The Seven Husbands of Barbara Hutton
The Woolworth heiress came into a nearly a billion dollars in today's earnings. Her husbands helped spend it and left her with just $3,500.
Can rich people be sympathetic characters? If at all, Barbara Hutton belongs on the very short list.
Barbara Woolworth Hutton was the granddaughter of Frank Winfield Woolworth, the founder of the once-great department store and retail giant, Woolworth’s. Maybe you’re not familiar with the store, but do you remember the famous Greensboro Sit-In Protest photo? That took place at a Woolworth’s.
Barbara’s mother was the daughter of Woolworth’s founder, and her father was the co-founder of E.F. Hutton and Company, a well-respected New York investment banking and stock brokerage firm. She was also the niece by marriage of Marjorie Merriweather Post, as in Post Cereal. Needless to say, Barbara did not know what EBT is.
Troubled Early Years
Barbara’s mother died when she was still a child, just five years old. The official cause was listed as suffocation due to mastoiditis, an infection that extends to the air cells of the skull behind the ear. However, there were long-standing rumours that her mother had actually taken her own life, driven to despair by Barbara’s father’s philandering. Adding another layer to the story: Barbara’s mother had herself been having an affair with Bud Bouvier, the paternal uncle of Jacqueline Kennedy. According to biographer C. David Heymann, the family paid off city officials to avoid a formal investigation into the death. And despite press reports at the time that claimed the body was discovered by a maid, it was in fact Barbara who found her mother.
Following her mother’s death, Barbara was sent to live with her maternal grandparents in their 60-room Long Island mansion in Glen Cove. Sadly, at this point, her grandmother suffered from severe dementia and spent her days rocking silently in a wicker chair under medical supervision. Her grandfather, Frank Woolworth himself, was very affectionate, calling Barbara “princess” and doting on her. Unfortunately, he was also in declining health and died in 1919. During this time, Barbara was described as “a wistful, imaginative, lonely child with no family and few friends”.
Between losing a parent young, being abandoned by the other, and then losing her favourite grandparents, Barbara understandably felt incredibly lonely and isolated. By her teenage years, she was already writing in her notebooks that she felt ugly, fat, and unlovable. She also wrote about feeling that nobody could ever love her for herself, only for her money.
The Wealth
How rich was Barbara? Very.
When Barbara’s maternal grandmother (the wife of theee Mr. Woolworth, to be clear) died in 1924, she bequeathed $26.1 million (almost $502 million today) to Barbara. Another $2.1 million in stock from her mother’s inheritance was placed in a separate trust. Both trusts were administered by Franklyn Hutton, Barbara’s father. The man may have been a terrible husband and an absent father, but he knew money and how to grow it. By her 21st birthday in 1933, Barbara’s fortune had grown to $42 million (around $811 million today), not including an additional $8 million ($154,400,000 today) from her mother’s estate. Combined, the two fortunes made Barbara one of the wealthiest women in the world, and nearly a billionaire by today’s standards.
Baby’s First Scandal
A monumental occasion for any wealthy socialite is her debutante ball, and Barbara Hutton was no exception. Her ball, held at the NYC Ritz-Carlton, cost a lavish $60,000 ($1.2 million today) and was attended by the likes of the Astor and Rockefeller families, as well as stars of the day such as Rudy Vallée and Maurice Chevalier.
Lavish balls were nothing new to NYC high society. However, what made Barbara’s different was that it took place in December 1930: a year after the stock market crash, and with the Great Depression in full swing. To say the public was angry would be an understatement. The backlash was so severe that Barbara was essentially forced to flee to Europe to escape the relentless media uproar. But no matter, because once in Europe, Barbara continued to make the social rounds there. Her father and stepmother took her to England for a presentation at the Court of St. James’s, which she then followed with a world cruise.
The Husbands
Barbara was married 7 times, the longest marriage lasting just a few years. And while you and I may have dated some absolute losers in our time, it’s nothing compared to the scrubs Barbara was in bed with. Let’s review.
Husband #1: Alexis Mdivani
How Alexis and Barbara came to be married is truly sickening manipulation, and that is why I will always have sympathy for this poor woman.
Alexis was a member of exiled Georgian nobility. He and his siblings continued to call themselves “princes” even after fleeing Tbilisi in 1921 following the Soviet invasion of Georgia. Do you deserve to call yourself the prince of a people you flee from at the first sign of danger? Who can say. But I would say no.
