Doris Duke and the Murder of Eddie Tirella | Morbid | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena and I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] it's morbid in the afternoon
it hasn't been morbid in the morning for a while yeah because we're always doing
like admin [ __ ] in the morning yeah and it's like kids going to school so it just gets chaotic in the morning now it
really does the puppies are like yeah now there's puppies involved in the whole thing so our mornings start John
and my mornings start at like 3 A.M now yeah so it's been a ride oh and by the way
thanks everybody for mentioning Litter Mate syndrome I have gotten more messages than I can count about Litter
Mate syndrome fun and I appreciate the concern I did research littermaid syndrome before I got these puppies so I
know all about it we have a trainer we're very like on it that's when they get being separated with training and
being separated with sleeping and all that good stuff they just snuggle together sometimes during the day the
Litter Mate syndrome thing is when they get like two bonded and then they hate you yeah they they either like they like
super bond with each other and don't bond with you or they get super aggressive with each other and can get
like it can get like dangerous oh like they can get like too aggressive like leave each other yeah so we're we're on
it you know my cat's just like sniff each other's face to be honest well Sydney and Blanche seem to dig each
other yeah they're they're good Bros yeah they're good Bros I love them they can handle being apart right now so
that's good yeah yeah we'll just keep it up dogs but thanks for everybody mentioning that I appreciate it but just
know that I know what it is so I promise I know what it is no I thought I was too and then she took
a breath yeah I really did and she looked at her page and I said oh what's what's coming and then nothing came I
think I just forgot how to do this for a second which is bad it's been a busy week we've had a busy week we got to
collab with Bailey saryan with the girls from red hand with the girls Hannah they all three of those gals are top
[ __ ] Notch humans they really are let me tell you it's so weird though seeing that many humans within a one week
period because we live a life where like we see each other our spouses and Mikey
and that's literally it and the it's even weirder because we have collabed with Bailey before
internet and like we feel like we know each other and then we got to do it this time in person right so we were like
we're meeting each other but like we're not meeting each other because we know each other yeah but it was very strange
and then red-handed was in person too so it was like we're usually doing these things on Zoom so it was a whole week of
in person getting to hang with pod friends it was great it was just wild like I forgot how to act for a minute
yeah I always forget headache I was like oh hi yeah oh okay weirdos and then they're like um this is
life like ash are you broken like oh hey weirdos what's going on they're like that one me checking out at Target I'm
like hi oh yeah keep it weird bye like short circuit everywhere that's who we are no I feel like a robot
sometimes but don't we all yeah don't we all yeah I'm trying to think if I have any uh any more I'm I'm sure I'll have
more Tick Tock shout outs for you guys like in the next episode I haven't been on Tick Tock as much yeah that's fun but
I'm gonna get back on to it so I'll have some more for you because it's fun to shout out Tick Tock people did you see
Tom Sandoval and Watch What Happens Live last night oh no God no time's like excuse me you
were like no I didn't no that happened in an alternate universe yeah no Tom Schwartz was on Watch What Happens Live
and he told people to hug Tom no Tom Schwartz was on and he told people to hug Tom Sandoval if they saw them
and did you see Lala's response to that no but she said we're not gonna hug him we're gonna atomic wedgie which I was
like yeah that's pretty pretty epic don't put your hands on anybody else but but Atomic wedgies I like it
that I mean welcome to VPR corner for a second but man I can't wait for that reunion guys and it's not happening
until like the end of May I know you keep telling me that and it's almost like you punch me in the face every time
well it's because if I remember it I feel like I've been punched from within my face so then I have to outwardly
punch you in the face but like figuratively yeah you know it makes me sad though I don't want to wait that
long I don't either but Ariana looks phenomenal she looks so [ __ ] good the Revenge dress oh my gosh shouldn't we
all be so lucky shouldn't we all be that goddess the baddest [ __ ] on the planet
she really is but you know what I have a long one for you today I'm I'm here for
it there was really no way to transition rules into True Crime but there never is
we should probably begin with Vanderpump Rules get into Chit Chat and then go into the story because it's probably an
easier segue yeah but who knows um who isn't that where did I hear sagu was it the office no I oh it's um and
