[1] Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company. Jack Mitchell. She was born April 17, 1915 to a wealthy St. Louis stockbroker Allen Tarwater West and his trophy wife Rebekah. Rebekah West Harkness (ne Semple West;[1] April 17, 1915 June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. All the essentials: top fashion stories, editors picks, and celebrity style. Fast forward 60 years, and another thin, rich, beautiful white woman bought Holiday House. She had spent the 1987 equivalent of $38 million on a failed enterprise. Rebekah divorced Pierce in 1946 after an excruciating seven-year marriage, and it wasnt long before she set her sights on William Hale Harkness, the heir to the Standard Oil fortune. 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. 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. Tag Archives: Rebekah Harkness. Thomson Asks States to Sue the U.S.", "Out of Prison, Doctor Hopes to Regenerate His Lost Fame", "Taylor Swift is buying into a rich Watch Hill tradition", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rebekah_Harkness&oldid=1121521087, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 November 2022, at 18:59. Her voice grew husky and her muscles calcified. Were always looking for your input! How should she do it? She wondered. All rights reserved. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). By James Crowley On 7/24/20 at 12:22 PM EDT. She moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from one bank to another for the pleasure of confusing her accountants. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. He. The Harknesses were married for a brief periodjust seven years. Her wealthy neighbors had other ideas, and scornfully forced her to remove the unsightly object. Meanwhile, the booze and the pills caught up with her. He likes to talk about blowing people away. 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. 11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Rebekah Harkness, American composer, sculptor, and. She soon became the owner of a vast number of properties, and indulged in many luxuries. Rebekahs son Allen once confessed how truly disturbing and sycophantic his mothers 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 dedicatedand most heartlessfan yet. These are facts of which we have already been apprised. Rebekah Harkness's height Unknown & weight Not Available right. Watch Hill Harbor By Stephg82988 Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23370833. Knowing all this (and much, much more; Mr. Unger withholds no ugly or racy detail), what is it exactly that we have learned? In 1962 she turned her Rhode Island estate, Holiday House, into a summer dance camp for the entire Joffrey Ballet company. [3] Harkness would also continue to study dance and piano, and studied ballet with Victoria Cassau, who was a student of Anna Pavlova. Harkness, born Rebekah Semple West, grew up amidst splendor in St. Louis as the third and youngest child of Allen Tarwater West, heir to a banking fortune, and Rebekah Semple, daughter of a wealthy merchant. Harkness had quite the life according to The New York Times (opens in new tab) . She was brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum. Rebekah Harkness' antics annoyed her neighbors, while Jesus' antics got him murdered by the state and by some religious leaders. Faced with Ediths grim drive to end her life, Harkness was coldly philosophical. One of Harknesss signature moves was to use vastly expensive products for everyday, mundane things. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. In 1954, something curious happened to Rebekah Harkness: Her oil tycoon husband passed. Mr. Unger tells us that under the direction of the dancer-choreographer Larry Rhodes the company began to garner critical raves - whereupon Mrs. Harkness fired him. Silver Gelatin. 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. [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. And then in 2020, the houses owner, Taylor Swift, wrote a song about Rebekah Harkness, called The Last Great American Dynasty. However Jamie has since. (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.) (I do admit, however, that I'd go a long way to read a sentence like this, spoken by Bertrand Castelli, the co-producer of ''Hair,'' about the time he made love to Rebekah Harkness in her office: ''It was as if we were two camels in the desert who suddenly know that the only way to make an oasis is to really talk sense.'' 432 pp. Harkness died of cancer in 1982 in New York City. Her youngest daughter, Edith, had tried to commit suicide at the age of 15 by flinging herself out of a high rise in front of her. Dancy Mason is the Editor-in-Chief at Factinate. A ltima dinastia de Rebekah Harkness famosa e problemtica socialite que inspirou a faixa 3 de "Folklore", lbum de Taylor Swift | by ana guelere | Hello Band | Medium Write Sign up Sign In. After her husband passed away in 1954, Harkness poured more money into her Watch Hill compound, installing 8 kitchens and 21 baths. . William was rolling in money, which made him the perfect candidate for Rebekahs expensive tastes. Little evidence is given in support of this thesis except that the two wrote a song together called ''Giggling With My Feet.''. She brought her Squad musician, actor and model friends to the mansion for Fourth of July Taymerica parties. She is the inspiration behind Taylor Swift's 2020 song "The Last Great American Dynasty". It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. Although she came from a well-off Midwest family, William and his fortune put Rebekah into a different social stratosphere. Family Members. The most tragic detail? As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Though Rebekah grew up in a wealthy St. Louis family, her social status was elevated when, after her first divorce, she married William. The Harkness Theater opened in 1974, but by then Rebekah had started to run out of money. 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 attended finishing school at the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, whose other alums included Roosevelts and Auchinclosses. As the saying goes, well-behaved women seldom make history. 