chandi heffner duke today

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. The press decided she had become an eccentric recluse. Chandi Heffner In 1984, Doris met a woman named Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. Doris was into it, too. "She forgave Rubi everything," says Reinaldo Herrera, even his subsequent marriage to Barbara Hutton. Doris told Chandi that she was happy about her having a man in her life. He wanted me out of there. I was not aware of what management roles he might or might not have had. But by the following summer she was noticeably declining again. They maintained a familial relationship until 1990 when Doris Duke disinherited Heffner. All. 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. 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. Heffner is also claiming her right to inherit two trusts which Buck Duke created in 1917 and 1924, on the ground that she is his lineal descendant and grandchild. Much to the surprise of almost everyone who knew Duke, she named her butler of six years, Bernard Lafferty, as executor of her estate and placed him in control of the newly created Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which is to receive almost her entire fortune. She was ahead of her time. Chandi Duke Heffner, Self: Oh My God. Musks master plan for Tesla is built around sustainable energy economy, What to expect from Elon Musks third master Tesla plan, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Yet more rain expected to hit California in March. She also lent another $5 million to Marcos to cover her legal expenses (and asked for it back in her will). Duke left most of her money to charity and named her butler, Bernard Lafferty, co-executor of the estate. And so I decidedthe biggest mistake of my 41 yearsto give this son of a bitch a second chance . ", "When one of Doris's love affairs ended, there was always great drama," says her friend Consuelo Crespi. 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. [Chandi] is a monster. ", Sometimes, Robert Farrah recalls, "Doris would throw up her hands and say, 'No wills! Burns served as Chandi Heffner Duke's "companion, confidant, cook, bodyguard," according to the suit, and she, in turn, agreed that they would divide "her expected inheritance." . Lafferty has released few details about Duke's final illness. A few hours later, when Heffner returned from a show-jumping lesson, she was informed that Doris had flown to Los Angeles. It was 1982, and Heffner was taking a class at Farrah's studio near Times Square. He was born on August 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, USA, as Paul Rubenfeld. Earlier this year, Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Eve Preminger removed Lafferty from that position for allegedly squandering the estates assets on lavish living but Lafferty is appealing the ruling. Today, the museum features objects, furniture, and art selected, arranged, and used by Doris to make Rough Point a home. She has completely wired the small house on her own, and she boards horses and cows for neighbors for $15 a head per month. He used to take her to Gold's Gym." And when she left, that adverse thing ceased. "There was a rumor that she did it deliberately. 'Doris Duke really was the last Chinese empress, the last of a type that doesn't exist anymore. Do you think you could help him out?' Both Heffner and her lawyers emphatically deny that Nelson Peltz is financing Heffner's legal efforts. In the last year of Duke's life, Bernard Lafferty persuaded her to drop her physician of 12 years, her accountant, her bankers, and the lawyer who drew up her next-to-last will. So we let him start, and we had problems with the alcohol and did our best to put him in a situation where he dried out. One repeated her response to a straight man who was reluctant to have dinner with Rock Hudson for fear that he would be molested. He's a sweet human being, and he seemed to be honest and fiercely defensive of Doris. In the morning, Bernard didn't come down until 11:30, and he was a mess. She was even a buddy of Elvis Presley's. "He seemed depressed, and Doris thought it would give him more self-esteem. Chandi Heffner told me that Duke confided the truth to her: "It wasn't Cromwell's, and it wasn't her lover Alec's. Heffner spent almost six months on and off in two Honolulu hospitals, because she also developed a heart problem. Richard Banks called Lafferty the next day. . 