rebekah harkness children. What followed was a dada version of … And the dysfunction didn’t end there. After that, Rebekah really let it all hang out. A patron of dance and medicine. Hey, all publicity is good publicity—and Rebekah’s need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIII’s first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a child who died at age 10. The lovely pair only made it four years before divorcing. An artist (a … The couple divorced in 1977…but Rebekah’s life was about to take a much darker turn. As Rebekah’s friend said, “Just a leg is in there, or maybe half of her head, and an arm.” So instead of giving her mother a dignified end, Rebekah’s daughter Terry had to carry the rest of her ashes home, bound up loosely in a humble supermarket bag. In 2020, Swift then penned the song “the last great american dynasty,” which tells Harkness’s twisted story for the world. (Photos: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images, Beth Garrabrant) As the saying goes, well-behaved women seldom make history. She loved to pour Dom Perignon into her pool and let guests swim around in the bubbly. Husbands hiding things from wives, mothers from children, and generation from generation. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. For a time, Rebekah Harkness appeared to be enamored of the passive child, called Angel. November 6, 2020 By . Allen shot and killed a man in a brawl and was charged with second-degree murder, the charge eventually being reduced to manslaughter , with Allen serving a total of eight years. Harkness was jealous to an absolute fault, and even to her own detriment. The New York Times described him as an “embarrassing sort of man,” and his hobbies completely back this up. Born Rebekah Semple West on April 17, 1915, in St. And when the time came to put Harkness into the Chalice of Life, the plot thickened. Rebekah divorced Pierce in 1946 after an excruciating seven-year marriage, and it wasn’t long before she set her sights on William Hale Harkness, the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. Salvador Dali put one touching—and classically narcissistic—detail into “The Chalice of Life.” The urn spun on its base so that Harkness could “always be dancing,” even beyond the grave. Harkness died of cancer in 1982 in New York City. 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. Harkness started acting out early in her adolescence, and her antics would put any other mean girl to shame. Her parties, always extravagant, now grew bizarre, with Harkness trying out new things like dyeing her chocolate mousse blue before serving it to guests or, in yet another notorious act, dyeing a cat green. The others, they just know how to bite.” Wow, I’m getting the sense that these two really liked dirty talk. Rebekah Harkness in 1966. (Harkness reportedly cleaned her pool with Dom Pérignon.) Equipped with a ludicrous amount of self-confidence, she did something supremely stupid. The Harkness family looked immaculate from the outside…behind closed doors, though, was another story. Though Harkness took those nasty testosterone injections to strengthen her body for dance, the “medicine” actually had the opposite effect. A patron of dance and medicine. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. She once demanded Castelli to, “Kiss me. Her wealthy neighbors had other ideas, and scornfully forced her to remove the unsightly object. Harkness, or rather his money, made Rebekah interesting. In the art world, the shade “International Klein Blue” is famous, and was custom-mixed by renowned artist Yves Klein in 1960. Sheesh, it’s not wonder Rebekah turned out to be a nightmare when she grew up. Rebekah’s parents hired one nanny specifically because the woman had worked in an insane asylum before. And that wasn’t the only ill-advised thing she did…. Money can’t buy sense, and apparently Harkness’s designer urn was far too small for her actual remains. But Rebekah made the most of it…. Rebekah Harkness in 1966, Taylor Swift in 2020. 314-918-3000. 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.) Almost as soon as William Harkness kicked the bucket, Rebekah turned into one of the most tasteless, gaudy eccentrics the Western hemisphere had ever seen. © Copyright 2020 by Factinate.com. Besides taking pills, the poor girl also jumped off a roof on at least one occasion, and in response, Harkness only mused at her daughter’s various attempts. 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 Taking a break from her deeply intimate, autobiographical anthems, Taylor Swift’s eight album,’Folklore’ is a collection of songs written ‘from the perspective of people I’ve … Her daughter Terry gave birth to a child who died at age 10. Harkness had no problem dropping Joffrey like a hot potato when he wouldn’t support her dismal vanity projects. Discover Rebekah Harkness, the extravagant woman who inspired Taylor Swift’s song “the last great american dynasty.”. When she went to the doctor’s office, they found a frightening problem. Reportedly, she wanted these updates so that she could see as little of her children as possible. Born in 1915 in St. Louis, Missouri, her father Allen Tarwater was a powerful stockbroker, while her mother, also named Rebekah, was a perfectly turned out trophy wife. “How should she do it?” She wondered. This week, Taylor Swift showed the world what she’s been working on during quarantine: a new album, Folklore, which the singer-songwriter released late Thursday evening. And she was just getting started. Not long after Rebekah’s passing, her daughter Edith finally managed to succeed in her suicide attempts. A philanthropist. 1944). See, Rebekah thought that notoriously reclusive writer J.D. No matter what she did or who she tried to pay off, the great American heiress had a terrifyingly short time to live. Though Harkness didn’t seem to care that he was using her, she probably should have…. Rocky, the Beagle, has an amazing nose. 