I think somebody is trying to kill me.". Heffner also said that as next of kin she would have requested an autopsy, but she was never officially notified of Duke's death, and by the time she learned of the cremation, it was too late. 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." When Doris died, there was a well publicized estate fight between Chandi and Doriss ex butler, Bernard Lafferty. Chandi Duke Heffner, Self: Oh My God. Later on we would sleep together and Doris would come in most mornings and sit there on the bed with us and talk. I think this was the steroid thing happening. . ", In late 1990, he said, "I detected a growing unhappiness on Doris's part. . Everything good I could say about Bernard, I do. "Whenever she walked into your room, she made the room," recalls Mercedes Bass. Duke died at age 80 in 1988, leaving a hotly contested $1.5 billion estate. . Lee told me, "Ten or 15 years ago, I went to sing in the Versailles Room at the old Bellevue, and Bernard was the manager of the room, and we became friends. Only one other trustee was named in the will, Marion Oates Charles, Duke's longtime summer neighbor in Newport, Rhode Island. This gives her the air of philanthropy. In May, a New York judge approved a plan to send the bulk of her estate to charity. Cary W. Goldstein, Burns lawyer, says Heffner Duke broke ``a very explicit deal she had with Burns, although it was never written down. 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. Doris loved it. The next day Duke's lawyer called Heffner again and informed her that Duke wanted her out, too. ), By then the center of her social life was Franco Rossellini, the extremely amusing and gay Italian movie producer, whom she had met about 1975. . One night at dinner, Heffner told me, "Doris said to me, 'You're my daughter reincarnated. ", Thomas Rybak, who had been working as Doris Duke's chef for several months when Lafferty was hired in May 1987, at a salary of about $500 a week, paints a different picture. 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. . Last year she gave. For reasons I don't understand, a curtain seemed to come down. 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. . ") 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. Woody Brock, who visited her with Oatsie Charles that summer, says, "It must have been 85 degrees outside, and she had on a white sweater and a roaring fire in every room. 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 was very intelligent and very together. He was very good at repairing old costumes and fabric. Were there . Nicolas mother, Claudia, has a sister we havent forgotten about. The tobacco heiress fortune, one of the largest in U.S. history, has been the subject of complicated legal wrangling since she died at age 80 in 1993. "There were clear indications of a growing trust, affection, and devotion between them. ", 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. They named them Princess and Baby. . All; Titles; TV Episodes; Celebs; Companies; Keywords; Doris bought her a sprawling horse farm worth then 30 years ago over a million bucks. Doris was into it, too. . "Her legs were almost starting to atrophy from lack of exercise." 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. Chandi Heffner was "planted" on Doris Duke by Imelda Marcos. "She forgave Rubi everything," says Reinaldo Herrera, even his subsequent marriage to Barbara Hutton. "Doris had gone surfing," explains Nancy Cooke de Herrera, an old friend from Hawaii. 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. "Doris was seeing a Japanese therapist for her knee problems . One repeated her response to a straight man who was reluctant to have dinner with Rock Hudson for fear that he would be molested. Heres a description of Chandi (seen in the picture here on the right, with Duke and Imelda Marcos) from her website. Instead, she was cremated during the weekend following her death, and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean off Shangri La on November 17, 1993, by Bernard Lafferty and Johnny Gomez, along with the hibiscus leis she loved. Although she was constantly compared to Hutton from the time they both had fairy-tale coming-out parties the year after the stock market crashed, Duke always hated the comparison to the much-married Woolworth heiress, who died penniless. "It was unbelievable how hard she worked. I thought she'd live to 90 or 100. James Burns, now an aspiring actor in Los Angeles, says that he and Chandi "are giving each other space for a while.". Imelda stayed for a week, I think. She wasn't sure if she wanted to have a baby, but she said by the third month an incredible mother instinct took over. And Doris said, 'How about the one next to you?' Newport police declared it an accident, and her friends still swear that it was. When Duke was 27 years old, she delivered a premature baby daughter who died just 24 hours after being born. She was contemplating having knee replacements. 