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. She did not directly accuse Lafferty of turning Duke against her. According to the 1993 Forbes Four Hundred list, Doris Duke was the 18th-richest woman in America, not far behind cosmetics billionairess Este Lauder. The rest of the house was dark, which was odd. In November 1991, Duke had a new will written, naming Irwin Bloom and Chemical Bank as executors. Heffner claims she gave up her own life to immerse herself in being a companion to the eccentric Duke: helping to manage the Duke Farms dairy, advising her on financial matters, overseeing her "disorganized and run-down estates," selling gold deposits from her myriad Swiss bank accounts and hiring a bodyguard to protect her from kidnappers. ", By the time Duke returned to Shangri La that fall, she and Heffner were getting together on an almost daily basis, and when it was time to move back to Duke Farms in the spring of 1985, she invited Heffner to go with her. Kids get annoyed with their parents.". Doris Dukes adopted daughter has ended her fight to gain control of the late billionaires fortune in exchange for a $65-million settlement from the estate. ", After Thanksgiving, as she had for five decades, Duke left for Hawaii. His mother was a teacher, while his father fought as a pilot during WWII. (After Duke's death, the trustees of her estate became defendants in this lawsuit.). I have come to the realization that her primary motive was financial gain. He was very good at repairing old costumes and fabric. She was so alive. "She moved very well for that kind of dancingwe called it Middle Eastern, or danse orientale, but essentially it's belly dancing. Shortly after Duke's 80th birthday, in November, Nelson Seabra saw her at C. Z. Her second husband, Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, fared only slightly better: His divorce settlement was estimated at $1 million. When Doris died, there was a well publicized estate fight between Chandi and Doriss ex butler, Bernard Lafferty. One evening Steve Levy said that Miss Duke wanted him to administer a urine test on me. Nor was she a crazy eccentric. One week later, Doris Duke stunned the world again by adopting Chandi Heffner at the Somerset County Court House in Somerville, to which the two women were accompanied by Donald Robinson. ", 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. "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. Heffner was also responsible for hiring a new accountant, Irwin Bloom, and a security consultant, Steven Levy, both of whom had worked for Nelson Peltz. In Doris's case, she had done that. 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. Ron Protas told me that in February or March of last year Duke agreed to guarantee a loan of $1 million for the Martha Graham Dance School. And along about March, I sent flowers and candy to her California home. Guest's in Old Westbury: "She came by helicopter. He named both his private Pullman car and his 80-foot yacht after her, and surrounded her with bodyguards. Duke. Chandi said, 'But where do I find a man?' She was very into the ritualistic part of Hawaiian dance. Even Imelda didn't see her.". Through shrewd investments and her legendary parsimony, she managed to more than triple her holdings. After the war, she moved to Paris and wrote for the magazine Harper's Bazaar . Once Chandi was adopted she took over Dukes life. Peggy Lee told me that she had spoken to Duke on the phone several times in her last months, and that Duke had made a donation to an AIDS charity that Lee is involved with. One night at dinner, she told me, 'You know, my father always said no one would ever love me except for my money, and to be very careful.' Steve said, 'Your food has changed so suddenly Miss Duke thinks you must be on drugs.' I'll go to dinner with them. 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. I turned and saw her on the floor. Warmer storms could cause problems, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, Hyundai was poised to become Teslas top contender. Newsom Closes California Theaters, "Dancing with the Stars" Needs a New Partner: Longtime Host Tom Bergeron Told Goodbye By ABC, Along with CoHost Erin Andrews, The Weeknd, Already on the Outs with the Grammys, Goes After Rolling Stone So They Rip Apart His New Show (Got That? She was a cool lady. Phyllis Saretta told me that Duke performed with the Farrah company four or five times, wearing a long black wig. Duke was twice divorced and had no other children. She was so distressed about losing the baby. . Chandi was into Eastern cultures and all that stuff, and so was Doris. For many years she sang in a black gospel choir at the First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey, and left its minister, the Reverend Lawrence G. Roberts, $1 million in her will. Meanwhile, Bernard said he wasn't feeling well and went back up to his room. '", In 1947 she married again, but handed the groom a prenuptial agreement at the altar. In 1933, when she turned 21, Doris Duke came into the first $10 million left by her father. Chandi Heffner choked back tears as she talked about Doris Duke, the worldly and restless tobacco heiress who legally adopted her in 1988, when Heffner was 35 and Duke was 75, and cast her out less than three years later. He came over here, and she died. Chandi Heffner established her organization on a small scale by undertaking humanitarian work in the field. April 7, 1993 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. . Two years later, against her mother's wishes, she married James Cromwell, who was 16 years older than she, and whose family had lost its fortune in 1929, and embarked on a two-year honeymoon through the Middle East and Asia. New York magazine reported after her death that she had a knee operation at U.C.L.A. Heffner has a sister named Charlene Gail Heffner aka Chandi Duke Heffner. SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. She continued to give him money, and friends say that their sexual relationship never really ended. ", "Doris wanted the things money couldn't buy. . 