But beneath the elegant surface lurked a driven woman tormented by personal demons. Shop for Rebekah Harkness at Walmart.com. When she got out, she sold her Palisades mansion to the Isley Brothers. She loved to pour Dom Perignon into her pool and let guests swim around in the bubbly. Christians have a tendency to do two things when exploring Jesus' death: downplay the role of the state, and interpret Jesus' feud with the Pharisees, in very anti-Semitic terms. Rebekah Harkness was born on 17 April 1915 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. She dyed chocolate mousse blue. While at her fancy finishing school, Harkness didnt seem to care that her classmates were people with last names like Roosevelt. Instead, she scrawled in her scrapbook that she wanted to do everything bad. Well, she certainly achieved her goal. She thirsted for acclaim as a composer, a dancer and an arts patron, but her thirst for booze and pills undid her. In October 1948, Harkness gave birth to her first child with her second husband, a daughter Edith. Though Harkness took those nasty testosterone injections to strengthen her body for dance, the medicine actually had the opposite effect. 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. If Harknesss lovers are anything to go by, she was a wildcat in the bedroom. Materials. Rebekah Harkness Rebekah Harkness (1915-1982) Rebekah Harkness, born Rebekah Semple West, was one of the foremost American patrons of dance. She and her friends called themselves the Bitch Pack and disrupted debutante parties. Rebekah Harkness, composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet, photographed in her office in 1964. But why? Pierce claimed to be a descendant of President Franklin Pierce, though that would have been quite a feat. [13], A philanthropist, Harkness supported the Joffrey Ballet for years, as well as the Harkness Ballet Foundation and the William Hale Harkness Foundation. One of her conquests, producer Bertrand Castelli, described one rendezvous they had in her office as like two camels in the desert who suddenly know that the only way to make an oasis is to really talk sense. Thisactually doesnt make sense, which probably means it was a really wild night. Yet its also impossible to avoid drawing parallels between Swift and Harkness. (You can see a video clip of Salvador Dali and Rebekah Harkness here.). Without any real studio space, her dancers often practiced on her front lawn. Their wedding took place at 730 Park Avenue, which was Williams apartment. (No such record could be found, but the famous Surrealist artist did design the $250,000 jewel-studded urn that held herashes. Mary and Edward Harkness - The Harknesses at Eolia. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Her parents packed Rebekah off to finishing school. She used much of her inheritance to become a patron of the ballet, as well as to compose music. The lovely pair only made it four years before divorcing. Generous, wasteful, willful, demanding and delusional, she broke with Joffrey to form the Harkness Ballet when he refused to perform the compositions she insisted on writing. Scevers, as it turned out, was a self-identified gay man, and couldnt have been in the relationship for romance. I just hit the ceiling. Her parents did care that she looked good, according to Unger. Why? Doctors told Harkness that she had one ailment that no amount of money could cure: She was dying of stomach cancer. When Harkness planned to put Angels nursery over top of his room, Scevers snapped, Let the little creature die! Unfortunately, he was one of the few people still by Harknesss side when the end came. Harkness pulled this prank at her own sisters debutante ball. See the article in its original context from. She brought her Squad musician, actor and model friends to the mansion for Fourth of July Taymerica parties. Harkness was friends with a young Potter Stewart, whom she affectionately called "Potsie," and their relationship was written about by her biographer Craig Unger. Dancer Lawrence Rhodes said it was one of the few times he was embarrassed to be in a ballet. He later said his time in prison was the happiest of his life. ''I can't believe it took her this long to succeed.'') . 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. She danced, too, and composed music. [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. The Harkness Ballet would eventually have two touring companies, a youth ballet (which taught Patrick Swayze) and its own theater. Jean Stein and George Plimpton did that brilliantly in ''Edie,'' the biography of poor Edie Sedgwick. AboutPressCopyrightContact. Mother of Private. Swift put up No Trespassing signs that they didnt like either. Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train / It was sunny, Taylor Swift croons in her new song The Last Great American Dynasty. In 3 minutes 51 seconds, Swift tells the story of Harknesss legacy through lyrics. She traveled a lot. It was shaping up to be a white-picket fence brooduntil, that is, Rebekah proved herself to be an utterly horrific mother. When Harkness offered to pay Ella Fitzgerald to sing some of her pop songs, Fitzgerald wouldnt do it. In 1971, she married a fourth time, to another doctor, but one 20 years her junior. A week after her death on June 17, 1982, the mortal remains of Rebekah Harkness were toted home by her older daughter Terry in a Gristede's shopping bag. