I said, 'Sure, have him call me.' Heffner also said that Duke confided that she thought her mother had wanted to abort her. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. Heffner told me, "Doris used to call James 'Teach.' 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. And all around him were all these liquor bottlesGrand Marnier and sherry. Then someone new entered the small Doris Duke family: James Burns, a 25-year-old former Marine and martial-arts enthusiast with a notably "buff" physique. That's not the Doris I knew. Lafferty was accused of conspiring to kill his terminally ill employer with morphine. ", Heffner was with Gary McElroy, with whom she was then living on a communal farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. and as we were leaving they exchanged telephone numbers. "Cromwell was quite nice," says Nelson Seabra, a rich Brazilian friend of Duke's. We came out from opposite sides of the stage, and I got to the middle and she wasn't there. 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. ". He came over here, and she died. The circumstances of Dukes death remain under investigation. . Quite suddenly, early in 1991, Doris called me in distress from Hawaii and said that she was leaving in an urgent way for California and she had become fearful of Chandi. (We covered the story in Fame magazine in 1990, and New York magazine did it again in 1993.). Doris seemed very, very happy. 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 reclusive 80-year-old billionaire reneged on her promise to make Heffner the sole beneficiary of her estate. They would helicopter over to Somerville from their estate in Bedford, New York.". "We discussed cremation, and she said, 'Never, never, ever let anyone cremate me.' 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 was not aware of what management roles he might or might not have had. Despite the negative publicity, she fought her husband in the courts for five years, until he gave in. It must end, Drugmaker Eli Lilly to slash insulin prices, Stocks slip as stubborn inflation raises rate expectations, TikTok to set default daily time limit of 60 minutes for minors, Column: While workers struggled during the pandemic, CEO pay went up, up, up, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? ", 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. Menu. I remember when I read his resume, I thought, This man has really been through it. Nelson Peltz is financing Chandi Heffner's legal battle. . 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. 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 Heffner told me that Duke confided the truth to her: "It wasn't Cromwell's, and it wasn't her lover Alec's. also assured Chandi that she would be the heir to Doris's estate in return for Chandi devoting herself to Doris and to the running of her affairs. She really had a feeling for him, and expressed annoyance with Imelda. ", Duke gave him a house in Paris for a wedding gift, and a plane before their divorce one year later. The incredibly eccentric Duke who used to throw lawn birthday parties for her llamas complete with cake and funny hats adopted adult Chandi, after being convinced she was the reincarnation of her dead baby. She also lent another $5 million to Marcos to cover her legal expenses (and asked for it back in her will). She did not directly accuse Lafferty of turning Duke against her. Guest introduced Duke to Leon Amar, a 30-year-old Moroccan decorator. 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. Tom Ford. "No cane. (The hospital said that Bernard Lafferty was a patient from July 1 to July 14, 1987.). Duke. They named them Princess and Baby. Love. Heffner paints a sedate portrait of their life together, with Doris retiring to her music room, Chandi dealing with the employees and both women sharing vegetarian dinners. I feel in danger.' In 1968, she established the Newport Restoration Foundation, with Jacqueline Onassis as vice president. "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." "When we were together," Heffner continued, "when things were really great, Doris was in wonderful shape. That was Doris. 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. They talked constantly, and Nelson and Claudia used to go to lunches quite often with Chandi and Doris. She continued to give him money, and friends say that their sexual relationship never really ended. All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; Companies; Keywords; Chandi was into Eastern cultures and all that stuff, and so was Doris. Later on we would sleep together and Doris would come in most mornings and sit there on the bed with us and talk. "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. 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. She had episodes of pneumonia, she had clots in her veins, and some of those clots may have traveled to her lungs. Each evening she would return to Duke Farms or her Manhattan apartment in time for dinner alone on a tray. 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. She thought it was very amusing. Nicolas mother, Claudia, has a sister we havent forgotten about. Shes the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. In her will, Duke requested that no funeral or memorial service be held for her. He's a sweet human being, and he seemed to be honest and fiercely defensive of Doris. In June 1985, Duke and Heffner traveled to Russia together. He was the legendary Latin lover Porfirio Rubirosa, the former son-in-law of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. . "O.K., I'm not going to see her, but. In Doris's case, she had done that. In published accounts of Duke's break with Heffner, Bernard Lafferty, who was worried about Duke's health, had called Rossellini in Europe a few weeks earlier and told him, "Something is really wrong here. Doris was into it, too. . Let them kill each other over it.' And the whispers about Duke's last years continue. Charlene Gail Heffner goes by the name Chandi Duke Heffner. The only times I saw Doris really relaxed were these few times in Beverly Hills.". ", In late 1990, he said, "I detected a growing unhappiness on Doris's part. One evening Steve Levy said that Miss Duke wanted him to administer a urine test on me. "He had done her hair in a pageboy, and she looked so pretty, though she was painfully thin." A Peltz-family friend told me that, contrary to reports in the press, "there was never any rivalry of any kind at any time between Claudia and Chandi. 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. Her former physician, Dr. Harry Demopoulos, is seeking to unseat Lafferty as co-executor. Inspired by this trip, they bought the most spectacular piece of property near Diamond Head in Honolulu, on which they built a Mogul-style fortress and named it Shangri La. "She was told she has a pretty good case," the family member said. 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. For reasons I don't understand, a curtain seemed to come down. After giving the matter prolonged and serious consideration, I am convinced that I should not have adopted Chandi Heffner. Of course, many of the sources for these allegations are people who were left out of the will, or cut out of the will, or people who hope to eventually receive grants from the Duke foundations. . "Doris did this more for the president. He was born on August 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, USA, as Paul Rubenfeld. Ignoring Chandi Heffner, the latter-day flower child whom she adopted in 1988, Duke left control of the bulk of her fortune to Bernard Lafferty, her butler of six years. 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. "Nobody gave Doris any credit for having any taste, any intelligence, any anything," says Marion Oates Charles, known as Oatsie. ", James Cromwell maintained that it was not his child, and friends assumed that it was Cunningham-Reid's. Things escalated. I do feel like I'm being drugged. . "It was strange. . She really considered herself a dancer. She clapped her hands in glee. Chandi Heffner is a small, sturdy woman with thick black shoulder-length hair and bone-white skin, Thick black eyebrows set off her striking indigo-colored eyes, She was wearing a dark-blue Paradise on show: Inside the exotic retreat of tobacco More Than $65 Million For Adopted Duke Daughter BILLIONAIRE'S HEIR OUT OF PLACE 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. She formally adopted Heffner in 1988. "She told me she was bored silly, and the palace was so froufrou. Denise Hale recalls meeting Eduardo Tirella on the set of The Sandpiper, which was directed by her then husband, Vincente Minnelli, and having several dinners at Falcon's Lair. View their profile including current address, phone number 808-882-XXXX, background check reports, and property record on Whitepages, the most trusted online directory. ", Nonetheless, Duke seemed increasingly pleased with Lafferty. Jane Engelhard sat next to the bodyguard, and you should have seen her face. Burns said that he was also training Lafferty, to help him lose his paunch. He said the couple, who lived together from 1990 until 1993, agreed that Burns would be not only be her confidante-companion but ``cook, body guard, security specialist and assist in financing any claims Heffner Duke may find it necessary to bring to enforce her rights against Doris Duke.. 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. Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. After Bloom was fired, Protas was told the loan was being reviewed. Duke died at age 80 in 1988, leaving a hotly contested $1.5 billion estate. "I got a call from my sister's major-domo, Ferencz Soltesz," said Heffner, who had been living with Duke for two years at that point.
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