A member of the Duke family, who requested anonymity, said yesterday, "I think Doris will turn it over to her lawyer and say, 'Crush her.' "She told me she was bored silly, and the palace was so froufrou. She's getting better.' It was at this time, she said, that Duke told her that she thought her food was being poisoned. The will provides Lafferty with an executor's fee of up to $5 million, a lifetime annuity of $500,000 a year, and commissions, which could run into the millions annually, as a trustee of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and of three other closely related new foundations: the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of Endangered Wildlife, the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of New Jersey Farmland and Farm Animals, and the Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art. No wills! . I took her to six or seven dinner parties. (Other sources say the meeting took place in 1985.) For Industry Professionals. "There was such a myth about Doris being a solitary person and not going out, so when she showed up somewhere, it was an event. Guest's in Old Westbury: "She came by helicopter. ", Heffner was sitting in the Manhattan apartment of one of her lawyers on a Saturday afternoon late last December. ", In either March or April, Demopoulos said, he received a call from Irwin Bloom, who told him that he had been fired by Duke. Farrah says that Duke had returned from her first visit to Manila, with Rossellini, about a week before meeting Heffner. A stingy southern belle, Nanaline Holt Inman was a widow with one son when she married Buck Duke in 1907. They talked constantly, and Nelson and Claudia used to go to lunches quite often with Chandi and Doris. I came back clean as a whistle. He also said he had worked on and off for Peggy Lee for 10 years. "She out-Leona Helmsleyed Leona Helmsley," Duffy said of Heffner. Medical Center last summer. Everything good I could say about Bernard, I do. Her first husband, James R. Cromwell, called Duke "my frigidheiress" and engaged in a lengthy court battle to win a financial settlement. We were joking around, because we both had bad knees. 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. In a peculiar arrangement, in 1988, the 76-year-old Duke legally adopted the 35-year-old Heffner and bought her a $1 million ranch in Hawaii, where the two lived together as mother and daughter. A. once a week wherever we were. Doris and I used to go fairly regularly to see the president in the hospital; she would give him reiki treatments.". "Most of them didn't want to leave. "Doris did this more for the president. The power that this will gives Bernard Lafferty is "awesome," says one attorney. Born Today Most Popular Celebs Most Popular Celebs Celebrity News. Youth," says Phyllis Saretta, an instructor with the Ibrahim Farrah Near East Dance Group, which Duke funded and danced with in the early 1970s. I said, 'Sure, have him call me.' ", Heffner was with Gary McElroy, with whom she was then living on a communal farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. Most of Duke's friends hadn't had an inkling. ", 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. Doris wouldn't take a pill unless she really needed it. Heffner told me, "Doris used to call James 'Teach.' She continued to give him money, and friends say that their sexual relationship never really ended. When tobacco heiress Doris Duke died last October, she left a will that shocked even those who had known her best. The last words were 'Stay in touch, Harry.' She started taking piano lessons before she went to school, had pianos in every one of her houses as well as in the black lacquered living room of her Park Avenue penthouse, and played every afternoon. And then the wine was $1,000 a bottle; it came from her father's cellars. I think she said when she came home from the hospital she began swimming out into the ocean, just swimming and swimming, not caring whether she lived or died. ", Oatsie Charles had a one-word explanation: "Loneliness. She wasn't sure if she wanted to have a baby, but she said by the third month an incredible mother instinct took over. (The hospital said that Bernard Lafferty was a patient from July 1 to July 14, 1987.). 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. One evening Steve Levy said that Miss Duke wanted him to administer a urine test on me. . 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. "He wanted a settlement," says Nancy Cooke de Herrera, "but you could not get a nickel out of Doris if you came at her the wrong way." Id love to be a fly on the wall when David and Victoria Beckham meet their sons fiancees family. ", In late 1990, he said, "I detected a growing unhappiness on Doris's part. I never heard from Doris again and I could never reach her again. Before moving to Chandi's current city of New York, NY, Chandi lived in Kamuela HI and Kawaihae HI.In the past, Chandi has also been known as Duke Chandi, Chani Duke Heffner, Chani D Heffner, Chandi K Heffner and Chandi Duke Heffner. And Nicolas first cousin on her fathers side is the great New York broadcaster and filmmaker Perri Peltz, whose father was Nelsons older brother. . And the whispers about Duke's last years continue. ". Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Heffner pleaded on his behalf and asked to speak to Duke, but Robinson told her that Duke was tired. Duke died at age 80 in 1988, leaving a hotly contested $1.5 billion estate. "It's very important that Doris has done this," he told me at the time. ", "When one of Doris's love affairs ended, there was always great drama," says her friend Consuelo Crespi. "But she thought everybody was after her money. ", Heffner denies that she had had any previous association with Imelda Marcos. . The balance is due Wednesday. On April 5, 1993, one week after Heffner had sued her, Duke signed her last will, cutting off her adopted daughter in brutally explicit terms: I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her to attempt to benefit financially under the terms of either of the trusts created by my father. Although polo and horse jumping are her favorite equestrian activities, Chandi Heffner currently spends the majority of her time overseeing CDHIF USA and CDHIFI. . Chandi was into environmental concerns. Under the terms approved by Surrogate Renee Roth on Thursday, Chandi Gail Heffner will receive $800,000 by Monday and $65 million on Wednesday. They would helicopter over to Somerville from their estate in Bedford, New York.". We came out from opposite sides of the stage, and I got to the middle and she wasn't there. I remember that most: that she seemed very happy