[12] At least once, Harkness and her friends got up on a banquet table and performed a strip tease for the distinguished guests around them. No clan is left untouched, and even families that seem happy and normal on. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. (Mr. Scevers has a stunning way of placing himself squarely in the center of every sentence he utters; he appears to believe that Rebekah Harkness's death happened more to him than to her.) She was brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum. In 1956, Harkness burst onto the high society scene after. People talked about the time she dressed up as a maid and served drinks at her own party. She shoved $5 million into building the Harkness Theater, a lavish studio complete with marble staircases and a chandelier, and it was all for nothing: The company collapsed in 1975. Styling herself as the life of the party, Harkness did things like throw plates at the ships Filipino orchestra, swim in her birthday suit in full view of other passengers, and send out strings of swears so loudly that the ocean liner eventually had no choice but to send the beautiful, foul-mouthed socialite off the boat. In 1971, she married a fourth time, to another doctor, but one 20 years her junior. Not long after Rebekahs passing, her daughter Edith finally managed to succeed in her attempts. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The rich socialite whose judgment sometimes lapsed was just too good a target. Yet while there, Harkness gave new meaning to the word prima donna. The socialite, fancying herself a dance expert, started writing her own ballets. She blew through her fortune on the boys and the ballet. (Harkness was an avid patron of the arts and founded her own company, Harkness Ballet. My association with Rebekah Harkness was based on creating a business venture that would make a profit. Rebekah Semple West was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1915. She was the second daughter of three children to Allen Tarwater West, a stockbroker and co-founder of G. H. Walker & Co., and Rebekah Cook (ne Semple) West. Rocky Finds His Heart. Little evidence is given in support of this thesis except that the two wrote a song together called ''Giggling With My Feet.''. Though Rebekah grew up in a wealthy St. Louis family, her social status was elevated when, after her first divorce, she married William. Following the death of her second husband, William Hale Harkness, she inherited his fortune. When I first saw someone bring up Blue Blood (The story of Rebekah Harkness and how one of the richest families in America descended into drugs, madness, suicide and violence), I was lurking in a Taylor Swift Facebook group. Generous, wasteful, willful, demanding and delusional, she broke with Joffrey to form the Harkness Ballet when he refused to perform the compositions she insisted on writing. They bought Eolia from Mary's sister and her brother-in-law, Jessie Stillman and William Taylor in 1907. If I report on the demise of the multimillionaire patron of the dance dry-eyed, it is because I am confident in the belief that nothing we say about the dead can prejudice the Defense or tip the Scales of Judgment. Still, when you marry for money, you earn every penny. William, 15 years her senior, saw Rebekah as a naughty child in need of a spanking. Rebekahs parents might not have cared a whit about loving their daughter, but they sure as heck cared about what she looked like. ''We were the favorites,'' says a dancer. for scholarships, administrative costs and new set designs. Themes of sexual repression, homoerotic love, tribalism and even the aftermath of rape were explored by some of the most famous choreographers of the time. Like this story? At the end of the song, she suggests a certain satisfaction regardless of the answer: There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a marvelous time ruining everything.. One day, Harknesss antics were so extreme that they got her kicked off a cruise ship. Reportedly, the baby Angel innocently pulled a ribbon from Harknesss perfectly coifed hair. Swift bought Harknesss Rhode Island Holiday House in 2013 and used the near-palatial estate to throw her own lavish parties, notably her Taymerica July 4th bashes. Around this time, Harkness fancied herself a composer. Just after 1966, Harkness became a grandmother when her daughter Terry gave birth to a little girl. Rebekah Harkness was born on 17 April 1915 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. Born April 17, 1915 Died June 17, 1982 (67) Showcase yourself on IMDbPro Add to list Credits August 22, 1982 (33) Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland, United States (Suicide ) Place of Burial: New York, Bronx, NY, United States. In December 1956, she even appeared in the pages of Vogue. 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.'' Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. (Allegedly, it was a cat if it matters.). The Bliss Balance - Create Success, Peace, and Happiness in Your Life. Anyone can read what you share. (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.) [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. In November of 1977, her son Allen shot a man during a brawl in Miami. However Jamie has since. Eager to please her emotionally unavailable parents, young Rebekah worked incredibly hard at her dance and ice skating lessons. [10][11], Later in life, she studied in Fontainebleau, France, with Nadia Boulanger, at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, and the Mannes College of Music, New York. She had spent the 1987 equivalent of $38 million on a failed enterprise. Knowing all this (and much, much more; Mr. Unger withholds no ugly or racy detail), what is it exactly that we have learned? If Harknesss lovers are anything to go by, she was a wildcat in the bedroom. By 1982, the end was near for Harkness, yet tragically her son Allen wasnt there. An awning saved her life. 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. Marina Eglevsky - A Legacy of Dance, Part 1. . She lost card game bets with Salvador Dal. The socialite was born in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. One song, The Last Great American Dynasty, is about Rebekah Harkness. 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. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. 