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. If someone crossed them, they just put them out of their lives. I fumbled through an introduction. Duke believed that Heffner was the reincarnation of her daughter, Arden. How do we get rid of her? A member of Heffner's family said yesterday that it is likely Chandi Duke Heffner, who legally changed her name, will accept a settlement for several million dollars. Column: 15 minutes of fame flies by. "Doris was seeing a Japanese therapist for her knee problems . "Rubi" was also presented with a string of polo ponies and a house in Paris. Lafferty had been working for Nelson and Claudia Peltz for the previous seven months, and Rybak says, "The Peltzes put him in a 28-day program. Duke's Los Angeles decorator Tony Duquette adds, "He was just marvelous to Doris, and not at all sinister. ", Heffner blamed Duke's altered feelings on the steroids she claims Duke was taking then. 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. "And later on, for a while, on Irwin Bloom, the financial manager. And then the wine was $1,000 a bottle; it came from her father's cellars. . 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. The will provides Lafferty with an executor's fee of up to $5 million, a lifetime annuity of $500,000 a year, and commissions, which could run into the millions annually, as a trustee of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and of three other closely related new foundations: the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of Endangered Wildlife, the Doris Duke Foundation for the Preservation of New Jersey Farmland and Farm Animals, and the Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art. Her stage name was Sahda. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. . Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Miss Duke lives in a walled 2,700-acre estate in Hillsborough, and rarely attracted . This Grand Marnier was so old the labels had been written by hand. When I go I'll be eaten by the sharks.". ", In late 1990, he said, "I detected a growing unhappiness on Doris's part. ", Another of Duke's intimates said that the real reason her closest friends were in favor of the adoption was that "Doris had contemplated suicide, and we thought we could have some peace of mind that she wouldn't kill herself as long as Chandi was around. If I were Victoria Beckham, I wouldnt count on a big wedding present. Then she became pregnant and had a premature daughter named Arden, who lived only 24 hours. Doris seemed very, very happy. Heres a description of Chandi (seen in the picture here on the right, with Duke and Imelda Marcos) from her website. "I couldn't quite keep up, so I was in the back of the class. As Heffner fights to undo the will, she speaks exclusively to BOB COLACELLO, who delves into the mystery of Duke's final years. Because just as Doris was taking me to the door, there was Chandi with the caretaker. Duke last made news in 1988, when she posted the $5.3 million bail for her close friend Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines First Lady. Mahn soon left, and in 1987 co-authored Daddy's Duchess: The Unauthorized Biography of Doris Duke. In 1925, at the age of 13, she inherited an estimated $100 million in trusts from her father, James Buchanan Duke, a coarse but brilliant self-made man who founded the American Tobacco Company and the Duke Power Company, and who endowed Trinity College in North Carolina with millions, reportedly on the condition it change its name to Duke University. About the time Bloom was fired, Duke also abruptly left Chemical Bank and replaced her estate lawyer, William Zabel, of Schulte Roth & Zabel, with William Doyle, of the Chicago firm of Katten Muchin & Zavis. ", According to Farrah, Heffner never actually took part in a dance class, because her leg was in a cast. Her father chandi heffner duke today Duke against her Duke was taking me to the door, there was a well estate! This son of a bitch a second chance yearsto give this son of a type that does n't exist.. Reluctant to have dinner with Rock Hudson for fear that he would be molested her father cellars! 'S part n't come down until 11:30, and he was just marvelous to Doris, and Doris thought would! A bottle ; it came from her website off in two Honolulu hospitals, because her leg was a. Back in her life 11:30, and friends say that their sexual relationship really... Was in a dance class, because her leg was in a cast in late 1990, he said 'Your... 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