that's why we drink oh they say that yes the goo I was like I want to give them cred
because I remember hearing that word I like cigarette I like it all and I like it that's why we drink hey I'm Christine
hey what's up we love you um okay well yeah so we're gonna be talking about what's one of my favorite
things in the entire world other than old Hollywood socialite an old social life I [ __ ]
love it and we're gonna be talking about Doris [ __ ] do oh let's go and she's actually one of the most like
famous socialists in America from the very start of her life she had access to quite literally all the money
and all the power in the world wow but weirdly she spent a good portion of her life like bouncing from one
disappointing relationship to the next unfortunate yeah every time she entered a new relationship she was more and more
jaded from the last one and it was kind of a pattern that was taking shape Doris
really seemed to be losing control of herself and her emotions toward like the middle part of her life not great which
could be part of the reason that she is linked to the suspicious death of one Eduardo torella but because he appears
in like the later portion of her life and there's a lot to cover before that we're gonna start at the very beginning
before we give too much away let's go because I know you guys don't like if we give too much away so I said no I won't
I won't do it I won't I will cater to you my little baby and I meant that lovingly not like you're being a baby I
meant like you are my baby I meant you are my babies my babies actually Moira Rose is on the other side
of my mic right now so Dora she was born on November 22nd 1912 and from the time she took her
first breath she was among the rarest class of individuals set above and apart from other Americans because of all the
money she was born into it's a whole lot of money in a small [ __ ] you know what
I mean you know what I mean you know what I mean well like yeah cardi totally so her
father was James Buchanan Duke better known to his friends and family as simply buck buck which I'm like if you
have a [ __ ] name like Buchanan don't you dare shorten it to Buck yeah don't Buchanan
beautiful yeah I mean come on he could do whatever he damn well pleased because he was one of the richest men in the
world and he was one of the richest men in the world because he had inherited his father's tobacco company and also a
power company later so he expanded the Tobacco Company greatly he actually made them the first company to operate
automatic uh automated cigarette machines in the US which like oh delightful so cool but like so terrible
wonderful cool that like he invented something that could make it happen so quickly but bad because cancer sticks
truth so by 1900 he had gained control of a lot of the competing Brands and he consolidated dated all of them and
formed the American Tobacco Company awesome yay so happy about that this is wild eventually he owned almost 93 of
the tobacco market in the U.S wow and a power company on the side damn like money the money money I told
you it's a whole lot of money that's a lot of money it's almost all of it actually damn and you said Matt money
and power and you meant it oh I meant to you and I know you meant it literal powers
I got the power but it's literal power in tobacco which is also power at this point yeah I really I know yeah at that
point people thought like smoking cigarettes cured everything exactly so Buck married his second wife who was
known as Nanny that's what they called her because her name was nanoline I believe I love a nanny yeah my
grandmother was Nanny yeah my kid's grandmother is Nanny my kid's grandmother will also be nanny because
my uh mother well soon to be mother-in-law is Nanny yeah and she spells it just like our Nanny oh I love
them which makes me happy yeah um so yes he married Natalie Nanny Holt Inman in 1907 after a very messy and
very public divorce from his previous wife just one year before her name was Lillian but I didn't really look into
her to be honest that's okay so I'm sure Lillian was fun who really knows because
then they got divorced it could have been him it could have been her I could have been in my business but Nanny she's
my business Nanny she had become a young Widow in 1902 when her husband wealthy industrialist is that how you say that
yeah thanks William Inman he died in 1902 from what is listed as diabetes but in all likelihood it might have been
alcoholism yeah yeah you know diabetes will do yeah after her husband's death she spent
years traveling shopping being a young Society woman pretty much all I've ever hoped and dreamed of yeah until she met
Ben Duke who was Buck's younger brother and they met in 1906 at Lake Toxaway Resort
um which I'm like did you name it talks away because like even back then it was like trendy to get the toxins away oh I
like that or maybe it's a place I don't really know but who really cares what it was I I
mean maybe you do but whatever the meaning changed the entire course of Nanny's life is the point here Ben ended
up writing a letter to his older brother and told him quote I have met the most beautiful woman in the world essentially
