Duke, Doris

▪ 1994

      U.S. tobacco heiress and philanthropist (b. Nov. 22, 1912, New York, N.Y.—d. Oct. 28, 1993, Beverly Hills, Calif.), inherited most of her father's American Tobacco Co. fortune at the age of 12 and used her position as one of the world's richest women to benefit Duke University, AIDS research, animal rights, environmental and ecological causes, and historic preservation. Her personal life, however, was rife with disappointments, including failed marriages; the death of her only child, a day-old girl; and the disillusionment that followed her adoption of 35-year-old Charlene Gail Heffner in 1988. The statuesque Duke spent a large part of her life escaping from the probing eye of the public. She often fled into seclusion to luxuriously appointed homes in New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaii, where she spent many of her later years at Shangri-La, a fantasy-inspired residence in Honolulu. Her widely publicized marriages to James Cromwell (1935-43) and Porfirio Rubirosa (1947-48) ended in divorce. At the time of Duke's death, a lawsuit filed by Heffner challenging the distribution of her estate was pending. In her will, Duke disinherited Heffner and left the bulk of her estimated $1.2 billion fortune to the newly created Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, one of the world's most richly endowed philanthropies.

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