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. Rebekah Harkness had ambition and drive. Extravagant Facts About Barbara Hutton, The Poor Little Rich Girl, Tragic Facts About Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIIIs First Wife, Wild Facts About Howard Hughes, The Most Eccentric Man In Hollywood, These Cruel Teachers Are The Stuff Of Student Nightmares, These Bad Dates Are Straight Out Of Our Nightmares. Around this time, Harkness fancied herself a composer. I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. I just hit the ceiling. By 1980, many of Harknesss old friends had dropped off, and she was left with only her most sycophantic hangers-on. So did the ballet dancers practicing on her lawn. But most people dont know the most chilling part. She also expanded Holiday House to include eight kitchens, 42 rooms and 21 baths. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. Throughout the . As well see, Rebekahs love only devolved from there. As it turned out, this was the beginning of her ignominious end. In December 1956, she even appeared in the pages of Vogue. $19.95. The lovely pair only made it four years before divorcing. Join thousands of others and start your morning with our Fact Of The Day newsletter. Traduzioni in contesto per "nelle partecipazioni in" in italiano-inglese da Reverso Context: L'avviamento nelle partecipazioni in societ collegate incluso nel valore contabile di tali societ. [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. (''I'm glad Edith is gone,'' said the unquenchable Bobby Scevers. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. 30 July 2020. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. My mom never told me how her best friend died. The train wreck was now chugging along, and it wouldnt stop until Harkness took her last breath. He received a prison sentence of 15 years, but didnt bother to get in touch with his mother. Obviously, Rebekah was completely out touch with realityso her next move makes sense. 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. You won't want to miss this episode about the muse for Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift. Before she passed, the socialite spent $250,000 to commission a bedazzled urn from none other than Salvador Dali. 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. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. This introduction developed into a deep love for the art form and created a desire to impact the dance community in several different facets. She developed an addiction to injections of B-vitamins, painkillers and testosterone. Taylor Swift bought the former Holiday House in 2013 for a reported $17.75 million in cash. Rocky Finds His Heart. One song, The Last Great American Dynasty, is about Rebekah Harkness. Shop for Rebekah Harkness at Walmart.com. That money can't buy happiness? ''Is there a chic way to go?''. But according to An American Ballet Story. [2][4] During her final days, Harkness began to reconcile with her children. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. 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. After Rebekah Harkness' husband died in 1953, she remodeled the house with 8 kitchens and 21 bathrooms in order to 'effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a . Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Image courtesy Holiday House, Courtesy Google, Maxar Technologies. Not only did her ballet collapse, her whole family did as well. ''Oh, my God,'' said a witness. REBEKAH HARKNESS earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in social work from the University of Utah. 2023 Cond Nast. But the book also states Harkness was "brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum." The couple took up residence in an enormous eight -kitchen, 21 -bathroom mansion (an arrangement that "effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a regular. According to Blue Blood, a book by Craig Unger, Harkness wrote in her scrapbook that at Fermata, she set out do everything bad. An example of her mischievousness? Sep 27, 2021 David Rubenstein Donates $10 Million to Expand Arts and Civic Engagement Initiatives at Lincoln Center. . Rebekah also loaded up on art and real estate. The caption read: A young woman with a surprising range of interests, Mrs. Harkness is a sculptor, a musician of professional standing (shes a member of ASCAP), a skier (shell soon off to her chalet in Gstaad with her three children for a holiday), and an active supporter of many charities. Below her in the spread? She rang J. D. Salinger's bell dressed as a cleaning lady, having conceived the harebrained scheme that the reclusive writer's short stories be put to music. In 1939 she married Dickson Pierce because, she said, she didnt have anything better to do. Swift explains it briefly in a verseHarkness once owned Holiday House, the singers current Watch Hill, Rhode Island, home. She died June 17, 1982. Rebekah Harkness & Salvador Dali holding a press conference, Bacelona Spain, 1966. St. Louis, MO 63119 https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/22/books/is-there-a-chic-way-to-go.html. Being a patron of the ballet was Rebekahs passion. [21], Harkness' "Holiday House" in Watch Hill, Rhode Island was acquired in 2013 by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. She was surrounded by a group her son Allen described as ''all the fairies flying off the floor, the blackmailing lawyers, the weirdos, the people in the trances.'' In October 1948, Harkness gave birth to her first child with her second husband, a daughter Edith. Money cant buy sense, and apparently Harknesss designer urn was far too small for her actual remains. The Harkness Foundation for Dance still exists. [12] And how in the world did she get that way? Rebekah Harkness, composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet, photographed in her office in 1964. Materials. Mr. Unger, who records interviews uncritically and unreflectively, does not permit us to know exactly how he feels about his subject. However, the connection between the two women, despite being eras apart, may go beyond mere real estate. Maybe. It was not part of the Harkness Ballet, Harkness House or the Rebekah Harkness Foundation. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915 - June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. 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.'' Harkness was surprisingly generous when it suited her, but also unpredictably bizarre. $ 25.93. Who Is Rebekah Harkness? Harkness had no problem dropping Joffrey like a hot potato when he wouldnt support her dismal vanity projects. P.O. Copyright 2022 SLM Media Group. Harkness pulled this prank at her own sisters debutante ball. ''The others, they just know how to bite.'') 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. (Actually, it was a private My Favorite Murder crossover group, if you care.) Anyone can read what you share. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. ''She's escaped. [10] In 1947, William Hale married Rebekah Semple West, [11] who was previously married to Dickson Pierce. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Reportedly, the rest of her remains were placed in a Gristedes bag. In the 1960s, Harkness took Bobby Scevers, a dancer who was 25 years her junior, as her lover. Rebekah Semple West was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1915. ''I can't believe it took her this long to succeed.'') Instead, she was reared by a series of nanniesand thats not even the worst part. [4], On October 1, 1947, Harkness married William Hale Harkness (19001954), the son of William Lamon Harkness, both Standard Oil heirs. Rebekah struggled with drugs and alcohol. Her ego, however, overrode common sense and proportion. Then she stole most of the Joffrey dancers for her own ballet company the Harkness. When Rebekah decided to renovate her Rhode Island mansion, she demanded that it have a whopping eight kitchens and 21 baths. Oh my God, the question here is: What didnt she do? Her daughter Edith jumped off roofs, swallowed pills and managed not to kill herself. The Harkness family had a reputation for its philanthropy. Doctors told Harkness that she had one ailment that no amount of money could cure: She was dying of stomach cancer. William Hale Harkness The dancers, choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers and experimenters. She did this in grand - if occasionally Marie Antoinette-ish -style. The last great American dynasty, indeed. 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 of Harknesss final acts in her role as ballet maestro was also her most embarrassing. Not just going to performances, but sponsoring entire ballet companies, buying up real estate for them and sending them on world tours. Husbands hiding things from wives, mothers from children, and generation from generation. The best new culture, style, and beauty stories from Vogue, delivered to you daily. But Rebekah made the most of it. In 2020, Swift then penned the song the last great american dynasty, which tells Harknesss twisted story for the world. Her daughter Terry gave birth to a severely retarded and disabled child. They bought Eolia from Mary's sister and her brother-in-law, Jessie Stillman and William Taylor in 1907. Like this story? After that, Rebekah really let it all hang out. Though Harkness took those nasty testosterone injections to strengthen her body for dance, the medicine actually had the opposite effect. 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. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. The only problem was that the urn was too small. She filled her fish tank with goldfish and Scotch. Her first major contributions were helping to fund the early . 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. She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. Reportedly, she wanted these updates so that she could see as little of her children as possible. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. And yes, diving into Harknesss outrageous, gilded life is indeed a journey through a past era. Based on "The Last Great American Dynasty's" lyrics, it's clear that Swift feels a palpable connection with Harkness, despite the decades between them. Yet its also impossible to avoid drawing parallels between Swift and Harkness. Harkness was friends with a young Potter Stewart, whom she affectionately called "Potsie," and their relationship was written about by her biographer Craig Unger. The Joffrey had a price to pay for Rebekah Harknesss support. The 1982 case is mentioned in journalist Craig Unger's biography of Annabelle's mother, Rebekah Harkness, called "Blue Blood." The book, published in 1988, offers an unflattering snapshot . Love and Empowerment. 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. Romance and heartbreak (and revenge) ballads make up the primary focus of most albums; however, her newest album, Folklore, which debuted today, features a song, titled "The Last Great American Dynasty," about a New England philanthropist and patron of the arts, Rebekah West Harkness. [7] In addition to founding the Harkness Ballet, Harkness launched a ballet school and home for the company called Harkness House,[8] as well as a refurbished 1,250-seat theater, which presented the Harkness Ballet and other dance companies to New York audiences. We have estimated Rebekah Harkness's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Her son Allen says the years he spent in prison were the happiest of his life. Please let us know if a fact weve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect its inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. In addition to . In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. Send Woytus anemail at awoytus@stlmag.com. [2] Neither parent was involved in the upbringing of the children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies. Latest News on Rebekah Harkness . [9] [14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. Mary and Edward Harkness were married in 1904. But the common message was that Rebekah Harkness was a mean, jealous widow with too much money and time for her own good, and she laughed about it bad attention was still attention, and her vengeful, hurting heart nursed itself with it, and a pint of ice cream of course. Their antics soon became legendary. On June 10, 1939, Harkness married Dickson W. Pierce, the son of Thomas M. Pierce. "Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny" The very first line of the song introduces the main character, Rebekah West Harkness, a real heiress who was also a composer, ballet mistress, and sculptor whose life presents several interesting anecdotes. [9][14] Following the divorce, Harkness gained custody of both children. 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.) Upon the albums release, much of the Internet was thrown into a Who Is Rebekah West Harkness? madness. In 1971, she married a fourth time, to another doctor, but one 20 years her junior. Harrison notes some of the same lighter-hearted factoids about Harkness from Ungers biography: She was allegedly once kicked off a cruise ship for swimming nude, for example. Perhaps most tragically, Rebekahs little granddaughter Angel had passed just before Rebekah herself; she was just 10 years old. [1] Before their divorce in 1946, they had two children; Allen Pierce (b. 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. 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