For all her money, Harkness did not have good taste. Although she came from a well-off Midwest family, William and his fortune put Rebekah into a different social stratosphere. 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? (Harkness reportedly cleaned her pool with Dom Prignon.) Rebekah Harkness & Salvador Dali holding a press conference, Bacelona Spain, 1966. Though her children Edith and Terry rushed to her bedside along with her lover Bobby Scevers, the scene was anything but heart-warming. Though the Harkness Ballet was floundering, there was one brilliant choreographer, Larry Rhodes, who received good press. With that, Rebekahs unconditional love evaporated. Everyone advised her to get her affairs in order, but as well soon see, things didnt work out so neatly for Rebekah Harkness in the end. 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. [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. 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. For one, her emotionally frigid parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with raising her. 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. 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. [10] In 1947, William Hale married Rebekah Semple West, [11] who was previously married to Dickson Pierce. She had a salon of sorts. Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. William Hale Harkness If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it really was. The 16-track album, Swifts eighth, features a song titled The Last Great American Dynasty, about the late St. Louisbornsocialite Rebekah West Harkness, whom Swift paints as an eccentric. . When publicizing her ballet, Harkness became notorious for refusing to showcase any of her talented dancers in the promotional photographs. We want our readers to trust us. 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. 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. In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. A patron of dance and medicine. She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. She went to Fermata, a. She stole a neighbors dog and dyed it key lime green. Rebekahs daughter Edith was clinically depressed and suicidal for much of her life (wonder why), and spent scores of years in and out of mental institutions following near fatal attempts at self-harm. 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. Rebekah Harkness. Harkness other daughter, Edith, died of suicide after many attempts. She believed in reincarnation. With thanks to Blue Blood by Craig Unger and The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company by Sasha Anawalt. Images: Harkness Tower Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1653891. The Swift connection is that the superstar bought Holiday House for a reported $17 million in 2013. Thanks for your help! Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. If you hear oil and think Russian Oligarch rich, youd be pretty much right. Rebekah's younger daughter Edith, a failed suicide who had spent many years in mental institutions, took only her mother's pills: Seconal, Nembutal, Valium, Haldol, Librium and various painkillers - 40 vials in all. Yet like so much of Harknesss life, what seemed beautiful on the outside was rotting on the inside. [16], In 1961, Harkness married Ben Kean (c.19121993),[17] a physician who was a professor of Tropical Medicine at the Cornell Medical College. She was 67.) She even started a company of her own in 1964: the Harkness Ballet. Unfit for mothering, unfit for ordinary love, unfit - untrained - to be the caretaker of a great fortune, was she altogether silly or altogether bad? Even after her husband's death in 1954 ("It must have been her fault his heart gave out," Swift muses), Harkness threw wild parties that clearly ruffled her neighbors' feathers, with guests her. Pierce claimed to be a descendant of President Franklin Pierce, though that would have been quite a feat. In 1961, Rebekah Harkness became the sponsor of the late Robert Joffrey's small ballet troupe. Scevers and Harkness brought out the worst in each other. [4], On October 1, 1947, Harkness married William Hale Harkness (19001954), the son of William Lamon Harkness, both Standard Oil heirs. The end came swift, fast, and brutal for Harkness. Rebekah Harkness's income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. She retaliated by dying a neighbors cat green. 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. Before she passed, the socialite spent $250,000 to commission a bedazzled urn from none other than Salvador Dali. . 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. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. The Bliss Balance - Create Success, Peace, and Happiness in Your Life. (You can see a video clip of Salvador Dali and Rebekah Harkness here.). She got thrown off a cruise for swimming nude in the pool and swearing at the crew. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Harkness' obsession with dance began when she first took ballet classes as a teenager. She attended finishing school at Fermata in Aiken, South Carolina, from 1929 to 1932, before pursuing advanced instruction in harmonic . They had a son, Allen, and a daughter, Terry. Her son Allen says the years he spent in prison were the happiest of his life. (Allegedly, it was a cat if it matters.). She said she married her first, photographer Dickson Pierce, because she had nothing else to do. No surprise, that union ended in divorce. Not only did her ballet collapse, her whole family did as well. Once she pretended to be a cleaning woman and approached the reclusive J.D. Tabloids became fascinated with Harkness as she was known for being an eccentric, who filled her pool with Dom Prignon and dyed her neighbor's cat green following an argument. Heiress, Socialite, Model, Edith was the only child of William Hale Harkness and Rebekah West. That money can't buy happiness? Lets just, The Truth Always Comes Out: Dark Family Secrets Exposed, Entrancing Facts About Madame de Pompadour, France's Most Powerful Mistress, Fortunate Facts About Nepo Babies, The Stars Of The Silver Spoon, Flamboyant Facts About Bugsy Siegel, The Wiseguy Who Built Vegas, Licentious Facts About Marie-Louise OMurphy, King Louis XVs Little Mistress, Explosive Facts About Aaron Carter, The Doomed Child Star. The gargantuan house itself was partially demolished, then sold to a family that remodeled it and renamed it High Watch. 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 Rebekah Harkness was born in 1915 to a rich, emotionally frigid St. Louis family. [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. These are facts of which we have already been apprised. In addition to her marriage, Harkness also became well known for her personal eccentricities, as well as her contributions to the arts. Swift put up No Trespassing signs that they didnt like either. She used much of her inheritance to become a patron of the ballet, as well as to compose music. The answer is more complicated than Swifts song reveals. Uh, how sweet? Rebekahs parents might not have cared a whit about loving their daughter, but they sure as heck cared about what she looked like. Then a little-known ballet company, they spent the summers practicing and experimenting with new ideas. Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. You won't want to miss this episode about the muse for Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift. 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. It donated Harkness Tower at Yale, Harkness Commons at Harvard and Harkness Pavilion at New York Hospital. Not long after Rebekahs passing, her daughter Edith finally managed to succeed in her attempts. Harkness had no problem dropping Joffrey like a hot potato when he wouldnt support her dismal vanity projects. Rebekah Vardy has five children in total. Immediate Needs: $1,500. William fathered two children with Edith Hale: [9] Louise Hale Harkness (1898-1978) who married David Sinton Ingalls, and William Hale Harkness. Harkness was jealous to an absolute fault, and even to her own detriment. In 1957, Harkness keeled over at Holiday House while sitting for a sculpture Rebekah was working on, dead from a heart attack. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. Rebekah bought a mansion on New Yorks Upper East Side and turned it into a posh training center for dancers called Harkness House. . Tag Archives: Rebekah Harkness. She insisted that it perform ballets to scores she had written. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. How should she do it? She wondered. . Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). 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