Taylor Swift By Cosmopolitan UK, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90905376. Rebekah Harkness's income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. It was the second marriage for both of them. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. But Rebekah made the most of it. Rebekah had always been well-off as a childas you might guess from the string of nannies who raised herbut marrying William Harkness thrust her into an entirely different tier of high society. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. Her wealthy neighbors had other ideas, and scornfully forced her to remove the unsightly object. Obviously, Rebekah was completely out touch with realityso her next move makes sense. Full body measurements, dress & shoe size will be updated soon. Swift later connects herself to Harkness in the final moments of the song: Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / And then it was bought by me, Who knows, if I never showed up, what couldve been / There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen / I had a marvelous time ruining everything, I had a marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time ruining everything / A marvelous time / I had a marvelous time, Also in the song, Swift mentions some of Harkness antics. West co-founded G.H. [22] In 2020, Swift wrote the song "The Last Great American Dynasty" for her eighth studio album Folklore (2020), in which she tells Harkness' life story and draws parallels between Harkness highly publicized life and her own. Wife of Private. The Joffrey had a price to pay for Rebekah Harknesss support. Swift bought Harknesss Rhode Island Holiday House in 2013 and used the near-palatial estate to throw her own lavish parties, notably her Taymerica July 4th bashes. They dubbed themselves the [W]itch Pack and, after graduating in 1932, set about trying to wreak havoc on the socialite scene, one gala at a time. Taylor Swift's, new song titled 'The Last Great American Dynasty' is about Rebekah Harkness, the scandal-ridden socialite who once owned the Watch Hill, Rhode Island mansion Swift purchased in 2013 She used much of her inheritance to become a patron of the ballet, as well as to compose music. From the outside, Rebekah and William Harknesss marriage looked immaculate. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. '', After her divorce from W. Dickson Pierce, an upper-class advertising photographer, she chose for her second husband the Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who enjoyed a lofty social status, as her own family did not. She once served them a cake with $10 bills baked into it. Uh, how sweet? 44 Rebekah Harkness Pictures Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 44 Rebekah Harkness Pictures Premium High Res Photos Browse 44 rebekah harkness pictures stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. [9] Through the William Hale Harkness Foundation, she sponsored construction of a medical research building at the New York Hospital and supported a number of medical research projects. Jack Mitchell. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. Category 1960s Pop Art Black and White Photography. Save money. [4], In the 1960s, Harkness became well known as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. ''How should she do it?'' Yet this came with great tragedy: The baby, named Angel, was severely brain-damaged. As the saying goes, well-behaved women seldom make history. Thanks for your help! Harkness' passions for dance and music followed her into adulthood. Rebekah Harkness. She was surrounded by a group her son Allen described as ''all the fairies flying off the floor, the blackmailing lawyers, the weirdos, the people in the trances.'' Yet while there, Harkness gave new meaning to the word prima donna. The socialite, fancying herself a dance expert, started writing her own ballets. Swift gave all her friends matching red-white-and-blue onesies. In October 1948, Harkness gave birth to her first child with her second husband, a daughter Edith. . In 1954, something curious happened to Rebekah Harkness: Her oil tycoon husband passed. ''So absurd,'' Mr. Scevers pronounced. The family spent summers at Watch Hill, then an old money, old Hollywood enclave overlooking Block Island Sound. In 1972, she bought an old theater near Lincoln Center and refurbished it on a grand scale as the first theater devoted exclusively to ballet. Its here where Rebekah catapulted into high society. [19] They divorced in 1977. Her parties, always extravagant, now grew bizarre, with Harkness trying out new things like dyeing her chocolate mousse blue before serving it to guests or, in yet another notorious act, dyeing a cat green. Not long after Rebekahs passing, her daughter Edith finally managed to succeed in her attempts. Besides taking pills, the poor girl also jumped off a roof on at least one occasion, and in response, Harkness only mused at her daughters various attempts. The resulting damages to herself, her companies and her children were heartbreaking. '', This post-mortem mischief was going on at Harkness House, the East 75th Street town house headquarters of the Harkness Ballet Foundation, which Mrs. Harkness had modeled on the St. Petersburg Ballet School. Faced with