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. "He was obviously unhappy. I said, 'Doris, get out of that house. His family all died, and he had one remaining relative, in Philadelphia. Ignoring Chandi Heffner, the latter-day flower child whom she adopted in. Duke died last October, leaving an estate reported to be between $750 million and $1.3 billion and lengthy obituaries which focused on her husbands and lovers, her houses in New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaii, her collections of Oriental and Islamic art, her $5 million bailout of Imelda Marcos, and her perplexing relationship with Chandi Heffner. He spent many weekends at a guesthouse at Duke Farms and was her escort when she went into the city for lunches and dinners with friends such as Diana Vreeland, Nan Kempner, and Kenneth Jay Lane. Until she was 10, when she started at the Brearley School, she was tutored at home. Chandi Heffner In 1984, Doris met a woman named Chandi Heffner in Hawaii. The two women developed a deep bond almost instantly. Heffner pleaded on his behalf and asked to speak to Duke, but Robinson told her that Duke was tired. ", According to Farrah, Heffner never actually took part in a dance class, because her leg was in a cast. She said, 'There was nothing to do on that train.' 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. "Ferencz said, 'We had a butler who was fired. . It doesn't mean I'll go to bed with them.". . The next morning, the day after Valentine's Day, James Burns remembers, Duke told Heffner she had a dentist's appointment and left the house with Bernard Lafferty. It was a really loving daughter-mother relationship. SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) _ Reclusive multimillionaire Doris Duke has adopted a 35-year-old conservationist as a daughter, her lawyer said Friday. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Chandi Heffner and Doris Duke were having a lesbian affair. Duke was the only child of J.B. "Buck" Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Co. and later endowed Duke University in Durham, N.C. She had had several leg operations, after a riding accident, but she participated in the seminar. He said the couple, who lived together from 1990 until 1993, agreed that Burns would be not only be her confidante-companion but ``cook, body guard, security specialist and assist in financing any claims Heffner Duke may find it necessary to bring to enforce her rights against Doris Duke.. 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. In an April 1992 codicil, she replaced them with her nephew, Walker Inman Jr., and Bernard Lafferty, and in a March 1993 codicil she made Bernard Lafferty her sole executor. The billionaire believed that Chandi was the reincarnation of her dead kid. Mercedes Bass remembered Duke's coming for tea at the Carlyle Hotel a year or so earlier and introducing Heffner as "my niece." It was clear that something adverse was going on in the latter part of 1990 in Hawaii. On New Year's Day 1964, she ordered him out, and he retaliated by suing her, claiming that they had been secretly married. Keyko said that $800,000 was paid to Heffner on Friday. Heffner has a sister named Charlene Gail Heffner aka Chandi Duke Heffner. . 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. No wills! This stuff was from Miss Duke's father. And I didn't sense any antagonism between Chandi and Bernard." Franco Rossellini assured everyone that he was all for it. "People always think that if you can have 200 people to dine at home without moving the chairs around and you don't, you must be very sad," says Claus von Blow. In the morning, Bernard didn't come down until 11:30, and he was a mess. As Heffner fights to undo the will, she speaks exclusively to BOB COLACELLO, who delves into the mystery of Duke's final years. Doris said, 'Do you have time for a drink?' ", Robert Farrah agrees: "Doris Duke was not this elusive reclusive. "It was shocking," Heffner told me. "And later on, for a while, on Irwin Bloom, the financial manager. Virtually inseparable, the two women shuttled back and forth between Duke Farms, Duke's Newport estate "Rough Point" and her palatial Indo-Persian "Shangri-La" in the exclusive Diamond Head section of Oahu. Heffner told me she had left "the farm community" and was living with Gordon Damon, a real-estate agent whose house was near Duke's Diamond Head estate. Heffner told me that Duke was annoyed with Rossellini for falling behind on the rent on the New Jersey guesthouse. It's not true. 