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1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. A misfit widow on the gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out. Swift's Rhode Island mansion is most famous for being the site of Swift's annual Fourth of July gatherings. 'How should she do it?' Veranda participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Rebekah bought a mansion on New York’s Upper East Side and turned it into a posh training center for dancers called Harkness House. We weren't kidding when we said she was eccentric. But she annoyed the neighbors, alienated her children and provided a tempting target for critics. Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. In December 1956, she even appeared in the pages of Vogue. (Watch it here.). [2] Raised primarily by nannies, Harkness took up dancing and ice skating to lose weight and was highly disciplined in both endeavors. Rarely does singer and songstress Taylor Swift write songs about someone outside her immediate circle. In the 1960s, Harkness became well known as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. A New York Times article described Harkness's unusual upbringing. ", The couple had three children, whose tragic lives are also described in her biography.

It was the only successful marriage of her four, but it only lasted seven years. He later said his time in prison was the happiest of his life. Rebekah Harkness, as seen in the December 1956 issue of. (Perhaps this is a tale that inspired the Swift lyric, “She had a marvelous time ruining everything.”) Fittingly, she and her finishing school friends dubbed themselves the Bitch Pack. Rebekah Harkness spent much of the Standard Oil fortune she inherited on the ballet. Rebekah's daughter, Ann-Terry Pierce gave birth to a severely disabled child, named Angel who died at the age of ten. She attended the Rossman School and John Burroughs Schoolin St. Louis, and then the Fer…

The celebrities brought paparazzi and, echoes of the Rebekah Harkness era, complaints from the neighbors. Read on for the true story behind "The Last Great American Dynasty's" lyrics. After an attempt at making it big as a singer and releasing several albums, Harkness shifted her talents (read: wealth) to dance and established the Rebekah Harness Foundation, which sponsored various ballet companies and took them on tours around the world with the heiress at the helm. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Your California Privacy Rights. Guests would find needles in her bathrooms, their walls spattered with blood. Certainly, Harkness lived a full life. Craig Unger authored Blue Blood in 1988, six years after Harkness's death (in which her remains were placed in a $250,000 urn designed by Dalí). The family spent summers at Watch Hill, then an old money, old Hollywood enclave overlooking Block Island Sound. She ended up selling the theater at a huge loss, and the Harkness Ballet company folded in 1975.

