Finally, one of her new lawyers, Mr. Doyle, got it back on track. Over the next few years, she bought almost an entire neighborhood of dilapidated 17th- and 18th-century houses, restored them, and rented them to town residents. Heffner, who lives on the Big Island of Hawaii on a ranch that Duke previously purchased for her, said in court papers that after their February 1991 breakup she learned that Duke had made changes in her will, and "the estate has not been left to Chandi as Doris had agreed." It was perhaps her last romantic affair, and in some respects foreshadowed her relationship with Chandi Heffner. I asked Doris and she said, 'Yeah, it's fine.' She had received another $10 million of her inheritance in 1937, and would receive at least as much in 1942. Toward the end of the summer, in Newport, Heffner told Duke that she had to return to Hawaii, because she was concerned about her horses and dogs, and had planned a trip to Bali with Gordon Damon. The two exchanged their "vows" at Duke's Hawaiian mansion, but it was revealed the whole thing was a hoax. Duke. In her lawsuit, Heffner claims it was she who arranged this transaction, as well as the payment of $5 million of Marcos's legal bills. Another time, at a college in upstate New York, Bobby [Farrah] didn't have her dancehe had her completely veiled, and she sat on the stage and played finger cymbals. In 1925, at the age of 13, she inherited an estimated $100 million in trusts from her father, James Buchanan Duke, a coarse but brilliant self-made man who founded the American Tobacco Company and the Duke Power Company, and who endowed Trinity College in North Carolina with millions, reportedly on the condition it change its name to Duke University. I called the California home and the other sites many times. After a two-week rejuvenation cure in Romania with the controversial Dr. Anna Aslan, they stopped in London. ", Though she still would occasionally joke, "I haven't had any greens lately," which Nancy Cooke de Herrera says was Duke's code for sex, she seemed to be settling down. Charles became so concerned about Duke's condition that she called her and asked if Heffner had been "giving her something, I don't know what"even though Heffner had been out of the picture for a year and a half. . Although polo and horse jumping are her favorite equestrian activities, Chandi Heffner currently spends the majority of her time overseeing CDHIF USA and CDHIFI. Banks never saw her again. . ", James Cromwell maintained that it was not his child, and friends assumed that it was Cunningham-Reid's. Her first husband, James R. Cromwell, called Duke "my frigidheiress" and engaged in a lengthy court battle to win a financial settlement. Doris loved it. Heffner told me, "Doris used to call James 'Teach.' The reason it didn't last long was she didn't want them. We used to sit in the sunroom with these tiny bits of broken porcelain and she'd say, 'It's got to be fixed, and I can do it better than most people.' She had just been through three days of depositions in New Jersey, where her lawsuit was filed, and had two more days to go before she could fly back to Hawaii, where she lives on an isolated 300-acre horse ranch, which Duke had bought for her on the Big Island for about $1.5 million before their rupture, and where she keeps a loaded pistol beside her bed. Heffner was also responsible for hiring a new accountant, Irwin Bloom, and a security consultant, Steven Levy, both of whom had worked for Nelson Peltz. 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. ", Another of Duke's intimates said that the real reason her closest friends were in favor of the adoption was that "Doris had contemplated suicide, and we thought we could have some peace of mind that she wouldn't kill herself as long as Chandi was around. Movies. . Chandi Duke Heffner Net Worth Chandi Duke Heffner Net Worth 2022, Age, Height, Relationships, Married, Dating, Family, Wiki Biography. Then the U.S. government blindsided it, Column: Uber and Lyfts deactivation policy is dehumanizing and unfair. There was a deadly side to Doris. In 1987, Heffner handled the negotiations for Duke's most talked-about acquisition: two Bactrian camels, which were thrown in as a sweetener on the deal to purchase a 19-passenger Boeing 737-300 for $25 million. Chandi was into environmental concerns. "It was strange. That fall, she attended a tribute to Sophia Loren at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a fancy party afterward at Tatou, with Imelda Marcos, Rossellini, Natale, and Lafferty, who wore a ski sweater. So did Imelda. "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.' She was not on steroids in the latter half of 1990, and this was not a mood swing. The Sands says that Lafferty managed the theater, which headlined such stars as Bill Cosby, Joel Grey, and Rita Moreno. Duke died last October, leaving an estate reported to be between $750 million and $1.3 billion and lengthy obituaries which focused on her husbands and lovers, her houses in New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaii, her