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. "He was devastated. 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. Duke Kahanamoku went in after her and saved her. ", A few days before I interviewed Heffner, an item had appeared in Cindy Adams's gossip column: Robert Ibrahim Farrah, an instructor of Middle Eastern dance, who says he introduced Heffner to Duke in 1984, claimed that Duke had come to fear Heffner. It would be her last trip to Europe, and she also visited Poland with Brazilian grande dame Aime de Hereen. Doris was into it, too. This gives her the air of philanthropy. She wasn't Barbara Hutton," says Marina Cicogna, who was a friend of both heiresses. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. One time we were performing at an Arab party at this catering hall in Brooklyn called the Venetian Manor, and Doris and I were partners. Shortly after Duke's 80th birthday, in November, Nelson Seabra saw her at C. Z. ", In February, a few weeks after Protas returned to New York with Graham, he received a phone call from Duke at three in the morning. He was born on August 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, USA, as Paul Rubenfeld. ", Sometimes, Robert Farrah recalls, "Doris would throw up her hands and say, 'No wills! (After Duke's death, the trustees of her estate became defendants in this lawsuit.). When I go I'll be eaten by the sharks.". She was so distressed about losing the baby. It would come back. (Von Blow is referring to a 1982 dinner party Duke gave at '21' in New York for his friends shortly after he had been convicted of attempting to murder his wife, Sunny. Chandi Duke Heffner has 24 books on Goodreads, and is currently reading Compassion: Living in the Spirit of St. Francis by Ilia Delio, Free Your Mind by . She took daily tap lessons from Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at the Cotton Club, and for years studied ballet under Cyd Charisse's ex-husband, Nico. Doris said, 'Do you have time for a drink?' Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes. They were disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the spiritual master of the Hare Krishna movement, and they had been unofficially married in a ceremony in India in the 70s. ", Thomas Rybak maintains, "I personally believe that Chandi was pushed out by Bernard. Doris Duke dumped Chandi Heffner because Heffner wanted to marry one of their bodyguards. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. I came back clean as a whistle. Meanwhile, Heffner is holed up on her Hawaiian ranch. "Elvis made whites interested in black music," she once told me, "which was very important, because race is the biggest problem we have in America.". Up to that point, Heffner alleges, the two women shared an extremely close relationship, enjoying not only the opulence of Duke's estates, but also trips to Russia, "fountain of youth" treatments in Romania, finding suitable maids for the ornery billionaire after she'd been "blacklisted" by employment agencies, shopping for a $25 million Boeing 737, and a shared belief that Heffner was the reincarnation of Duke's only child, a daughter who died shortly after birth in 1940. According to the Mansfield biography, Cromwell asked her on their sexless wedding night what his annual income from her would be. 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. 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. I've talked to bankers who said she knew where every last nickel was. ", Heffner wryly noted that Bernard Lafferty, accompanied by a bodyguard and chauffeur, had sat through her depositions wearing a five-carat-diamond earring, a diamond bracelet, and a diamond watch. Her first husband, James R. Cromwell, called Duke "my frigidheiress" and engaged in a lengthy court battle to win a financial settlement. This whole thing is such a shock." We would be four, six, eightOatsie Charles, Nuala Pell, Minnie Cushing, Lita McBean and her husband, and Sunny and me. I said, 'Doris, get out of that house. Then one day in June, Miss Duke called me and said, 'Thomas, have you seen Bernard? . One of Chandi's doctors thought that pregnancy might help her conditions, and Chandi was discussing this with Doris one evening in Newport while I was sitting there. Why doesn't she help you?' Chandi got a couple of the housemen, and they brought him to the Somerville hospital." "I was not aware of his drinking problem when I placed him there, but I did inform Chandi [before sending him to Doris Duke's]. And then Chandi said something that took me aback: 'Bobby, I can't understand why you have a friend like that and yet you're struggling to have a dance publication. . Franco Rossellini assured everyone that he was all for it. 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. Today, Chandi lives on a palatial farm in. Yet it is the underlying misconception of almost everything ever written about her, including Stephanie Mansfield's 1992 biography, The Richest Girl in the World. In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. Today, the museum features objects, furniture, and art selected, arranged, and used by Doris to make Rough Point a home. After giving the matter prolonged and serious consideration, I am convinced that I should not have adopted Chandi Heffner. Love. He went to Sarasota High School. We wouldn't sit in the main dining room. But she got up again, and we did our steps. Chandi Heffner was "planted" on Doris Duke by Imelda Marcos. "Whenever she walked into your room, she made the room," recalls Mercedes Bass. Even Imelda didn't see her.". View their profile including current address, phone number 808-882-XXXX, background check reports, and property record on Whitepages, the most trusted online directory. I took her to six or seven dinner parties. "That was quite an event. Duke left most of her money to charity and named her butler, Bernard Lafferty, co-executor of the estate. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. One repeated her response to a straight man who was reluctant to have dinner with Rock Hudson for fear that he would be molested. ", "When one of Doris's love affairs ended, there was always great drama," says her friend Consuelo Crespi. So we went into the room, and Bernard was buck naked, bent over a chair, passed out. 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. After repeated requests for an interview, I received the following statement through the New York public-relations firm representing him: "My duty to Miss Duke is to maintain her privacy even though she is gone.". ", Heffner was sitting in the Manhattan apartment of one of her lawyers on a Saturday afternoon late last December. The 1987 will had designated Heffner executor. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. She got right up like a trouper and fell right down again. Lafferty can appoint the bank that will serve as the estate's co-executor, and three of the four other trustees of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ", After Thanksgiving, as she had for five decades, Duke left for Hawaii. Heffner is also claiming her right to inherit two trusts which Buck Duke created in 1917 and 1924, on the ground that she is his lineal descendant and grandchild. She also told me that Duke was much more taken with Ferdinand Marcos, who was gravely ill in Honolulu, than she was with his wife. "He was marvelous," says Claus von Blow, who later became Duke's neighbor in Newport. Her estate, said one family member yesterday, is valued at more than $1 billion. One of the first things she did was to caution Duke, on the advice of Nelson Peltz, against an investment proposed by her then business manager, Patrick Mahn. In any case, their friendship ended in tragedy that October, when Duke ran him over as he was opening the gate of Rough Point. They would helicopter over to Somerville from their estate in Bedford, New York.". In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. 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. Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. He felt deeply grateful to Doris, as I did.". Because just as Doris was taking me to the door, there was Chandi with the caretaker. A stingy southern belle, Nanaline Holt Inman was a widow with one son when she married Buck Duke in 1907. According to Heffner, Duke suffered heart palpitations in Moscow and was afraid to be alone, so for the rest of the trip they shared hotel rooms. Doris seemed very, very happy. Mahn soon left, and in 1987 co-authored Daddy's Duchess: The Unauthorized Biography of Doris Duke. Chandi sued Dukes estate and wound up inheriting $65 million. Phyllis Saretta told me that Duke performed with the Farrah company four or five times, wearing a long black wig. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Donald Robinson then called and informed Heffner that Duke wanted Burns out of the house. If someone crossed them, they just put them out of their lives. He also said he had worked on and off for Peggy Lee for 10 years. 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. This was at 11 in the morning. ", Dr. Demopoulos told me, "I spoke to her in early January. Lafferty served. I feel unsure of myself physically. We would go into the kitchen, just the four of us. Dukes father, James Buchanan Duke, founded American Tobacco Co. Heffner, 42, was adopted by Duke in 1988, but after the two had a falling out, Duke took Heffner out of the will. Miss Duke's will went on: "I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her (when she was 35 years old) to attempt to benefit financially under the . And all around him were all these liquor bottlesGrand Marnier and sherry. Guest introduced Duke to Leon Amar, a 30-year-old Moroccan decorator. . He was the legendary Latin lover Porfirio Rubirosa, the former son-in-law of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. "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. '", Heffner dismissed such charges, and also told me that one day during the "steroid" period Duke had called her into her bedroom and said, "I think somebody is putting poison in my food. This was the fifth time that Duke had rewritten or revised her will since Heffner's banishment 26 months earlier. Duke scoffed, "Oh, come on. She was so alive. . It was a really loving daughter-mother relationship. Chandi sued Duke's estate. Heffner also said that as next of kin she would have requested an autopsy, but she was never officially notified of Duke's death, and by the time she learned of the cremation, it was too late. Steve said, 'Your food has changed so suddenly Miss Duke thinks you must be on drugs.' And I didn't sense any antagonism between Chandi and Bernard." . Lafferty also may pay fees to and divide commissions among the trustees as he sees fit. One of Heffner's lawyers says that he has 18,000 documents concerning Duke's business and legal affairs, many of which Chandi had "attended to.". If anyone has news on Chandi from the far reaches of Hawaii, drop us a line at showbiz411@gmail.com. . 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