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. After that, Rebekah really let it all hang out. Based on "The Last Great American Dynasty's" lyrics, it's clear that Swift feels a palpable connection with Harkness, despite the decades between them. When Swift bought the house, a local writer for The Day reminded her of the time a body washed up on the beach under her Watch Hill mansion. Rebekah Harkness patronage allowed the Joffrey to perform in Iran. I want to look away, but I just cant. 1944). Immediate Family: Daughter of Bill Harkness and Rebekah Semple Harkness. 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. Harkness had three husbands. 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. While he was under her employ, she would often order him around romantically. [10] In 1947, William Hale married Rebekah Semple West, [11] who was previously married to Dickson Pierce. 1944). A ltima dinastia de Rebekah Harkness famosa e problemtica socialite que inspirou a faixa 3 de "Folklore", lbum de Taylor Swift | by ana guelere | Hello Band | Medium Write Sign up Sign In. In her obituary, shes credited with supporting the Joffrey and Jerome Robbins ballet companies. Thanks for your help! In its day, the Harkness would train more professional dancers than any other company. But the loud parties caused problems with the neighbors. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. Harkness was surprisingly generous when it suited her, but also unpredictably bizarre. Their antics soon became legendary. Now she has one more posthumous title: muse. She had spent the 1987 equivalent of $38 million on a failed enterprise. Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny / Her saltbox house on the coasttookher mind offSt. Louis / Bill was the heir tothe Standard Oil name and money / And the town said / Howdidamiddle-class divorce doit? / The wedding wascharming, if a little gauche / Theres only so far new money goes / They picked out a home and called it Holiday House / Their parties were tasteful, if a little loud / The doctor had told him to settle down / It must have been her fault his heart gave out, And they said / There goes the last great American dynasty / Who knows, if she never showed up, what couldve been / There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvelous time ruining everything. Born in 1915 in St. Louis, Missouri, her father Allen Tarwater was a powerful stockbroker, while her mother, also named Rebekah, was a perfectly turned out trophy wife. Guests would find needles in her bathrooms, their walls spattered with blood. . Faced with Ediths grim drive to end her life, Harkness was coldly philosophical. Yet like so much of Harknesss life, what seemed beautiful on the outside was rotting on the inside. And the dysfunction didnt end there. I am beginning to think that biography, especially the biography of such a chaotic personality as Rebekah Harkness, needs to be molded and informed by a novelist's ordering imagination. She went to Fermata, a South Carolina finishing school that had sheltered Roosevelts, Biddles and Auchinclosses. The rich socialite whose judgment sometimes lapsed was just too good a target. Rebekah West Harkness also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. The book is available for purchase on Amazon for $195, but a May 1988 New York Times review by the late journalist Barbara Grizzuti Harrison clues us into the reported inner world of Harkness as published in the book. Uh, how sweet? Following her death, a memorial was held at the family home before Harkness was cremated, and her ashes were placed in a $250,000 spinning urn designed by Salvador Dal, then placed in the Harkness Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery. In addition to . The others, they just know how to bite. Wow, Im getting the sense that these two really liked dirty talk. When she was still just a young girl, the Harknesses noticed that their Betty was putting on weight, so they signed the pudgy girl up for dance and figure skating lessons to help her shed those unsightly pounds. For all her money, Harkness did not have good taste. Swift Identifies with Harkness in her last line, There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen/ I had a marvelous time ruining everything., The music video that accompanies the song features the beach below Holiday House as Rebekah Harkness would have seen it. (I do admit, however, that I'd go a long way to read a sentence like this, spoken by Bertrand Castelli, the co-producer of ''Hair,'' about the time he made love to Rebekah Harkness in her office: ''It was as if we were two camels in the desert who suddenly know that the only way to make an oasis is to really talk sense.'' [2], After graduating in 1932, she and a group of female friends formed the Bitch Pack, a sub-culture of local debutantes who enjoyed subverting society events, including lacing punchbowls with mineral oil and performing stripteases on banquet tables. The dancers, choreographers, composers and designers were pioneers and experimenters. Only his other flaws were far darker than this silly hobby. 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. 