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 uncomfortable—not that Harkness noticed. “Is there a chic way to go?” One day, Rebekah would find out that question for herself. Tragically, she had recklessly spent much of her fortune at this stage, and her ballet school had all but lost its status. We want our readers to trust us. (Getty) But Rebekah's story is intricately more complex that the one set out in Swift's lyrics. According to Scevers, ”It was complete chaos…everybody running around signing wills and trying on different wigs.” And when Rebekah actually passed on June 17, 1982, things only got weirder from there. A New York Times the article describes Harkness’s unusual upbringing. Thanks for your help! Swift bought Harkness’s Rhode Island “Holiday House” in 2013 and used the near-palatial estate to throw her own lavish parties, notably her “Taymerica” July 4th bashes. William Hale died of a heart attack in 1954. The reason behind this is pure cruelty. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. Select from premium Rebekah Harkness Pictures of the highest quality. Scevers and Harkness brought out the worst in each other. Together, the pair resided in Rhode Island, in a home called "Holiday House" that Swift now owns. Rebekah’s 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. She supported the arts in general, ballet in particular, and she had the wealth with which to do it. She applied herself with a rigid, frightening discipline that would become her trademark later in life. Not just going to performances, but sponsoring entire ballet companies, buying up real estate for them and sending them on world tours. Now she has one more posthumous title: muse. She loves Octavia Butler, Rocky IV, and the TV show Museum Secrets. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIII’s rejected queen—but few people know her even darker history. From the outside, Rebekah and William Harkness’s marriage looked immaculate. Rocky Finds His Heart is Rebekah's first children's book. Edith often used her mother’s many, many pills to perform these attempts—and Rebekah was anything but empathetic. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways…. But behind her perfect façade lies a chilling history. Friends who knew Rebekah and William said that although the oil tycoon was a bit of an idiot, the new Mrs. Harkness was actually “scared of him”—and for good reason. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). Everyone advised her to get her affairs in order, but as we’ll soon see, things didn’t work out so neatly for Rebekah Harkness in the end. Reportedly, the baby Angel innocently pulled a ribbon from Harkness’s perfectly coifed hair. Although William Harkness came from a well-respected family that was supposed to give Rebekah even more of the status she craved, William himself was…a total fool. Harkness only left death in her wake wherever she went. In 1961, Harkness gave love another shot, marrying the prominent celebrity doctor Benjamin Harrison Kean. Salinger had the perfect stories for her music, so one day she disguised herself as a cleaning lady, knocked on his door, then tried to convince him to let her use his fiction. Without any real studio space, her dancers often practiced on her front lawn. Advertisement. 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. Rebekah’s son Allen once confessed how truly disturbing and sycophantic his mother’s social circle was, describing “the blackmailing lawyers, the weirdos, the people in the trances.” Harkness also knew how to keep all of her adoring public in competition with each other, with each one of her lackies vying to become the “favorite.” Before her passing, she picked up her most dedicated—and most heartless—fan yet. BOX 191606 Watch the video for "The Last Great American Dynasty": Woytus is St. Louis Magazine's deputy editor. Oh, but they had more tricks up their perfectly-tailored sleeves. Want to tell us to write facts on a topic? But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny / Her saltbox house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis / Bill was the heir to the Standard Oil name and money / And the town said / “How did a middle-class divorcée do it?” / The wedding was charming, if a little gauche / There’s only so far new money goes / They picked out a home and called it “Holiday House” / Their parties were tasteful, if a little loud / The doctor had told him to settle down / It must have been her fault his heart gave out, And they said / There goes the last great American dynasty / Who knows, if she never showed up, what could’ve been / There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvelous time ruining everything. A philanthropist. Still, when you marry for money, you earn every penny…. 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. This had devastating consequences. She was 67.) When describing what inspired her eighth album, which she wrote in quarantine, Swift writes: "I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I've never met, people I've known, or those I wish I hadn't. Not really. To zero people’s surprise, the Harkness family was utterly dysfunctional. The Harknesses shared a HUGE Watch Hill, Rhode Island mansion, called … Ugh. Perhaps most tragically, Rebekah’s little granddaughter Angel had passed just before Rebekah herself; she was just 10 years old. Name variations: Betty Harkness. I knew that she was going to take it badly, but I had no idea about the insane lengths she would go to just to get revenge and mess with my life. When publicizing her ballet, Harkness became notorious for refusing to showcase any of her talented dancers in the promotional photographs. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Copied to clipboard. Rebekah Harkness married heir to Fortune Standard Oil. When Joffrey refused to perform the schlock, Rebekah’s revenge was brutal. