lafferty, accompanied by a bodyguard and chauffeur, had sat through her depositions wearing a five-carat-diamond earring, a diamond bracelet, and a diamond watch. She was so distressed about losing the baby. . It's so hard for me still, so hard." As founder and president of the Chandi D. Heffner International Foundation (CDHIF) and its counterpart foundation in India (CDHIFI), Chandi Heffner has directed numerous projects to ease suffering and improve the condition of hundreds of thousands of people in India. ", A few days before I interviewed Heffner, an item had appeared in Cindy Adams's gossip column: Robert Ibrahim Farrah, an instructor of Middle Eastern dance, who says he introduced Heffner to Duke in 1984, claimed that Duke had come to fear Heffner. "She wasn't just one of those rich women who said, 'Restore me 60 houses.' Keyko said that $800,000 was paid to Heffner on Friday. It was 1982, and Heffner was taking a class at Farrah's studio near Times Square. She had episodes of pneumonia, she had clots in her veins, and some of those clots may have traveled to her lungs. ". . Both Duke and Heffner served as close advisers to Marcos during her trial for fraud and racketeering. [58][36][51] Duke was also friends with artist Andy Warhol. One of those servants was the future executor of Doris Duke's estate. '", In 1947 she married again, but handed the groom a prenuptial agreement at the altar. I said, 'Doris, do it, I think it's a good thing.' Duke, who had managed to avoid almost all publicity since the Tirella scandal, stunned the world in November 1988 by putting up the $5 million bail for Imelda Marcos, whom the U.S. government had charged with racketeering. He spent many weekends at a guesthouse at Duke Farms and was her escort when she went into the city for lunches and dinners with friends such as Diana Vreeland, Nan Kempner, and Kenneth Jay Lane. I do feel like I'm being drugged. Only five function as museums. In order to do so she released the parking brake and shifted into drive, but instead of putting her foot on the brake pedal she hit the gas. I would have to reheat it. Once Chandi was adopted she took over Dukes life. [41][42][43] They divorced in 1943. 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. The income from the trusts was payable to any children after her death. Around Christmas, Duke rented a house in Honolulu for Martha Graham and Ron Protas. Duke did much additional philanthropic work and was a major benefactor of medical research and child welfare programs. "He had done her hair in a pageboy, and she looked so pretty, though she was painfully thin." Lafferty also may pay fees to and divide commissions among the trustees as he sees fit. She was ahead of her time. Meanwhile, Heffner is holed up on her Hawaiian ranch. . In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. Wait til the Beckhams Meet the Parents: Nicola Peltzs Aunt Inherited $65 Mil from Doris Duke in Infamous Adoption, Movie Release August Schedule for "Tenet," "Mulan" Will Be Scuttled as Gov. "That was quite an event. 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. Doris Duke had difficulty remaining in one place, and whenever she arrived somewhere, she had the desire to go somewhere else. . He received nothing. Cary W. Goldstein, Burns lawyer, says Heffner Duke broke ``a very explicit deal she had with Burns, although it was never written down. 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. Robinson described Miss Hefner, a native of Maryland, as an environmentalis t, preservationist and conservationist who spends her time doing things as a good citizen as Miss Duke does.. Last year she gave $40,000 to help people in India, $45,000 to Bronx Veterans Medical Research, and $2000 to the Hawaii Saddle Club. When he first met Peggy Lee (with whom he worked on and off for 10 years), it was while he was manager of the Versailles Room of the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. Duke was born in New York City, the only child of tobacco and hydroelectric power tycoon James Buchanan Duke and his second wife, Nanaline Holt Inman, widow of William Patterson Inman. And then Chandi said something that took me aback: 'Bobby, I can't understand why you have a friend like that and yet you're struggling to have a dance publication. He died as he had lived in recent years, in flamboyant splendour, in his 8,000 sq ft Los Angeles home, a $2 million Bel Air fantasy, decorated with enormous silver urns, formal oil paintings and. Doris told Chandi that she was happy about her having a man in her life. One of Chandi's doctors thought that pregnancy might help her conditions, and Chandi was discussing this with Doris one evening in Newport while I was sitting there. I used to tell her, 'You know, Doris, some