trying to set his older brother up with this sexy ass lady good for him and guess what what the plan worked what and
by the next year Nanny and buck were married on July 24th in a small ceremony in Brooklyn oh adorable yeah now Nanny
she brought a huge inheritance to this new marriage and also her son from that previous marriage Walker Inman Buck
initially actually wanted to adopt Walker because you know he would be a son he would go on to carry the Duke
Legacy it would be wonderful uh but Walker was like [ __ ] all of that he didn't care he literally said that he
that's the direct quote Yeah I don't know where I found it but it's direct he was not interested he made it clear from
a very early age that he did not wish for buck to adopt him and they actually fought a lot over their years like a ton
but especially more and more as Walker got older and the fights LED Buck to worry that he was not gonna have anybody
especially like a child to leave his fortune to or to carry on his name yeah like he's like well [ __ ] this is all
gonna end with me and this is like a amazing Empire yeah you can't just let it float off into the ether that would
suck so bad stranger take it I know right so luckily in the spring of 1912 that all changed when at 42 years old
Nanny discovered she was pregnant whoa right which like must have been crazy back then too because like we know a lot
more about pregnancy now but like in 1912 I feel like that must have been a little scary yeah you know yeah like I
don't think she expected to find herself no definitely not in 1912. exactly now that fall she went into labor actually
unexpectedly and Doris our girly girl but like not really was born in the master bedroom of the buck and or of
buck and Nanny's rented house which was on New York's 78th Street and as she was
born she was surrounded by quote a fleet of high-priced private physicians and nurses she was just surrounded by money
they just as she came into the world they just threw cash at her they absolutely did yep they were like Let's
Make It Rain up in here let's make it rain for this infant and this like it's really interesting that this happened
but it's also really scary because her birth made headlines in major cities across the country in America that's
terrifying and of course the Press noted that she was now the sole inheritor of Buck's 100 million dollar estate which
led to her being nicknamed the richest girl in the world oh that's a little scary right that's a little scary and
you know what maybe I'm thinking of it in like a a now age where like social media is so scary and things fly so
quickly but I mean back then back then the news was the news obviously but it was like social media yeah it's like
that's a little scary and a lot to put on a baby a lot to put on a baby and on her family to Shield her from and by the
way so his estate was worth 100 million then today that would be worth three billion dollars whenever you bring me
into a place of billion I don't my mind cannot no comprehend a billion no like a
billion that's watching succession the other night they were talking about some deal and they were like 10 billion and
they were just saying it like it was it sounds fate here's a Cobb salad like it was just like would you like an egg with
that adorable and I was like billions like billion billion literally sounds fake two million exists like
that's true that's crazy to me it's wild yeah just ask you know shiv and Logan Roy I will they exists it exists and
they throw it around like Monopoly money over there I mean when you get to billion I feel like it is [ __ ]
Monopoly yeah at that point It's gotta be like whatever what's scary is I was never good at Monopoly money so I don't
know I was never a monopoly girl I am gonna go on the record right now I [ __ ] hate Monopoly that's that's a
bold stance to take I I will you know what I'll stand with you but only because I cannot remember the last time
I played Monopoly no and I never remember it being a good time it's never a good time whenever it was like brought
forth that we were gonna bring out the Monopoly board I was like I would rather go lay in the middle of the road you're
gonna bring out clue let's [ __ ] know we'll make a night of it yeah I got kids clue for my kids recently cool it's
so much fun you have to figure out who broke the toy that's that's what you do in kids clue because like I'm not gonna
introduce like right now when they're seven why not but I know it's crazy what do you mean but man they love that and
they keep asking me to play the adult clue and I'm like not yet not yet just because of the basis of it yeah
one I don't want to explain that to you and two you don't need to go to school and talk about like the butler was
murdered in the kitchen with the Candlestick oh my God no but kid's clue who broke that toy and what toy was it
that broke yeah that's fun it spots all the same characters I like that a lot I love it but yeah a clue I'm all about
Monopoly not so much no I'm [ __ ] Monopoly too much she's Rich As [ __ ] and from the moment
she was born it was clear her life was going to be very very different than anybody else's life around here