1940) and Anne Terry Pierce (b. ''How should she do it?'' Scevers and Harkness brought out the worst in each other. Edith often used her mothers many, many pills to perform these attemptsand Rebekah was anything but empathetic. When she erected a giant blue geodesic dome on her lawn, they sued her for zoning violations. There she delighted, as she wrote in her scrapbook, in setting out to ''do everything bad. The train wreck was now chugging along, and it wouldnt stop until Harkness took her last breath. The best revenge might be living well, but that doesn't mean we can always turn the other cheek. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. Her daughter Edith jumped off roofs, swallowed pills and managed not to kill herself. Rebekah Harkness, who also went by Betty, was the previous owner of Taylor Swift's Rhode Island home and serves as the inspiration for the third track on her latest album. [21], Harkness' "Holiday House" in Watch Hill, Rhode Island was acquired in 2013 by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Rebekah Harkness. Her son Allen says the years he spent in prison were the happiest of his life. Once she pretended to be a cleaning woman and approached the reclusive J.D. Her wealthy neighbors had other ideas, and scornfully forced her to remove the unsightly object. This had devastating consequences. Mary and Edward Harkness were married in 1904. She all but fired him from his own company, then twisted the knife by taking most of his dancers with her to form her new, solo Harkness Ballet. If I report on the demise of the multimillionaire patron of the dance dry-eyed, it is because I am confident in the belief that nothing we say about the dead can prejudice the Defense or tip the Scales of Judgment. She supported the arts in general, ballet in particular, and she had the wealth with which to do it. An awning saved her life. With her help, the Joffrey won international renownsomething she wanted for herself. Friends who knew Rebekah and William said that although the oil tycoon was a bit of an idiot, the new Mrs. Harkness was actually scared of himand for good reason. Family Members. Nine servants and three cooks kept the place running. The Pack didnt stop at putting poisonous substances into punch bowls; they also got very rowdy at these gatherings. And then in 2020, the houses owner, Taylor Swift, wrote a song about Rebekah Harkness, called The Last Great American Dynasty. for scholarships, administrative costs and new set designs. With that, Rebekahs unconditional love evaporated. Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated. That money can't buy happiness? Not long after Rebekahs passing, her daughter Edith finally managed to succeed in her attempts. Were always looking for your input! They bought Eolia from Mary's sister and her brother-in-law, Jessie Stillman and William Taylor in 1907. She spent a small fortune buying her way into the dance world, surrounding herself with dancers, musicians and choreographers. The last great American dynasty, indeed. Hey, all publicity is good publicityand Rebekahs need to be in the spotlight soon grew to disturbing proportions. New York: William Morrow & Company. Still, when you marry for money, you earn every penny. Harkness' passions for dance and music followed her into adulthood. 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. Rebekah and Bill Harkness had one daughter, Edith. All Rights Reserved. Harkness had quite the life according to The New York Times (opens in new tab) . In 1974, Harkness married again, this time to another doctor named Niels H. Lauersen. ''Money can buy anything.'' Rebekah and Bill Harkness had one daughter, Edith. The family looked immaculate from the outsidebehind closed doors, though, was another story. Unfortunately for Rebekah, the endeavour ended in national embarrassment and disaster. [2] Neither parent was involved in the upbringing of the children, leaving them to be raised primarily by nannies. Taylor Swift has once . Before joining the team, she worked as a course lecturer while completing her Ph.D. in English Literature. [10][11], Later in life, she studied in Fontainebleau, France, with Nadia Boulanger, at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, and the Mannes College of Music, New York. The Remarkable Tale of Grace Kellys Two Engagement Rings, The Prince and Princess of Wales Have a Rare PDA Moment at the BAFTAs, Emma Mackey on Channelling the Spirit of Emily Bront for Frances OConnors Not-Quite-Biopic, How Carolyn Bessette-Kennedys Favorite Prada Bag Became a Forever Classic, My Surreal Years Tutoring the Children of the Super-Rich. They didn't fit: ''Just a leg is in there, or maybe half of her head, and an arm,'' said one of Rebekah's friends. One could almost feel sorry for her. [7] In addition to founding the Harkness Ballet, Harkness launched a ballet school and home for the company called Harkness House,[8] as well as a refurbished 1,250-seat theater, which presented the Harkness Ballet and other dance companies to New York audiences. Thanks for your time! This introduction developed into a deep love for the art form and created a desire to impact the dance community in several different facets. 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