1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. Send Woytus anemail at awoytus@stlmag.com. Rebekah Harkness spent much of the Standard Oil fortune she inherited on the ballet. A philanthropist. Their Rhode Island estate, Holiday House, was the site of some raucous Gatsby-esque parties: Blue Blood recalls that Harkness once filled her pool with Dom Perignon (which, oddly, was not the only liberty she took with libations: its also said she put scotch in her fish tank). Salvador Dali put one touchingand classically narcissisticdetail into The Chalice of Life. The urn spun on its base so that Harkness could always be dancing, even beyond the grave. Ironically nicknamed The Chalice of Life, the morbid monument stood right at the intersection between tacky and lavish, just like Rebekah herself. When she died in 1982, Harkness had demanded her ashes be put in a $250,000 jeweled Salvador Dal urn. Rebekah Harkness, as seen in the December 1956 issue of. Tag Archives: Rebekah Harkness. By Elise Taylor. Not only did her ballet collapse, her whole family did as well. Aerial view the former Holiday House. Harkness later donated $2 million to the William Hale Harkness Medical Research Building at the New York Hospital and supported medical research on Parkinson's disease. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. No matter what she did or who she tried to pay off, the great American heiress had a terrifyingly short time to live. [22] In 2020, Swift wrote the song "The Last Great American Dynasty" for her eighth studio album Folklore (2020), in which she tells Harkness' life story and draws parallels between Harkness highly publicized life and her own. She retaliated by dying a neighbors cat green. Lets start from the beginning. And the dysfunction didnt end there. In 1915, Rebekah West was born in St. Louis to Mr. and Mrs. Allen Tarwater West. ''Oh, my God,'' said a witness. She attended finishing school at Fermata in Aiken, South Carolina, from 1929 to 1932, before pursuing advanced instruction in harmonic . The critics, especially the New York Times Clive Barnes, savaged Rebekah. Suddenly, Rebekah was a rich widowone of the wealthiest women in America, in fact. Little Betty had a horrific childhood. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. When she was still desperately clinging to her ballet dreams, Harkness decided to install an enormous, blue plastic Geodesic dome right smack dab in the middle of her front lawn as a formal practice space for her failing dancers. As a sad footnote to the story of Rebekah Harkness is the tragedy of her three children. There she delighted, as she wrote in her scrapbook, in setting out to ''do everything bad. In 1962 she turned her Rhode Island estate, Holiday House, into a summer dance camp for the entire Joffrey Ballet company. That even the rich must die? The couple divorced in 1946. The best revenge might be living well, but that doesn't mean we can always turn the other cheek. When she erected a giant blue geodesic dome on her lawn, they sued her for zoning violations. When she went to the doctors office, they found a frightening problem. And that wasnt the only ill-advised thing she did. The most famous Pack story from around this time is when, during one particularly boring and respectable soiree, the group decided to spike a punch bowl with laxatives. 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. 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 Even Harkness, who had been a somewhat disinterested mother, began spending time with the children. Wade, teaches a dance school for children and directs 2 dance companies, one providing performing opportunities for children and one for adults. 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. Taylor Swift and Rebekah Harkness may have been born decades apart, but it seems they shared a talent for dominating the headlines. A 1955 article from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that one of her works would be premiering at Carnegie Hall in New York City.) Besides despising Rebekahs children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. 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. Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet in 1966. When she was 10 years old, she did. It makes no sense - and no sense is made of it. 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. Rebekah Semple West was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1915. [4] Harkness also surrounded herself with other well-known creatives, like yogi B.K.S. Rebekah struggled with drugs and alcohol. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory, Swift says of the inspiration behind her album, Folklore. They had a son, Allen, and a daughter, Terry. Family Members. They called her ballets worthless, her music crap. [3] Harkness would also continue to study dance and piano, and studied ballet with Victoria Cassau, who was a student of Anna Pavlova. In the art world, the shade International Klein Blue is famous, and was custom-mixed by renowned artist Yves Klein in 1960. But the loud parties caused problems with the neighbors. Swift Identifies with Harkness in her last line, There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen/ I had a marvelous time ruining everything., The music video that accompanies the song features the beach below Holiday House as Rebekah Harkness would have seen it. Today its pretty much forgotten, despite the tens of millions of dollars she spent on it. She lived on champagne and injections - Vitamin B, testosterone, painkillers - as a result of which her bathrooms were splattered with blood and her muscles calcified. Rebekah Vardy has five children in total. It had hand-carved Louis XIV chairs and a huge mural that featured the companys dancers as well as Rebekah Harkness in the nude. Meanwhile, the booze and the pills caught up with her. She filled a pool with Champagne. (Yes, the seaside mansion that was the setting for Taymerica.) And when she discovered one of her Joffrey dancers didnt own a suit, she sent all the Joffrey men to Saks and all the women to Bergdorfs for formalwear. But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." In 1957, Harkness keeled over at Holiday House while sitting for a sculpture Rebekah was working on, dead from a heart attack. OthersJerome Robbins and George Balanchine flatly refused to choreograph her musical compositions. [6] When the Joffrey Ballet refused to rename their company in Harkness' honor, she withdrew funding and hired most of the Joffrey dancers to her new company, the Harkness Ballet. When Joffrey refused to perform the schlock, Rebekahs revenge was brutal. Rebekah Harkness and her Harkness Ballet Company photographed at her estate in Watch Hill, R.I., 1964. Jean Stein and George Plimpton did that brilliantly in ''Edie,'' the biography of poor Edie Sedgwick. . 