Buck was also a huge germaphobe and he was like incredibly protective of her so he bought a private Pullman car that he
named Doris that way the family could travel around New York just like totally isolated from
the general public but the car was stocked with champagne cigars and staffed with a full-time chef
so wait this is a car for the child and like the family but like he got it so that the child wouldn't be like just
wheeled around in a little I thought you meant this was literally just for the child and it was like stocked with
champagne cigars tobacco bought it when they had the child it's kind of like when you get like when you
have more than two children and you get a third row yeah like you get the bigger
car you get a rich little baby to give all your inheritance to so you get them a car that's uh stocked with all that
[ __ ] and a chef that's sick which I was like but where does the chef cook though
like yeah that was my first question that I was gonna have about that it's like what's happening there what kind of
Chef is it is it only a salad Chef he's a full-time Chef he's a full-time Chef so so also it's like he is he just
hanging out in that car always all the time that's not good at the ready I don't and it's like where's the where is
it is everything up to code I don't think there even was a code is the temperature of everything right probably
starts cooking I don't know like I don't know it's gonna get real fumey up in that car yeah I'd rather just stop and
get some burgers on the way yeah too much going on yeah but Buck also hired what was described as a battery of
nurses and bodyguards to protect his daughter get it because he was rightfully convinced that she had become
an attractive Target for kidnappers yeah since everyone was like Hey this [ __ ]
has three billion 300 billion dollars yeah you know wait yeah no three billion not three oh excuse me yeah that would
be one that would be crazy and you know what I don't blame him I don't have billions of dollars he can afford to do
do whatever the [ __ ] he wants do it man it's for your kid but that's the thing
when she had been born and dubbed the richest girl in the world it opened the floodgates and tons and tons of letters
were starting to be sent to the family on a regular basis begging the baby for money
like she can't even write you've always been people and yeah people know like people always just people always take it
that extra mile people stay people they do yeah true like you said that and I was like what the hell got and then I
was like no no that makes sense that's really not open up your redmo yeah but the thought of someone kidnapping her
for ransom wasn't far-fetched so Buck was spending money to protect his daughter out of pure fear and constant
paranoia and when he wasn't doing that he was showering her and his wife would like super extravagant gifts and artwork
and antiques like crazy sick sounds like the life is it the life of Riley did they say it sounds like yeah it is is it
Riley is it Riley but from the moment she arrived in this world there was a very loud and clear message being
conveyed to Doris that you could have whatever the [ __ ] you want whenever the [ __ ] you want and there is nothing that
can't be bought because you have the means to do so and herein lies the problem all of that other stuff you're
like that sounds cool cool beautiful awesome oh yeah yeah why not you got the money for it too but then when you get
to that part you're like and there it is that's the issue exactly that is the issue exactly because that doesn't that
doesn't make a great adult no or an easy to deal with adult no no no no no no no
no no so shortly after Doris was born the family actually moved back to Duke Farms which was their
2700 acre in Hillsborough Township New Jersey it's actually cool to read about Doris because she's from around here I
know that is cool she spends most of her time in New York New Jersey and Rhode Island actually I don't that's funny
yeah like on the Newport Manchester the Newport Mansions they have such like a cool Mystique about them oh my God
like they're so knives out they like they're so like murder mystery yeah they just got that Vibe about it I just love
it I was like looking at some of them online as I was doing this story just to see because I've never been inside of
one have you no I don't think I've actually been inside the Newport mansion you can though like they're yeah they do
tours yeah stuff I want to do that and I think like part of them isn't like Salve
Regina that campus like some of the Mansions are part of it or something probably I think it's like a beautiful
campus oh love that I didn't even know that just saying I just said probably because it sounded good probably do you
ever sit down on your ankle and then you go to move your ankle to the opposite way and you're afraid you're gonna break
it in half all the time that just happened to me so like that with me a moment all the time [ __ ] [ __ ] so they
moved back to New Jersey to their you know this like small quaint little farm with 2 700 Acres
yeah but in addition to the main house the property included more than 40 other buildings damn nine Lakes nine lakes and