with her life at that period. Chandi Duke Heffner is known for Oh My God (2009). Both Duke and Heffner served as close advisers to Marcos during her trial for fraud and racketeering. . Doris said, 'Do you have time for a drink?' Shes the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. He received nothing. You don't have to go back. In 1945, Duke began a short-lived career as a foreign correspondent for the International News Service, reporting from different cities across the war-ravaged Europe. The Sands says that Lafferty managed the theater, which headlined such stars as Bill Cosby, Joel Grey, and Rita Moreno. According to a half-page biography released by Howard J. Rubenstein Associates, Bernard Lafferty was born in Ireland in 1945 and immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago. This only fueled rumors about his sexuality further and . This Grand Marnier was so old the labels had been written by hand. He also hoped she would finance his 1940 campaign for U.S. senator from New Jersey; instead, she helped ruin his political career by snubbing Eleanor Roosevelt and putting private detectives on him to collect evidence of his extramarital affairs. . A dedicated philanthropist, Chandi Heffner is the founder and President of CDHIFI a charitable foundation that sponsors medical, veterinary and humanitarian assistance to rural regions around the . "That was quite an event. About Heffner's sister. Her longest relationship was with Joey Castro, the Mexican-born jazz pianist at the Mocambo nightclub in Los Angeles, whom she met in 1950, when he was 23 and she was 38. Duke was the only child of J.B. "Buck" Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Co. and later endowed Duke University in Durham, N.C. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. She formally adopted Heffner in 1988. On New Year's Day 1964, she ordered him out, and he retaliated by suing her, claiming that they had been secretly married. Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes. He spent many weekends at a guesthouse at Duke Farms and was her escort when she went into the city for lunches and dinners with friends such as Diana Vreeland, Nan Kempner, and Kenneth Jay Lane. She really had a feeling for him, and expressed annoyance with Imelda. "Bernard got out of the hospital. All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; Companies; Keywords; There was lack of ostentation. April 7, 1993 Chandi Duke Heffner, the 39-year-old former belly dancer and Hare Krishna devotee who was legally adopted by American Tobacco Co. heiress Doris Duke in 1988, now claims the. If someone crossed them, they just put them out of their lives. Heffner Duke, adopted in 1988 when she was 38 and the heiress was in her 70s, could not be reached for comment. I almost feel . "People always think that if you can have 200 people to dine at home without moving the chairs around and you don't, you must be very sad," says Claus von Blow. "Chandi loved animals. ", Duke had a passion for the performing arts all her life. I hired him to come out [to Los Angeles] and work for me, to kind of be my majordomo here. Her mother was another story. View their profile including current address, phone number 808-882-XXXX, background check reports, and property record on Whitepages, the most trusted online directory. ''Doris and I had been in the Gobi Desert together, and we found out they were becoming a threatened species." . Do you think you could help him out?' They hired him on Ferencz Soltesz's recommendation. "There was a rumor that she did it deliberately. Nanaline worshiped Society, and she disapproved of her tall, awkward, studious daughter. Then the U.S. government blindsided it, Column: Uber and Lyfts deactivation policy is dehumanizing and unfair. That's the same as around $125 million in today's dollars. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. "It was shocking," Heffner told me. ", After Thanksgiving, as she had for five decades, Duke left for Hawaii. (Burns dismisses reports that he was once a Chippendales dancer: "Not that I haven't been asked. ", Thomas Rybak maintains, "I personally believe that Chandi was pushed out by Bernard. And I was surprised. She never married again, and from then on the men in her life, whether they were lovers or not, were considerably younger and came from the creative world. 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. Ari Emanuel lets his AI alter ego open Endeavors earnings call, Sam Bankman-Fried increasingly isolated as another associate takes a plea deal, How Black Market Flea and Everyday People brought the buzz of Black life to the Beehive. Sources at Duke's estates, however, portrayed Heffner in a different light. Although she was constantly compared to Hutton from the time they both had fairy-tale coming-out parties the year after the stock market crashed, Duke always hated the comparison to the much-married Woolworth heiress, who died penniless. "Doris had gone surfing," explains Nancy Cooke de Herrera, an old friend from Hawaii. She got right up like a trouper and fell right down again. Much to the surprise of almost everyone who knew Duke, she named her butler of six years, Bernard Lafferty, as executor of her estate and placed him in control of the newly created Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which is to receive almost her entire fortune. Her estate, said one family member yesterday, is valued at more than $1 billion. The baby's death profoundly affected Duke, and she even hired psychics to try to. . Chandi Duke Heffner Net Worth Chandi Duke Heffner Net Worth 2022, Age, Height, Relationships, Married, Dating, Family, Wiki Biography. Keyko said that $800,000 was paid to Heffner on Friday. When Duke was 27 years old, she delivered a premature baby daughter who died just 24 hours after being born. . Once a day, she meditates in her "deity room," which is filled with golden statues from India. Today, the museum features objects, furniture, and art selected, arranged, and used by Doris to make Rough Point a home. Enzo Natale concurs: "Chandi and Bernard were twins.". At a 1990 lunch at Duke Farms for Lord Carrington, then chairman of Christie's, according to Oatsie Charles, "Chandi's attitude toward Doris was awfully offhand. Could not be reached for comment had known her best Claudia used go. Any previous association with Imelda he also said he had worked on and off for Peggy Lee for years! And local News paid to Heffner on Friday yesterday, is valued at more than $ 1 billion or. Often with Chandi and Doris an inkling been written by hand says her friend Consuelo Crespi father 's.. 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