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. This month, Chandi Heffner's lawyers, Ben Michel of Riker, Danzig and David Keyko of Winthrop, Stimson, will file her objections to Duke's will in New York State Surrogate Court, accusing Bernard Lafferty of "undue influence and sequestering." She wasn't Barbara Hutton," says Marina Cicogna, who was a friend of both heiresses. We were joking around, because we both had bad knees. ", 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. And then he was going to A.A., and he did very well in A.A., as far as I know. James Burns, 32, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, claimed Chandi Gail Heffner Duke owes him half of the $66 million she was awarded after Duke die in 1988. After repeated requests for an interview, I received the following statement through the New York public-relations firm representing him: "My duty to Miss Duke is to maintain her privacy even though she is gone.". "It was really sad," Heffner said, "because Martha arrived and Doris wouldn't go see her. ", Duke gave him a house in Paris for a wedding gift, and a plane before their divorce one year later. Chandi got a couple of the housemen, and they brought him to the Somerville hospital." That evening, I sent up dinner and Chandi came downstairs and said, 'Tom, Bernard just dropped the entire tray.' She thought it was very amusing. "There was such a myth about Doris being a solitary person and not going out, so when she showed up somewhere, it was an event. . ", Heffner blamed Duke's altered feelings on the steroids she claims Duke was taking then. . Duke Kahanamoku went in after her and saved her. "She was told she has a pretty good case," the family member said. John Warnecke was told by Johnny Gomez, Duke's elderly caretaker in Honolulu, that "she was so full of beans, she decided to have both knees done at one time, and one knee got infected and she had to have another operation. Because just as Doris was taking me to the door, there was Chandi with the caretaker. When I go I'll be eaten by the sharks.". Burns said that he was also training Lafferty, to help him lose his paunch. And the person who could best illuminate Doris Duke's declining days, Bernard Lafferty, refused to talk to me. Duke was spending the spring, as usual, at her 2,700-acre Duke Farms, in Somerville, New Jersey. '", Heffner dismissed such charges, and also told me that one day during the "steroid" period Duke had called her into her bedroom and said, "I think somebody is putting poison in my food. And when I smacked my lips in ecstasy, I found that three or four bottles would be left off at my house the next day as a gesture. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. 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. I usually got one of the help. Now, please understand that I'm not accusing anyone of anything.". "We were sitting on the rocks, and she said, 'I will take care of you and all of your animals for the rest of your life. Charlene Gail Heffner goes by the name Chandi Duke Heffner. Heffner told me that "even back in high school I began kind of a quest to see if there was more to life," and that after a trip around the world, she ended up in Hawaii, meditating, surfing, and exercising polo ponies. I know a lot of bull dykes. Demopoulos wasn't the only one to notice a change in Duke's attitude after Heffner was out of her life. One of those servants was the future executor of Doris Duke's estate. And that's how the relationship evolved. "Buck" Duke was obsessed with his only child. His mother was a teacher, while his father fought as a pilot during WWII. ", Dr. Demopoulos told me, "I spoke to her in early January. Then she became pregnant and had a premature daughter named Arden, who lived only 24 hours. . Chandi lives on the horse farm now and operates a very modest charity called the CDH Foundation, with total assets of $ 2 million. When he went to pick her up, Lafferty told him, "Always keep me informed, so that I can be sure everything works." He was later retried and acquitted. We'll travel together. Duke may have been infatuated, but friends of Tirella's told me that he was unabashedly gay. Surrogate Court Judge Wilfred P. Diana asked Duke if she understood that the adoption "creates a relationship between you and Miss Heffner as if she were born to you in wedlock," and Duke said yes. and as we were leaving they exchanged telephone numbers. Future executor of Doris Duke 's lawyer called Heffner again and informed her that Duke was with! Told me that Duke was not this elusive Reclusive friends still swear that it was N.J. AP. Her legs were almost starting to atrophy from lack of exercise. women developed a deep almost! 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