Barbara hutton (1912-1979) was an American heiress and philanthropist known as the "poor rich girl." Her life was marked by being the heir to one of the largest fortunes in the United States, that of the Woolworths, and by living in extreme loneliness..
Since her tragic childhood - which was marked by the suicide of her mother when she was 5 years old and the emotional abandonment of her father - her lack of affection has always accompanied her. Therefore, her seven husbands were not enough to fill her life with love..
The tragedy was always present in his life, since his only son died in an accident. This ended up plunging her into drug addiction, anorexia and depression, which led to her ruin and death at age 66, only accompanied by her ex-husband, actor Cary Grant, perhaps her only true love..
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Barbara Woolworth Hutton was born in New York, on November 14, 1912, into one of the richest families in the United States and in the world..
She was the granddaughter of tycoon Frank Winfield Woolworth, her maternal grandfather, who made his fortune with the Woolworth department store chain..
Barbara's parents, Edna Woolworth and Franklyn Hutton, enjoyed the heirloom honeys while living in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in the so-called Big Apple..
When the girl was about five years old, the tabloid press leaked an affair with her father. Edna, completely humiliated and depressed by her husband's infidelity, took her own life. It was her little daughter Barbara who found her mother's body. From that moment on, Barbara's life was marked by misfortune and loneliness..
The girl went to her maternal grandparents' house, completely surrounded by luxury in a mansion of about 56 rooms, but terribly alone.
After three years living there, her grandparents passed away and the girl was the heir to an impressive fortune for the time: about 150 million dollars..
At school she felt complex because she was not pretty or nice; even, the press already coined the nickname of "poor rich girl".
At the age of 14 he returned to New York and lived for a time with his father and stepmother, with whom he got along well. However, her father considered her an adult and decided to free Barbara's fortune to start an independent life.
At 18, he topped the news by throwing a quirky debut party that cost about $ 60,000, which would be the equivalent of $ 1 trillion today due to inflation..
Throughout his life he was a lover of luxury and waste, such as jewelry, car collections and mansions.
She married for the first time at the age of 21 with a Georgian prince, Alexis Mdivani, who was already married to a friend of the young woman, Louise Astor Van Alen.
Mdivani divorced and made Barbara his wife. The newlyweds had a very long honeymoon, of walks and splurges.
When they reached their home in London, the passion between them had ended. At the party her husband Mdivani threw to celebrate the wealthy heiress' 22nd birthday, the girl began flirting with Count Court Haugwitz-Reventlow, her lover and then her husband in 1935.
Only 24 hours elapsed between Barbara signing her first divorce and getting married again. This time it was a simple wedding in Reno, to marry the Danish count.
Installed in London, everything seemed to indicate that Barbara was finally happy. She lived surrounded by love and luxury, and in that context she had her only son Lance. While everything in the mansion was wasteful, the employees of the Woolworth department store, in the United States, were on strike demanding living wages.
For love, the woman renounced her American nationality. This, together with the poor conditions of its workers, earned it a fatal reputation in the press..
In 1938 she divorced the count, with whom she lived a relationship of abuse and violence, and returned to New York before the outbreak of the Second World War. However, the rejection she felt there forced her to go with her son to California; there she married actor Cary Grant.
Happiness lasted only a few years, because their lifestyles were incompatible and they divorced in 1945, although they always maintained a close friendship.
In 1948 she married her fourth husband, the Russian prince Igor Troubetzkoy, from whom she spent a long time away due to health problems that kept her hospitalized..
At this stage in her life she was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor, which caused her infertility and plunged her into old drug habits and anorexia nervosa. This ended their marriage in 1951.
She soon met her fifth husband, the playboy Dominican Porfirio Rubirosa, who made the most of his fortune. The relationship lasted only months and Barbara was already announcing her sixth union.
Baron Gottfried Kurt Freiherr was her new partner. They were married at Versailles in 1955, but the baron's predilection for men made the marriage unhappy, further plunging Barbara into sleeping pills and alcohol..
Back in Morocco, she met her seventh and last love, the Vietnamese chemist Pierre Raymond Doan, married with two children. This character broke his family to marry the millionaire, but this love did not last him either.
Failed in love, extremely thin due to anorexia and addicted, Barbara had only her son Lance. However, in July 1972 the young man died in a plane crash..
Barbara was broke, emotionally destroyed, and bankrupt due to years of waste and mismanagement by her administrators..
She ended her days in California, ruined and alone with the company of Cary Grant, her only stalwart who never asked her for money either during the divorce or afterwards. Barbara Hutton died of a heart attack while in hospital on May 11, 1979..
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