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. Instead, she was reared by a series of nannies—and that’s not even the worst part. William, 15 years her senior, saw Rebekah as a “naughty child” in need of a spanking. While he was under her employ, she would often order him around romantically. Dancy Mason is the Editor-in-Chief at Factinate. Copyright 2020 SLM Media Group. They dubbed themselves the “Bitch Pack” and, after graduating in 1932, set about trying to wreak havoc on the socialite scene, one gala at a time. As her own biographer put it, “The only reason her works were ever played in public was because she subsidized the performances.” Harsh, but true. The engagement of Miss Edith Hale Harkness to Ken neth Perry McKinnon, a Washington lawyer, has been announced by Mrs. Rebekah Harkness … Click to copy. While a kinder critic likened it to “a lavish ladies’ powder room,” less-generous experts compared it to a “Staten Island beauty parlor.” Ouch. In a matter of years, her life would go from classy to just plain messy. Socialite circles are infamously tight-lipped about their marriages, but there’s almost no doubt that Rebekah’s union with Pierce was a dismal affair—and one day, she made a disturbing confession. Well, Harkness couldn’t bear to be upstaged, so she unceremoniously fired Rhodes and doomed her own precious ballet company in the process. People reported that Harkness’s lavish marble bathrooms were often splattered with blood, and that her muscles had begun to calcify. Styling herself as the life of the party, Harkness did things like throw plates at the ship’s Filipino orchestra, swim in her birthday suit in full view of other passengers, and send out strings of obscenities so loudly that the ocean liner eventually had no choice but to send the beautiful, foul-mouthed socialite off the boat. She was born Rebekah Semple West in 1915 to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri. Little Betty had a horrific childhood. When she was still just a young girl, the Harknesses noticed that their Betty was putting on weight, so they signed the “pudgy” girl up for dance and figure skating lessons to help her shed those unsightly pounds. William was rolling in money, which made him the perfect candidate for Rebekah’s expensive tastes. Oh my God, the question here is: What didn’t she do? Rebekah Harkness married the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. No clan is left untouched, and even families that seem happy and normal on…. For all her money, Harkness did not have good taste. In 1954, something curious happened to Rebekah Harkness: Her oil tycoon husband passed. Uh, how sweet? Born in 1915 in St Louis, Missouri, Harkness was the second daughter of prominent stockbroker Allen Tarwater and … While at school, Harkness fell in with a fast crowd of like-minded women—that is, emotionally damaged drama queens looking to get revenge on their parents. 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. One day, Harkness’s antics were so extreme that they got her kicked off a cruise ship. Though Kean consulted with multiple US presidents, he also had big-time mafia ties. Born Rebekah Semple West in St. Louis, Missouri, she was the second daughter of three children of a socially prominent stockbroker, Allen Tarwater, and Rebekah Cook (Semple) West. By 1956, she had even snagged a photo spread in Vogue, appearing in a neat, black Mainbocher dress with a white satin apron at her back. The train wreck was now chugging along, and it wouldn’t stop until Harkness took her last breath. The book is available for purchase on Amazon for $195, but a May 1988 New York Times review by the late journalist Barbara Grizzuti Harrison clues us into the reported inner world of Harkness as published in the book. Near the end of her life, one friend noted that she “walked like Frankenstein.”. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. Suddenly, Rebekah was a rich widow—one of the wealthiest women in America, in fact. Raised primarily by a series of nannies, Harkness took up dancing and ice skating to lose weight and was highly disciplined in … As it turned out, this was the beginning of her ignominious end. Reviewers agreed he was one of the company’s only shining lights. She would also fill her lavish fish tanks with Scotch, even as living goldfish swam in them. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. The two purchased a mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which they nicknamed Holiday House. It's no surprise it was left abandoned upon Harkness's death until Swift began hosting the next generation of A-list parties set on the Atlantic Ocean in 2013. Ironically nicknamed “The Chalice of Life,” the morbid monument stood right at the intersection between tacky and lavish, just like Rebekah herself. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. As we’ll see, Rebekah’s “love” only devolved from there. Harkness had to do everything in style—even when it came to moving on to the next life. Read More. Harkness definitely wasn’t the most fiscally-responsible business woman, but she does have the distinction of being the strangest girl-boss in history. On June 10, 1939, Harkness married Dickson W. Pierce, the son of Thomas M. Pierce and a descendant of Franklin Pierce. This is where Rebekah really started getting a tarnished reputation, and things got so bad that no amount of money could fix her downfall. Please reach out to us to let us know what you’re interested in reading. Doctors told Harkness that she had one ailment that no amount of money could cure: She was dying of stomach cancer. In addition to her dancing career, Harkness also fancied herself something of a composer, and would often perform her original songs to “polite reception” at famed places like Carnegie Hall in New York. 