one and a half miles of stone walls huh so before Doris was born the property had actually been open to the public
like they were welcome to come stroll on the grounds there was a lot of diverse Wildlife that could be spotted the
landscape was beautiful it was like visiting a park but when the family returned Buck was way too scared of
having the public roam the property while they were there I don't blame them yeah especially because a lot of
interest had peaked in his family yeah of course so he closed the property and he said he affected or it was said he
effectively kept the world from his daughter and keeping his daughter from entering the world
and that's tough and it's like the thing is totally protect your kid at all costs
but you can't cut them off from the world I know that's but I understand why that was so hard yeah total balance
because it's like how do you balance that because I'm sure especially in that position that's well I was just gonna
say like I'm sure every parent feels that to a certain degree like you want to shelter your child as long as you can
but then to enter like all the money that they had into it yeah it's scary that's when it gets like really really
tough mm-hmm but I don't know I feel bad like that's a shitty like I know I'm saying I feel bad for like billionaires
I'm not saying that no but I'm saying like that position I feel bad I feel bad for this thing you're worried about your
kid yeah yeah you're like parent to parent parent to parent you've been relate on that so much
by nine Lakes you know so while she was shut off from the outside world at Duke Farms Buck doted on his daughter
entirely he would buy her anything she could have won toys pets ponies but he never really let other children come
over to play with Doris oh and on top of that for the first 10 years of her life
I just got super Boston right there and I like for the first 10 years of her life but she was homeschooled by private
tutors so between being kept away from children her age and play and at school her social skills were lacking to say
the least yeah but luckily luckily he came around and in 1922 when Doris was 10 her parents
decided to enroll her in the breerly school I think I saw you say it it was an all-girls private school on the Upper
East Side of New York oh excuse me XOXO Gossip Girl no I had it right originally
wrote and wrote and I just said God originally I had originally wrote him that she became best friends with a girl
named Blair and Serena and then they left happily ever after the end there you go but you remember the character
Doris yeah right I'd originally wrote in that yeah you had wrote in that they wrote in her out of there
no school helped Doris dive into different interests and things like music art and literature which those
were all things that she really loved to like dive into but school didn't do much
to improve her social skills she was still getting piles and piles of letters from strangers either making threats to
her or begging her for money and she would show them to her classmates very unaware that this was not something they
would ever relate to I was gonna now one friend she did make recalled that Doris was quote a smart girl
sardonic and kind of scrawny but then she went on to say she was definitely something of a pariah among the other
kids that's sad it was giving me like um a little princess remember that movie oh my God you know I've been thinking
about that movie really yeah for some reason the Vibes were similar that's how I felt yeah sometimes you and I are like
really like lately I feel like too like I'm like can you just like leave my head
for a moment the [ __ ] out of my head yeah okay I just feel bad because it's not her
fault no you know like it's not her friend she was born into I just said her fur it's not her fault she wrote it she
wrote it it's not her fur it's it's not her fault that she was born into a family of of a billionaire like you know
Legacy yeah one in a billion chance yeah that's it's it sucks that like she kind
of she reaps the benefits of it the monetary benefits of it that's not everything exactly and it's like
obviously it's that's really tough for a kid it's so bad I do too for the kid but
sadly things we're gonna take a sad turn for Doris that is sad because then I did
sound brought to you by sad in 1925 life shifted really dramatically for her because her father's health started to
take a serious decline as she was getting older like into her like 10 11 12 years I don't know what the [ __ ] you
call those her 10 11 12s you know yeah the 10 the 11 the 12th pre-teens he was constantly fatigued he was constantly
sick but now it was becoming clear that this was a lot more serious than anybody
had originally thought oh no and on October 10th John Buchanan Duke did end up dying from
pernicious anemia pernicious yeah damn it's a condition where the body is incapable of absorbing enough vitamin
B12 eek yeah yeah that's rough no Doris was a self-described daddy's girl and Buck's death death excuse me left a
major hole in her life and left her alone with a very cold and very distant mother oh no and of course a house a
