Synopsis
A close-up portrait of the fascinating life of socialite and heiress Doris Duke details her two marriages, the Newport scandal that turned her into a recluse, her relationship with Chandi Heffner and Bernard Lafferty, and her mysterious death.
Reviews
Another go at the story of billionaire heiress Doris Duke that raises more questions than it answers about her life, her death, and her last will and testament. Schwarz (Rose Kennedy: A Life of Faith, Family, and Tragedy, 1995) tries to take a more evenhanded approach to Duke's life story than last year's trashing by her cousin Pony Duke in Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke. Coauthor Rybak worked for about two years as Duke's personal chef and was also partly responsible for the hiring of the infamous butler, the late Bernard Lafferty, who supervised--and perhaps helped to hasten- -Duke's death in 1993 at age 80. According to the authors, Duke's father, Buck, was the primary influence in her life, the man who taught Doris to ``trust no one'' and passed on his own obsessions: sex, money, and agriculture. As to sex, Doris's lovers were numerous and varied, from her first husband, the well-bred but financially strapped Jimmy Cromwell, to the jazz pianist Joey Castro. As for money and agriculture, Doris nurtured the Duke fortune from millions to billions and along the way became a botanical expert, specializing in orchids. She was also an accomplished jazz pianist with some recordings to her credit. Although Duke gets recognition for her accomplishments, including her expertise in Eastern art, this biography indulges heavily in speculation about family crimes, including several ``murders.'' Credibility shrinks from sloppy inconsistencies and offensive characterizations, such as the description of Irish immigrants as ``drinking, dancing and brawling.'' The book ends with long, unenlightening excerpts from civil and criminal investigations relating to Duke's death and her will, and peculiar paeans to an attorney representing some Duke employees. An attempt at a fair hearing for the headline heiress that is negated by trivia and hearsay. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Details of the late tobacco heiress's life will be familiar to readers of her cousin Pony Duke's Too Rich (Knopf, 1996) and Stephanie Mansfield's The Richest Girl in the World (LJ 6/1/92). With Rybak, a former Duke employee, celebrity biographer Schwarz has done a competent job, but not everyone would speak to him, and the book becomes repetitive in the final chapters. Those looking for a solution to the puzzle of Duke's death?by an overdose of morphine at age 80, in 1993?won't find it here, but they will be given enough information to draw their own conclusions. The most interesting revelation in this "poor little rich girl" bio is that a 1917 study on the fatal long-term effects of cigarettes was destroyed by Doris's father, Buck Duke (another victim of a bizarre death). He then warned friends and family against smoking. Libraries with the above-mentioned titles should consider this one if demand warrants.?Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Depending on your interpretation of glamorous, this book could be more appropriately titled The Bizarre Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke. Born in 1912 to an unhappy union between a tobacco baron and his coldhearted, mean-spirited wife, Duke lost her father in early childhood, leaving her an unimaginable fortune estimated at her recent death as being more than $3 billion. After her father's death, which her mother was apparently instrumental in causing, Duke gradually won her independence from her mother and embarked on a life of failed marriages, sleazy affairs, drug and alcohol dependency, sensationally bizarre acts (like adopting a 35-year-old woman), trying out new religions, and jet-setting between her three exclusive properties. Duke died in her late 70s, and her death, shrouded in mystery, has been the subject of much speculation and innuendo. This book, while rendering a concise, if extremely dark, portrayal of the lives of the very wealthy, leaves the reader with the feeling of witnessing a bad car accident, horrified and repulsed yet somehow transfixed. Kathleen Hughes
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