She was not on steroids in the latter half of 1990, and this was not a mood swing. Doris was into it, too. "He was marvelous," says Claus von Blow, who later became Duke's neighbor in Newport. About Heffner's sister. Lafferty also may pay fees to and divide commissions among the trustees as he sees fit. "Chandi works very hard for Doris. ", 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. He's a sweet human being, and he seemed to be honest and fiercely defensive of Doris. Kids get annoyed with their parents.". Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. . Farrah says that Duke had returned from her first visit to Manila, with Rossellini, about a week before meeting Heffner. 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. Doris bought her a sprawling horse farm worth then 30 years ago over a million bucks. I think she did it to make James jealous. 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. In fact, it was Chandi Heffner who hired Bernard Lafferty for Doris Duke, in 1987. The Sands says that Lafferty managed the theater, which headlined such stars as Bill Cosby, Joel Grey, and Rita Moreno. It's so hard for me still, so hard." When Doris was only 14, she successfully sued her mother to stop her from selling Duke Farms, the estate her father had created out of New Jersey flatlands, including a 30-room mansion with an indoor pool and indoor tennis courts, artificial lakes, and man-made hillocks. "It was really sad," Heffner said, "because Martha arrived and Doris wouldn't go see her. 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 . ", Rybak says that Lafferty got off to a good start at Duke Farms. And the whispers about Duke's last years continue. ChatGPT who? The last words were 'Stay in touch, Harry.' In later years she did have problems with her hearing and with her legs, but nothing major. When he died in a car crash in 1965, she took to her bed for two days. I was constantly arguing with Bernard . Nicola has an eclectic family, worthy of a Robert Altman movie a la A Wedding. On the plus side, theres the money. On the last day of the seminar, he spent the afternoon with Duke at Shangri La. This gives her the air of philanthropy. Heffner also said that Duke confided that she thought her mother had wanted to abort her. She formally adopted Heffner in 1988. "At the beginning of 1991, she placed an increasing reliance on me and Bernard," Demopoulos told me. I tried to see her the following week when I was in California, and there were about a dozen times since then that I called when I made trips to California, where I would simply get a response on the other end of the line that was: 'Miss Duke is doing well. Meanwhile, Heffner is holed up on her Hawaiian ranch. You can live in the manner that I live and have this lifestyle. ", Duke had a passion for the performing arts all her life. In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. I remember when I read his resume, I thought, This man has really been through it. She told me during a break that she had studied reiki, a Japanese healing rite, and she said, 'Maybe I could help you with your knee.' Heffner said that she had asked for them almost as a joke, and that Duke was laughing when the agent for the ownerrumored to be Adnan Khashoggi or a Kuwaiti sheikhcalled back and agreed. Chandi, which means "female energy personified" in Sanskrit, was born Charlene Heffner in Baltimore on August 26, 1953, the eldest of three daughters of William Heffner, a lawyer, and his wife, "Bunny," a nurse. Chandi Heffner In 1984, Doris met a woman named Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. "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.". For reasons I don't understand, a curtain seemed to come down. During this period, Duke also plunged into three large-scale public projects. According to the 1993 Forbes Four Hundred list, Doris Duke was the 18th-richest woman in America, not far behind cosmetics billionairess Este Lauder. To this day he maintains, "A lot of injustice was done to me. Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. . I fumbled through an introduction. Today, the museum features objects, furniture, and art selected, arranged, and used by Doris to make Rough Point a home. Duke, who had managed to avoid almost all publicity since the Tirella scandal, stunned the world in November 1988 by putting up the $5 million bail for Imelda Marcos, whom the U.S. government had charged with racketeering. Incredibly, she was awarded a $65 million settlement. And then he was going to A.A., and he did very well in A.A., as far as I know. On an employment application Lafferty filled out for the Pavillion Agency in New York in September 1986, he said he had worked at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia from 1972 to 1983 and at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City from 1983 to 1985. "He was doing a lot of embroidery work for Doris. 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. Nanaline worshiped Society, and she disapproved of her tall, awkward, studious daughter. She had had several leg operations, after a riding accident, but she participated in the seminar. He could barely speak.". (After Duke's death, the trustees of her estate became defendants in this lawsuit.). A cult member of Hare Krishna, Chandi went to Hawaii in the late 1980s and met with a billionaire, Doris Duke, a billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, art collector, horticulturist, and socialite. "He was obviously unhappy. WHAT'S POPULAR TODAY. And he called from a pay phone, and I felt so sorry for this guy, I said, 'Come to Somerville.' 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. On October 6, it was announced that Duke had made a donation of $1 million to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. I remember that the captain of the helicopter was very worried and wanted her to leave early. Nelson Seabra told me, "A very close friend of Doris's said that she committed suicide. We'll have a great life together. Doris's statements to Chandi to this effect were confirmed by [her lawyer Donald] Robinson as well, who told Chandi he had prepared the necessary documents to make provision for the disposition of Doris's estate, and that Chandi would be "totally in control. Burns said that he was also training Lafferty, to help him lose his paunch. 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. In the proceedings, Heffner formally renounced her natural parents, certified that she was not consenting to be adopted out of financial considerations, and legally changed her name from Charlene Gail Heffner to Chandi Duke Heffner. And she was so frail. . But I have no real medical knowledge of what transpired in California during the spring and summer of last year.". But she got up again, and we did our steps. 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. They would helicopter over to Somerville from their estate in Bedford, New York.". There was a gradual onset of a depressed relationship between Doris and Chandi, starting about the middle of 1990 and going progressively downhill. I usually got one of the help. I do feel like I'm being drugged. ", Like many of her friends, Protas is unclear about when Duke went into the hospital for the operations on her knees, or when she came out. If someone crossed them, they just put them out of their lives. ", "I was not involved. The power that this will gives Bernard Lafferty is "awesome," says one attorney. 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. 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. Like all of her houses, it was guarded by fierce Dobermans or German shepherds. The private pilot hired to fly Duke's Boeing 737 quit his job because of Heffner, and filed a letter with the Federal Aviation Administration complaining of her unstable behavior. Movies. The following February, Farrah repeated the seminar, and it was apparently then that Chandi Heffner entered Doris Duke's life. Her second husband, Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, fared only slightly better: His divorce settlement was estimated at $1 million. He had also treated Chandi Heffner, and counted both women as friends. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Heffner takes credit for everything from improving the dairy herd at Duke Farms to arranging the sale of Duke's gold deposits in Switzerland. He went to Sarasota High School. Immediately prior to going to work for Duke, he was employed by Heffner's sister Claudia and her husband, Nelson Peltz, one of the leading takeover tycoons of the 80s. That was Doris. Finally, one of her new lawyers, Mr. Doyle, got it back on track. The next day I got a phone call from Doris to thank me. . I remember her referring to 'we dancers.' "He had done her hair in a pageboy, and she looked so pretty, though she was painfully thin." I remember that most: that she seemed very happy with her life at that period. Duke was twice divorced and had no other children. Enzo Natale concurs: "Chandi and Bernard were twins.". "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." ", Dr. Harry Demopoulos, an early promoter of antioxidants and megavitamins, whose patients include Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone, had been Doris Duke's personal physician since 1981. Los Angeles, A $150,000 executive protection dog? . And, like Heffner, after following Duke from Duke Farms to Rough Point to Falcon's Lair to Shangri La for more than six years he was suddenly given a few hours to pack his bags and leave. 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. The gossip at Mortimer's was that Duke was furious with him for talking to Stephanie Mansfield. ", 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.
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