people do like you for yourself. Through shrewd investments and her legendary parsimony, she managed to more than triple her holdings. [45], On September 1, 1947, while in Paris, Duke became the third wife of Porfirio Rubirosa, a diplomat[clarification needed] from the Dominican Republic. The power that this will gives Bernard Lafferty is "awesome," says one attorney. In her will, Duke requested that no funeral or memorial service be held for her. Heffner told me that Duke was annoyed with Rossellini for falling behind on the rent on the New Jersey guesthouse. [59] Historic properties include Rough Point, Samuel Whitehorne House, Prescott Farm, the Buloid-Perry House, the King's Arms Tavern, the Baptist Meetinghouse, and the Cotton House. Her principal residence and official domicile[27] was Duke Farms, her father's 2,700 acre (11km2) estate in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey. At that point she proceeded to run the stricken man over resulting in his death. ", Sometimes, Robert Farrah recalls, "Doris would throw up her hands and say, 'No wills! American billionaire heiress, philanthropist, and socialite (19121993), a Manhattan mansion at 1 East 78th Street, "A Tale of Money and Mystery: Billionaire tobacco heiress Doris Duke's death has spawned a wealth of disputes. "We kept it to ourselves for months, until around July 1990. . In June 1985, Duke and Heffner traveled to Russia together. ", Donald Robinson, a New Jersey lawyer who had worked closely with Duke since the early 70s, will not comment about the lawsuit, but he speaks glowingly of Heffner's abilities. Chandi Heffner is a small, sturdy woman with thick black shoulder-length hair and bone-white skin, Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored . * The other websites referenced on this site are owned and operated by their respective companies, and the associated trademarks and logos are the property of those companies. In 2014, sixty objects from her collection (including ceramics, textiles, paintings, tile panels, and full-scale architectural elements) were displayed temporarily at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in the exhibition "Doris Duke's Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art",[24] organized by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Miss Hefner is not related to Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy Enterprises, a spokesman at the company told The Courier-News of Bridgewater. As founder and president of the Chandi D. Heffner International Foundation (CDHIF) and its counterpart foundation in India (CDHIFI), Chandi Heffner has directed numerous projects to ease suffering and improve the condition of hundreds of thousands of people in India. James Burns, 32, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, claimed Chandi Gail Heffner Duke owes him half of the $66 million she was awarded after Duke die in 1988. "He was doing a lot of embroidery work for Doris. Duke spent her early childhood at Duke Farms, her father's 2,700-acre (11km2) estate in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey. 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. Her estate, said one family member yesterday, is valued at more than $1 billion. We use cookies to personalize & enhance your experience. At death, Duke's fortune was estimated at upwards of $1.2 billion. After she returned to Newport later that month, Banks invited her to a concert, but she forgot the date. The enemies then took him to court (provoking his denunciation by the unsympathetic judge), ostensibly to stop Lafferty spending Duke's fortune on himself, and won. Doris loved it. [4] At his death in 1925, the elder Duke's will bequeathed the majority of his estate to his wife and daughter,[5] along with $17 million in two separate clauses of the will, to The Duke Endowment he had created in 1924. Doris loved animals. Finally, one of her new lawyers, Mr. Doyle, got it back on track. I asked Doris and she said, 'Yeah, it's fine.' At her father's estate in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, she created one of the largest indoor botanical displays in the United States. Ted Schwarz with Tom Rybak, co-authored by one of Duke's staff, This page was last edited on 20 April 2023, at 12:29. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jewish immigrants. Farrah says that Duke had returned from her first visit to Manila, with Rossellini, about a week before meeting Heffner. . After giving the matter prolonged and serious consideration, I am convinced that I should not have adopted Chandi Heffner. Enzo Natale says, "Chandi had accused me of trying to rape her in Honolulu. 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.

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