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. She traveled a lot. 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.'' But according to An American Ballet Story. The children were visiting Bill's family and Alfonso had left . So did the ballet dancers practicing on her lawn. After Rebekah Harkness died in 1982, her daughter Terry took her mother's remains home in a Gristede's shopping bag, according to a story in the New York Times. . But the result was disastrous. She went to Fermata, a. Taylor Swift bought the former Holiday House in 2013 for a reported $17.75 million in cash. She once demanded Castelli to, Kiss me. Scevers, as it turned out, was a self-identified gay man, and couldnt have been in the relationship for romance. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a child who died at age 10. A New York Times article described Harkness's unusual upbringing. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. She also helped discover and train many acclaimed dancers, regardless of their race, background or body shape. [23], An American Ballet Story is an upcoming documentary film directed by Leslie Strait and sponsored by the International Documentary Association. Rebekah Harkness, who also went by Betty, was the previous owner of Taylor Swift's Rhode Island home and serves as the inspiration for the third track on her latest album. 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. All of the work and much of the music was original. Husbands hiding things from wives, mothers from children, and generation from generation. Watch the video for "The Last Great American Dynasty": Woytus is St. Louis Magazine's deputy editor, coveringnews and culture. Much of their marriage dynamic was about his domineering presence setting her on the straight and narrow. Immediate Needs: $1,500. The St. Louisborn socialite is the subject of the singer-songwriter's "The Last Great American Dynasty.". 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. The music video featured the beach and the waves from the house, just as Rebekah Harkness would have seen it. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. 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. [4], In the 1960s, Harkness became well known as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. Her body had been slowly falling into disrepairthose injections hurt far more than they helpedand she started complaining of a mysterious stomach ailment. She was born Rebekah Semple West in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. For one, her emotionally frigid parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with raising her. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. (Her reasoning was thus: I hope the beauty of Harkness House will persuade some of these people that ballet need not be dingy and that by their patronage they are contributing to the splendid and glamorous.) Yet disagreements over artistic direction led to the companys disbanding in 1970. Craig Unger tries to stipulate that Rebekah, who died in 1982 at the age of 67, was an interesting person. Though Kean consulted with multiple US presidents, he also had big-time mafia ties. All the extra rooms would give the nannies plenty of space to feed and bathe the babies without Rebekah having to know a thing about it. She supported the arts in general, ballet in particular, and she had the wealth with which to do it. Eolia was one of their seven homes and reputed . She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. As yet another troubled member of the family, Allen had gotten into a fight, slain a man, and was eventually sentenced with manslaughter. 2023 Cond Nast. . Surprise, surprise, this phase didnt last long. Oh my God, the question here is: What didnt she do? People reported that Harknesss lavish marble bathrooms were often splattered with blood, and that her muscles had begun to calcify. 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. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. She attended finishing school at the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, whose other alums included Roosevelts and Auchinclosses. . Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. To zero peoples surprise, the Harkness family was utterly dysfunctional. Soon Clive Barnes was writing that the Harkness Ballet had ''descended beyond the necessity of serious consideration,'' and in 1975 it folded. In 1972, she bought an old theater near Lincoln Center and refurbished it on a grand scale as the first theater devoted exclusively to ballet. The ashes were placed in a $250,000 jeweled urn made by Salvador Dali. Then in 1947, she married Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who brought her into the serious money class. Nonetheless, Harkness actually doted on the babe, and for a time it seemed like she was going to be a better granny than she was a mommy. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a severely retarded and disabled child. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from Life to Compact Cars and Trucks to A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius. Well get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics youre interested in. First, a brief biography: Born Rebekah Semple West in St. Louis in 1915, Harkness was a divorce whose second marriage was to Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness. When she got out, she sold her Palisades mansion to the Isley Brothers. Fast forward 60 years, and another thin, rich, beautiful white woman bought Holiday House. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. Sheesh, its not wonder Rebekah turned out to be a nightmare when she grew up. Allen Pierce, Rebekah's son by the first of her four husbands, was unable to be present. She would pay for dancers nose jobs at the drop of a hat, and buy office desks for her administrators that cost months worth of New York rent, a generosity that often made her middle-class secretaries supremely uncomfortablenot that Harkness noticed. The 1988 novel was published about Rebekah . Being a patron of the ballet was Rebekahs passion. 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