Alexis was already married to Louise Van Alen, a friend of Barbara’s and a member of the Astor family. The relationship between Barbara and Alexis was engineered/manipulated by Alexis’s sister, Isabelle Roussadana Mdivani (nicknamed “Roussie”), who is described as “a scheming social climber” (a criticism also applied to her brother). The family was so well known for this that they had even earned the nickname of “Marrying Mdivanis.” I would love to see who would come out on top if they were pitted against Lauren Sanchez.
The long-standing rumour is that Roussie and Alexis devised a plan to enable Alexis to divorce Louise, “seduce” Barbara, and force her into marriage. As the story goes, while on a vacation in Spain, Roussie perfectly timed it for Louise and other witnesses to “stumble” upon a guest cottage while Alexis “seduced” Barbara. Given that Barbara was a sheltered young girl at the time, a fair guess is that Alexis probably forced himself on her. Either way, the group caught the couple, prompting Barbara to flee to Paris in embarrassment. Roussie then threatened to go to the press with the story unless Barbara agreed to marry her brother.
Given the era's puritanical values, this would have devastated Barbara, so she gave in. Alexis and Barbara were married on June 20, 1933, in a civil ceremony in Paris. Her father provided a $1 million dowry and provided a yearly income of $50,000. The marriage was not a happy one. Alexis blew through the dowry and much of Barbara’s inheritance on a new house, polo ponies, and expensive clothes and jewellery for himself before Barbara finally divorced him in 1935. He got his comeuppance, though: the following August, he was killed in an automobile accident in Spain - the same place he pulled off his scam and assault against Barbara.
Husband #2: Kurt Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow
24 hours after her divorce to Alexis was finalized, Barbara was married again. This time, Count Kurt Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, a German-born man with Danish citizenship.
The marriage was extremely tumultuous. Kurt was cruel to Barbara, dominating her through physical, verbal, and emotional abuse severe enough to land Barbara in the hospital and Kurt in prison. During the marriage, Barbara also began using drugs and developed anorexia, which she would struggle with for the remainder of her life. She was also persuaded (though I bet “aggressively compelled” is more likely) to renounce her American citizenship in favour of Kurt’s Danish citizenship.
Something interesting did come out of this marriage: the official residence of the US Ambassador in London. In 1937, Barbara and Kurt moved into their newly built home, Winfield House, in London’s Regent’s Park. After Barbara divorced Kurt and moved to the US, she gifted the house to the US government, which designated it as the Ambassador’s official residence.
Her marriage to Kurt was the only one in which Barbara had a child. She welcomed her son, Lance, on February 24, 1936, in London by Cesarean section, following a difficult birth. Two years after Lance’s birth, Barbara was awarded sole custody following a nasty court dispute with Kurt.
Not unlike his mother, Lance also struggled with a lonely childhood, largely neglected by both parents and left to be raised by caregivers and boarding schools. In 1944, Kurt regained some custody but sent Lance to live in Canada. As an adult, Lance became deeply involved in motor racing and briefly competed in Formula One. He was also one of the last people to see actor James Dean alive, as the two had coffee together just 30 minutes before Dean’s fatal crash in 1955 while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder.
Lance had quite an interesting and also tragic life, but that’s a post for another day. Back to Barbara.
Intermission: An Affair w/ Howard Hughes
Toward the end of her marriage to Kurt, Barbara had an infamous affair with Howard Hughes, who was then engaged to actress Katharine Hepburn. Barbara documented the affair in writing, including Howard’s frustration with his inability to bring her to orgasm. She wrote: “…he saw I had difficulty reaching orgasm and tried desperately to make me do so the first time…thereafter pleasing himself and saying that I would not have one anyway. If I touched myself, he angrily brushed my hand away. He could not take it when a woman lost herself in pleasure because he felt he must absolutely be in control of a situation.”
Kudos for refusing to fake your orgasms, Ms. Hutton.
Husband #3: Cary Grant
As World War II loomed over Europe, Barbara, still living in London, decided to get the heck out of dodge and fled to Los Angeles.
At this point, it was 1939, and Barb had two divorces to her name and a child. She was a verifiable floozy by the day’s standards, and the press and public were not impressed. However, the war gave Barbara an opportunity to rehabilitate her image, and, to her credit, she was known for her generosity, even outside of the war effort. She gave money to the Free French Forces, sold her personal yacht to the Royal Navy (which is now a restaurant in Stockholm, btw), and used her high-profile status to help sell war bonds.
Barbara’s initiative paid off, and the press began to warm to her. Thinking “new image, new me, new man”, she then set her sights on her third marriage to none other than Hollywood legend, Cary Grant.
There’s a small wrinkle there, as Cary was friends with Howard Hughes, Barbara’s affair partner from Marriage #2. Nevertheless, the two wed.