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. While at her fancy finishing school, Harkness didn’t seem to care that her classmates were people with last names like “Roosevelt.” Instead, she scrawled in her scrapbook that she wanted to “do everything bad.” Well, she certainly achieved her goal…. Unfortunately for Rebekah, the endeavour ended in national embarrassment and disaster. The 16-track album, Swift’s eighth, features a song titled “The Last Great American Dynasty,” about the late St. Louis–born socialite Rebekah West Harkness, whom Swift paints as an eccentric. Did Mommy and Daddy notice? Find the perfect Rebekah Harkness Pictures stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." The end came swift, fast, and brutal for Harkness. This is vastly different from Harkness's own design that included eight kitchens and 21 bathrooms, which rather effectively prevented her from having to run into her three children while they were in the house. By Heran Mamo. By 1980, many of Harkness’s old friends had dropped off, and she was left with only her most sycophantic hangers-on. For a time in the 1950s, socialite Rebekah Harkness was true American royalty. For example, he liked to vanity-publish nonsensical books that even he admitted were awful. He uses his nose to find bones, treats, and fun adventures. She lost card game bets with Salvador Dalí. As the most commanding mistress in the French court, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure…. From the outside, Rebekah and William Harkness’s marriage looked immaculate. The Swift connection is that the superstar bought Holiday House for a reported $17 million in 2013. Jack Mitchell / Getty Images. When he died in 1955, she was set adrift with $54 million. St. Louis, MO 63119 1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. Faced with Edith’s grim drive to end her life, Harkness was coldly philosophical. Hers is a story as tragic as it is beautiful, which caught the attention of one of our generation’s greatest storytellers and has been forever immortalized as a thing of wonder. The pair was horribly mismatched, with Lauersen a whopping 20 years younger than his bride. Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. (Allegedly, it was a cat if it matters.). One of Harkness’s signature moves was to use vastly expensive products for everyday, mundane things. There are so many challenges in life; it is very easy to surrender your power of choice to external circumstances, other people, and the world. When Harkness planned to put Angel’s nursery over top of his room, Scevers snapped, “Let the little creature die!” Unfortunately, he was one of the few people still by Harkness’s side when the end came. In 1962 she turned her Rhode Island estate, Holiday House, into a summer dance camp for the entire Joffrey […] For what it’s worth, Allen called the years he spent in the clinker—and away from his mother—the “happiest of his life.”. I want to look away, but I just can’t. She all but fired him from his own company, then twisted the knife by taking most of his dancers with her to form her new, solo Harkness Ballet. Besides despising Rebekah’s children, Scevers also hated her disabled granddaughter Angel. 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. She was notorious along the eastern seaboard for her tacky, campy, “new money” sensibilities, and her Harkness Theater was the epitome of her gaudy aesthetic. 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.” We’ll get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics you’re interested in. Please let us know if a fact we’ve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect it’s inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. In 1961, Harkness decided she wanted to become the next great ballet master, so she sponsored actual master Robert Joffrey’s artisanal ballet troupe. She hoped that the fourth time would be the charm, but the socialite had no such luck. The most tragic detail? At Factinate, we’re dedicated to getting things right. Extravagant Facts About Barbara Hutton, “The Poor Little Rich Girl”, These Cruel Teachers Are The Stuff Of Student Nightmares, Bone-Chilling Moments We'll Never Be Able To Explain, Bloody Facts About Ivan the Terrible, The Mad Tsar Of Russia, Plot Twist: These Surprise Endings Made Our Jaws Hit The Floor, More People Need To Know About Nell Gwyn, England’s X-Rated Cinderella, The Jaw-Dropping Life of Josephine Baker, The Black Pearl Of Paris, Absolute Legends: The Wildest Pranks Ever Pulled, Lawyers Reveal Their Most Jaw-Dropping Court Cases, Overheard Once, Forgotten Never: These Hurtful Comments Are Completely Brutal, I’m Done: These People Quit Their Bad Jobs And Toxic Relationships In Epic Ways. Yet like so much of Harkness’s life, what seemed beautiful on the outside was rotting on the inside. Rebekah Harkness died of cancer in 1982 in New York at the age of 67. All rights reserved. Harkness, Rebekah (1915–1982)American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Eager to please her emotionally unavailable parents, young Rebekah worked incredibly hard at her dance and ice skating lessons. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. Devolved from there for dance, the “ medicine ” actually had the wealth with which do... Passed, the heir to the next life Pierce ( b be a nightmare when she grew up have... Schlock, Rebekah and William Harkness ’ s perfectly coifed hair bettered the lives many. 17 million in 2013 Museum Secrets apparently, Harkness liked to reward boy-toys! Passed just before Rebekah herself ; she was left with only her most sycophantic hangers-on find out question!, Aragon 's own life was about his domineering presence setting her on outside... New York Times described him as an “ embarrassing sort of man, ” testosterone. Silly hobby the son of Thomas M. 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