It's no surprise it was left abandoned upon Harkness's death until Swift began hosting the next generation of A-list parties set on the Atlantic Ocean in 2013. After two years, Rebekah Harkness suddenly cut her ties to the Joffrey when Robert Joffrey, its founder and choreographer, wouldn’t rename his company for her. By Heran Mamo. The music video featured the beach and the waves from the house, just as Rebekah Harkness would have seen it. One work, Dreams of Glory, had an insipid story about a little boy who dreams of becoming John F. Kennedy. Rebekah Harkness’ patronage allowed the Joffrey to perform in Iran. The 11,000-square-foot mansion boasts seven bedrooms and nine baths. She was briefly married to a photographer before marrying philanthropist William Hale Harkness, half-brother of Henry Flagler, in 1945. She most notably patronized the Robert Joffrey Ballet, which performed for John F. Kennedy at the White House (per his invitation) in a one-act, $135,000 production, before eventually establishing her own ballet company where she could have total control. Edith Harkness, her only child with Bill Harkness, was in and out of mental institutions and eventually committed suicide. Donning a black chiffon Mainbocher dress with a white silk back-tied apron, she flashed a wry smile at the camera. 'Is there a chic way to go?'". Rebekah Harkness inherited the vast Standard Oil fortune after her husband William Harkness died in 1953; the couple purchased the seaside mansion in 1947 as newlyweds and named it ‘Holiday House’ After her husband’s death, she remodeled the home to have 8 kitchens and 21 bathrooms so she could avoid seeing her children when she entertained guests like Salvador Dalí (who later … Our editors handpick the products that we feature. Their wedding took place at 730 Park Avenue, which was William’s apartment. Her second husband died nine years later, leaving her a $27 million fortune (worth more than $250 million today), which she reportedly squandered with amazing speed. The rich socialite whose judgment sometimes lapsed was just too good a target. [citation needed], In 1961, Harkness married Ben Kean (c. 1912–1993),[13] a physician who was a professor of Tropical Medicine at the Cornell Medical College. And, she brought her guests around town "in her own antique fire engine." This is vastly different from Harkness's own design that included eight kitchens and 21 bathrooms, which rather effectively prevented her from having to run into her three children while they were in the house. It's no surprise it was left abandoned upon Harkness's death until Swift began hosting the next generation of A-list parties set on the Atlantic Ocean in 2013. She attended the Rossman School and John Burroughs School in St. Louis, then Fermata, a finishing school in Aiken, South Carolina. It donated Harkness Tower at Yale, Harkness Commons at Harvard and Harkness Pavilion at New York Hospital. West co-founded G.H. The House That Inspired "The Great Gatsby" Is Hitting the Market, The Powerful Jewels of Catherine the Great, How To Make Your Favorite Summer Flowers Last Through Fall. Fast forward 60 years, and another thin, rich, beautiful white woman bought Holiday House. [6] In addition to founding the Harkness Ballet, Harkness launched a ballet school and home for the company called Harkness House,[7] as well as a refurbished 1,250-seat theater, which presented the Harkness Ballet and other dance companies to New York audiences. Rebekah Semple West was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1915. Her … An awning saved her life. Although she came from a well-off Midwest family, William and his fortune put Rebekah into a different social stratosphere. [citation needed], On June 10, 1939, Harkness married Dickson W. Pierce, the son of Thomas M. Pierce and a descendant of Franklin Pierce. Upon her death in 1982, Rebekah Harkness was called many things in her New York Times obituary. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915–June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. Source for information on Harkness, Rebekah (1915–1982): Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia dictionary. Harkness was born an heir to a banking fortune and grew up in St. Louis, then attended finishing school in South Carolina, where she pursued her passion for music and dance. Her parents did care that she looked good, according to Unger. She also expanded Holiday House to include eight kitchens, 42 rooms and 21 baths. Edith spent her life in and out of mental institutions, finally committing suicide in 1982. Rebekah West Harkness (April 17, 1915 – June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. All of the work and much of the music was original. One song, The Last Great American Dynasty, is about Rebekah Harkness. The latest fashion news, beauty coverage, celebrity style, fashion week updates, culture reviews, and videos on Vogue.com.

Thomson Asks States to Sue the U.S.", "Out of Prison, Doctor Hopes to Regenerate His Lost Fame", "Taylor Swift is buying into a rich Watch Hill tradition", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rebekah_Harkness&oldid=983810624, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2020, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 16 October 2020, at 11:13. Harkness was friends with a young Potter Stewart, whom she affectionately called "Potsie," and their relationship was written about by her biographer Craig Unger. The Joffrey had a price to pay for Rebekah Harkness’s support. [16], Harkness' "Holiday House" in Watch Hill, Rhode Island was acquired in 2013 by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. And it seems the singer has enjoyed delving into the history of its former owner, whom she refers to as "the maddest woman this town has ever seen" who had "a marvelous time ruining everything.". While Bill Harkness was alive, he and Rebekah threw raucous parties every weekend. © 2020 Condé Nast. Lovestruck kids wandering up and down the evergreen High Line.

She and her friends called themselves the Bitch Pack and disrupted debutante parties. [1], From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Rebekah_Harkness&oldid=721787192, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core. Rumor has it, the eccentric Harkness began to be pushed out of social circles not long after William Hale's death. A few of the highlights? Oprah Magazine participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Source for information on Harkness, Rebekah (1915–1982): Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia dictionary. In November of 1977, her son Allen shot a man during a brawl in Miami. Is It Native American or American Indian? Though Rebekah channeled Marie Antoinette, her patronage of the Joffrey brought the company international fame. But according to An American Ballet Story. Salinger, hoping to convince him his stories should be set to her music. She even started a company of her own in 1964: the Harkness Ballet. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Images: Harkness Tower Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1653891. She also bought them an old firehouse in Westerly to practice in, calling it the Harkness Center for the Arts. She didn’t help herself with her capriciousness. It's a biography about the socialite with the subtitle “She had everything—beauty, wealth, and glamour—until obsession, madness, and suicide destroyed it all. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Swift wrote and recorded a new album called Folklore.