The marriage was a relatively happy one. The media dubbed the couple “Cash and Cary” (objectively hilarious), even though Cary made his own money as an actor. He also sought nothing from Barbara when they divorced on August 30, 1945. Barbara later said of him: “I loved him the most. He was so sweet, so gentle. It didn’t work out but I loved him.”
And that was not necessarily the end of them. Cary was apparently the only one of Barbara’s exes to stay in touch throughout her life - and he kept in touch with her son, Lance, too. In fact, when Lance died in 1972, it was Cary who helped Barbara plan the funeral.
Husband #4: Igor Troubetzkoy
Following her divorce from Cary, Barbara eventually bought a 15-room house in Tangier, Morocco. Here, she met Prince Igor Troubetzkoy, a descendant of Lithuanian royalty who, despite limited funds, was known for his charm and personality. He was also the driver of the first-ever Ferrari to compete in Grand Prix motor racing, and later won the Targa Florio. When he filed for divorce from Barbara after 4 years of marriage, she attempted suicide. The media, awful as ever, ran the headline: “Poor Little Rich Girl” - the very label she despised.
Husband #5: Porfirio Rubirosa
This was Barbara’s shortest and horniest marriage. The two were married on December 30, 1953, but it lasted just 73 days, and Porfirio allegedly cheated with Zsa Zsa Gabor the entire time.
Let’s review Porfirio’s résumé real quick:
Dominican diplomat
Internationally known for his “sexual prowess”
Allegedly possessed a massive penis (11 inches, according to Quincy Jones), which some had nicknamed “The Peppermill”
Previously married to French actress Danielle Darrieux, who received $1 million from Doris Duke (Porfirio’s next wife) to give him an uncontested divorce
Married and divorced Doris Duke, walking away with sports cars, polo ponies, a plantation in the Dominican Republic, a converted B-25 bomber, a 17th-century home in Paris, and $25,000 a year until he remarried in the divorce settlement
Married Barbara (rumoured arch-rival of Doris Duke) on December 30, 1953, after which the bride retired to bed with a broken ankle, and the bridegroom went out to celebrate (scrub)
After their 73-day marriage, Barbara gave him $3.5 million and another converted B-25 bomber.
When the wedding was announced, one journalist wrote, “The bride, for her fifth wedding, wore black and carried a scotch-and-soda.” Scathing.
Husband #6: Baron Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried was a former international tennis star and a friend of Barbara’s for some 20 years. The two had originally met on a tennis court in Cairo. A ceremony at Versailles in 1955 made her the Baroness von Cramm. At first, the marriage seemed like it might finally be a happy one. But old habits die hard, and the two divorced in 1961.
Also, some interesting history about Gottfried: he was arrested, tried, and found guilty of homosexuality by the Nazis in 1938.
Husband #7: Prince Raymond Doan Vinh Na Champassak of Laos
Raymond was Barbara’s seventh and final husband - a Laotian prince and painter, three years younger than his bride. The wedding in 1964 took place at her walled estate near Cuernavaca, Mexico. Barbara wore a green-and-gold sari-style gown, a gold ring on each big toe, and gold anklets, with the soles of her feet painted red. The prince later said of her: “She gave me more than $4 million. She gave me love.” Hot.
The two were married until 1969. Even after, Barbara continued to use his name, and was listed as “Barbara Doan” at the mortuary when she passed away.
The Final Years
After her final divorce, Barbara retreated to California and reportedly spent her final years in increasing isolation. Three years after her last divorce, her son, Lance, was killed in a small plane crash in 1972. Despite the emotional distance between them during his lifetime, his death devastated her.
And how did it end for Barbara? After a lifetime of lavish spending and seven husbands, she died of a heart attack on May 11, 1979, at the age of 66, alone and nearly broke. A longstanding rumour claims that only around $3,500 remained of her once-extraordinary fortune, though some have disputed it. She died at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles — so still up, even when she’s down.
A longtime friend said the following about Barbara around the time of her death: “She was extreme in everything. She was extremely thoughtful, extremely tough, extremely sweet and extremely generous.”
As for Barbara, what did she think of her own legacy? When asked to explain her seven marriages, she said simply: “loneliness.” But she refused to wallow in it. “I’m not complaining. I’ve had happiness, and I’ll have it again.”
Not a poor little rich girl, just a woman who wanted what everyone wants. And happened to have the whole world watching while she looked for it.
MAIN SOURCES
“Barbara Hutton Dies on Coast at 66” by Enid Nemy for The New York Times. Published May 13, 1979.
“Hutton, Barbara (1912–1979)” from Encyclopedia.com.
“Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton” by C. Heymann. Published 1983.