collections of Oriental and Islamic art, her $5 million bailout of Imelda Marcos, and her perplexing relationship with Chandi Heffner. Lafferty had been working for Nelson and Claudia Peltz for the previous seven months, and Rybak says, "The Peltzes put him in a 28-day program. She grew up near Towson, an upper-middle-class suburb of Baltimore, and graduated from Notre Dame Prep, a private Catholic girls' school, in 1971. "Chandi loved animals. One night at dinner, Heffner told me, "Doris said to me, 'You're my daughter reincarnated. The 1987 will had designated Heffner executor. (1940 - 1940) Photos: 19. Why doesn't she help you?' This should be some rehearsal dinner! ", Donald Robinson, who represented Duke in the Marcos matter, recalls going out to Duke Farms after Imelda Marcos posted bail in New York: "The group was Imelda and her lawyer, one of her daughters, Franco Rossellini, his friend Enzo Natale, Chandi, and Doris. She also asked to be buried at sea. . Jane Engelhard sat next to the bodyguard, and you should have seen her face. . Duke may have been infatuated, but friends of Tirella's told me that he was unabashedly gay. Duke died at age 80 in 1988, leaving a hotly contested $1.5 billion estate. She got right up like a trouper and fell right down again. Heffner also claims she saved the heiress's life on more than one occasion: once when Duke collapsed at her Newport estate in a "pool of blood," and a second time when Heffner recalls diving into the freezing Atlantic to save Duke from drowning. Nine months earlier, she had sued her adoptive mother for breach of contract, claiming that she had promised to maintain her in the Duke lifestyle for the rest of Heffner's life and to make her the principal heir of her estate. And the whispers about Duke's last years continue. The first one, in Hawaii, didn't work out: she wanted to make a museum out of a Thai temple that she had saved from destruction on one of her many trips to Southeast Asia. She thought it was very amusing. One repeated her response to a straight man who was reluctant to have dinner with Rock Hudson for fear that he would be molested. 'Doris Duke really was the last Chinese empress, the last of a type that doesn't exist anymore. ", 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. 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. 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. . For some reason, Doris actually came to believe that Chandi. We'll travel together. 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. Chandi lives on the horse farm now and operates a very modest charity called the CDH Foundation, with total assets of $ 2 million. Doris Duke was murdered. "She forgave Rubi everything," says Reinaldo Herrera, even his subsequent marriage to Barbara Hutton. . This was at 11 in the morning. ", Others insist that Heffner's growing involvement with Burns created new tensions and was the root cause of Duke's disenchantment with her adopted daughter. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. He also instilled in her an almost reflexive inability to trust people. . There's no question that Bernard was more than just a butler. Heffner pleaded on his behalf and asked to speak to Duke, but Robinson told her that Duke was tired. "She got us our first booking, in that black church in New Jersey. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jewish immigrants. "Rubi" was also presented with a string of polo ponies and a house in Paris. Lee told me, "Ten or 15 years ago, I went to sing in the Versailles Room at the old Bellevue, and Bernard was the manager of the room, and we became friends. (Marcos was eventually acquitted, and returned to the Philippines.). I used to tell her, 'You know, Doris, some people do like you for yourself. It was clear that something adverse was going on in the latter part of 1990 in Hawaii. Heffner spent almost six months on and off in two Honolulu hospitals, because she also developed a heart problem. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. I feel unsure of myself physically. When Duke was 27 years old, she delivered a premature baby daughter who died just 24 hours after being born. Peltz, a Michael Milken protg, was beginning his rise to the top of the junk-bond heap; he would soon take over Triangle Industries, then National Can and American Can, and be worth $400 million by 1989. Newport police declared it an accident, and her friends still swear that it was. Woody Brock, who visited her with Oatsie Charles that summer, says, "It must have been 85 degrees outside, and she had on a white sweater and a roaring fire in every room. . ", Heffner was sitting in the Manhattan apartment of one of her lawyers on a Saturday afternoon late last December. . People get annoyed with their kids. Ron Protas, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, says, "Doris was very shy, and never thought enough of herself, because she was so beat up emotionally by her father. 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