Ediths grim drive to end her life, Harkness was coldly philosophical. (No such record could be found, but the famous Surrealist artist did design the $250,000 jewel-studded urn that held herashes. The couple divorced in 1977but Rebekahs life was about to take a much darker turn. BOX 191606 In 1957, Harkness keeled over at Holiday House while sitting for a sculpture Rebekah was working on, dead from a heart attack. Press photo of Rebekah Harkness in 1966 with two o her Harkness dancers. She stole a neighbors dog and dyed it key lime green. Her son, Allen Pierce, was convicted of murder. First, a brief biography: Born Rebekah Semple West in St. Louis in 1915, Harkness was a divorce whose second marriage was to Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness. The building, according to Craig Unger, the author of this rich-man/eye-of-the-needle biography, was in a state of putrefaction, ''crumbling like Tara after the Civil War.'' Suddenly, Rebekah was a rich widowone of the wealthiest women in America, in fact. She hired Salvador Dali to design sets. Like this story? Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. Let the little creature die!'' She once demanded Castelli to, Kiss me. It bought her the services of George Skibine, Marjorie Tallchief, Alvin Ailey, Erik Bruhn and Andy Warhol, but it did not guarantee her success. The New York Times described him as an embarrassing sort of man, and his hobbies completely back this up. From . And about the times she cleaned her pool with Dom Perignon, dyed the neighbors cat green and filled her fish tank with scotch. (Allegedly, it was a cat if it matters.). According to her biographer, Craig Unger, Rebekah Harkness led a life littered with high Gothic tragedy. She was a poor little rich girl, and by the end of her life, she wasnt that rich. All rights reserved. This had devastating consequences. She once dressed as a waitress at one of them so she could eavesdrop on the guests. Illustrated. Taylor Swift bought the former Holiday House in 2013 for a reported $17.75 million in cash. Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. He was in prison. Bobby Scevers, Mr. Unger writes, ''had no sympathy'' for the child. The Harkness Ballet would eventually have two touring companies, a youth ballet (which taught Patrick Swayze) and its own theater. . Aw, how sweet. He appears to have been an embarrassing sort of man; he wrote and privately published a book called ''Totem and Topees,'' which he described as a ''conglomeration of uninteresting misinformation,'' and followed that with a book called ''Ho hum, the Fisherman,'' which, he said, did not ''have the excuse even of literary merit.'' Rebekahs daughter Edith was clinically depressed and suicidal for much of her life (wonder why), and spent scores of years in and out of mental institutions following near fatal attempts at self-harm. Well, Harkness couldnt bear to be upstaged, so she unceremoniously fired Rhodes and doomed her own precious ballet company in the process. While he was under her employ, she would often order him around romantically. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. Mary and Edward Harkness were married in 1904. In 1947, she married William Hale "Bill" Harkness, an attorney and heir to the Standard Oil fortune of William L. Harkness, which made her one of the wealthiest women in America. An artist (a descriptor she bestowed upon herself). She gave the dancers everything they needed and then some. rebekah harkness children. Taylor Swift and Rebekah Harkness may have been born decades apart, but it seems they shared a talent for dominating the headlines. [5] Through the Rebekah Harkness Foundation, Harkness sponsored Jerome Robbins and the Joffrey Ballet. 11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Rebekah Harkness, American composer, sculptor, and. Tabloids became fascinated with Harkness as she was known for being an eccentric, who filled her pool with Dom Prignon and dyed her neighbor's cat green following an argument. Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company, ensuring she grew up comfortably. She began to cut back and look for public funding. According to Scevers, It was complete chaoseverybody running around signing wills and trying on different wigs. And when Rebekah actually passed on June 17, 1982, things only got weirder from there. Harkness later donated $2 million to the William Hale Harkness Medical Research Building at the New York Hospital and supported medical research on Parkinson's disease. Although William Harkness came from a well-respected family that was supposed to give Rebekah even more of the status she craved, William himself wasa total fool. Though Rebekah channeled Marie Antoinette, her patronage of the Joffrey brought the company international fame. Before his death in August 1954, they had one child together; Edith Hale Harkness (19481982). Mary took a portion of the estate to start Camp Harkness in 1920 for children with polio. After his brief interlude in the oasis, Mr. Castelli was made the artistic director of the Harkness Ballet. Pierce claimed to be a descendant of President Franklin Pierce, though that would have been quite a feat. Blue Blood is a story of tragic proportions. [3] Harkness would also continue to study dance and piano, and studied ballet with Victoria Cassau, who was a student of Anna Pavlova. A 1955 article from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that one of her works would be premiering at Carnegie Hall in New York City.) Pierce. Franklin Pierces three children died before reaching adulthood. After that, Rebekah really let it all hang out. These are facts of which we have already been apprised. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. He. ''Costumes, sets, musical scores,'' Mr. Unger writes, ''many of the best dancers, the entire repertory - even the works choreographed by Joffrey himself - were owned by her foundation.''. [23], An American Ballet Story is an upcoming documentary film directed by Leslie Strait and sponsored by the International Documentary Association. She ended up selling the theater at a huge loss, and the Harkness Ballet company folded in 1975. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. Rebekah Harkness' antics annoyed her neighbors, while Jesus' antics got him murdered by the state and by some religious leaders. As well see, Rebekahs love only devolved from there. Might Mrs. Harkness be seen as a casualty of her own doomed and defiled expectations? And when the time came to put Harkness into the Chalice of Life, the plot thickened. A New York Times article described Harkness's unusual upbringing. Please let us know if a fact weve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect its inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. After two years, Rebekah Harkness suddenly cut her ties to the Joffrey when Robert Joffrey, its founder and choreographer, wouldnt rename his company for her. She gave them weekends off and charge accounts to the shops in town. It would be interesting to see what a social historian, someone familiar with the hierarchies of caste and class in America - or, better yet, a novelist with a theological bent - would make of the raw material Mr. Unger has gathered. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. And how in the world did she get that way? When I first saw someone bring up Blue Blood (The story of Rebekah Harkness and how one of the richest families in America descended into drugs, madness, suicide and violence), I was lurking in a Taylor Swift Facebook group. Everyone advised her to get her affairs in order, but as well soon see, things didnt work out so neatly for Rebekah Harkness in the end. ''Blue Blood'' is edifying only insofar as it raises questions about what a biography should be. But according to An American Ballet Story. The lovely pair only made it four years before divorcing. Rebekah Harkness spent much of the Standard Oil fortune she inherited on the ballet. ''You see,'' she said. With thanks to Blue Blood by Craig Unger and The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company by Sasha Anawalt. It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. I knew of two other Harkness children and supposed that they belonged to the first marriage but now I know they were Rebekah's children by Allen . Styling herself as the life of the party, Harkness did things like throw plates at the ships Filipino orchestra, swim in her birthday suit in full view of other passengers, and send out strings of swears so loudly that the ocean liner eventually had no choice but to send the beautiful, foul-mouthed socialite off the boat. As her own biographer put it, The only reason her works were ever played in public was because she subsidized the performances. Harsh, but true. Silver Gelatin. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Swift wrote and recorded a new album called Folklore. Rebekah West Harkness (ne Semple West;[1] April 17, 1915 June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. ''We were the loved ones.'' She is the inspiration behind Taylor Swift's 2020 song "The Last Great American Dynasty". When they criticized her for getting pudgy, she took up skating and dance, practicing with a fierce discipline. Rebekah West Harkness also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Surprise, surprise, this phase didnt last long. All of the work and much of the music was original. One of Harknesss signature moves was to use vastly expensive products for everyday, mundane things. Before she passed, the socialite spent $250,000 to commission a bedazzled urn from none other than Salvador Dali. We have estimated Rebekah Harkness's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. The Joffrey dancers who spent the summer at Holiday House loved it. REBEKAH HARKNESS earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in social work from the University of Utah. The gargantuan house itself was partially demolished, then sold to a family that remodeled it and renamed it High Watch. They bought Eolia from Mary's sister and her brother-in-law, Jessie Stillman and William Taylor in 1907. One work, Dreams of Glory, had an insipid story about a little boy who dreams of becoming John F. Kennedy. In the eyes of many, she had betrayed him. mobile homes for rent in gallatin, tn, Dreams of Glory, had an insipid Story about a little boy Dreams. Be found, but it only lasted seven years `` rebekah harkness children Last American! 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