full staffed house of course but the year before he died Buck had established the Duke endowment with a 40 million
dollar donation to Trinity College in North Carolina where he was from damn after that the school was redeveloped
and branded as Duke University to honor him oh that one some people say that like he made them rename it after that
but like if he donated 40 million dollars I think that's fair yeah I would say so I'd want it named after me he
definitely bought that name like that is for sure you know now after he died his
will left another 65 million to the school but the bulk of his estate went to his daughter leaving 13 year old
Doris with roughly again a hundred million dollars in cash flushed with cash and again three
billion dollars today so she had him three billion dollars in cash damn she on top of that had control of Duke Farms
among other properties wow at that point she quite literally was the richest girl
in the world wow the entire world the world the planet all of it the planet but sadly her inheritance put more of a
strain on the relationship she had with her mother because Nanny which I would too resented the fact that her husband
had left everything to their daughter can you imagine you marry this man's and like I want my kid to be taken care of
for my future kids but like they get everything yeah all those nights we spent together
that's that's a ton they get everything that's a tough hit to take that's right I will say that and what was even harder
of a hit to take was there actually ended up being a lawsuit where Doris sued Nanny over the sale of Duke Farms
because Nanny wanted to sell the property but Doris wanted to keep it so she ended up suing Nanny and the
executors of the will successfully wow and she kept uh Duke Farms in the family until she died it was like a primary
residence wow look isn't that crazy but like 13 years old and she sues them 13 years old having to sue them too and
that's and that's so traumatic too like like what the [ __ ] and it's like how do
you how do you even come to that that place and you guys you know like how do you even know to do that yeah and you
guys just like go home and eat dinner together after your lawsuit gets settled out of court and like who got her to do
that and I do have been somebody I think I don't know because it's like that person must have had a vested interest
maybe it was just her though because she she sued her mother and the executors of
the will maybe they're right and she's a very steadfast girlie I mean yeah so that definitely could be it no fast
forward a few years from that to the fall of 1930. now Doris is celebrating her 18th birthday with a big old coming
out party oh and we've always wanted one of those a debutante there it is the white gloves ever since you saw it on
Gilmore Girls oh my I've always wanted a debutante Park yeah you wanted to do a fan dance I really really wanted to do
the fan dance y'all I like I don't know any of the interworkings about anything else but I really want to do the fan
yeah like you don't want to like have anything else to do with it you just want to do the dress yep the probably
the food absolutely imagine and the fandang clubs and the white gloves I love the gloves now most Society women
would like have this at this time and love it and all that jazz Doris [ __ ] hated this she wanted to go off to
college she didn't want to have one of these but Nanny was like you are having a coming out party of course like duh
your Doris Duke no the coming out party was held at Rough point which was their New York Rhode Island no Newport Rhode
Island estate that will end up becoming a huge point in this story later on but it marked Doris's entrance into high
society and the world of the elite and the wealthy American families which all sounds pretty terrible if you ask me but
like the food and the white gloves the fan dance sign me up into it so the coming out party like I said definitely
meant a hell of a lot more to Nanny than it did to Doris Nanny was what was a member of what was referred to as the
old guard which is just like the whole entire Society the original it's like the you know it's like how it meant more
to Emily Gilmore than it did to worry and Lorelei exactly exactly now so she took Nanny she took the rights and
responsibilities of society life the very seriously while Doris on the other hand saw the responsibilities of all
this wealth and privilege she had as an inescapable burden at some points I'm sure she probably loved it there was
probably some uh pretty sick parts of it yeah definitely not gonna lie but at least at least at this point in her life
she felt like it was an inescapable Bird yeah I'm sure there were definitely those moments of being like oh cool
everyone wants to kidnap me yeah exactly that's a burden and I'm sure it was very
difficult to make friends that were not that of her station is that like that like you don't know if people are just
being friends with you because you got money exactly you know now she would tend to hang out Doris with a different
crowd that Nanny deemed the lower class oh and she called them undesirables wow I call you an uncrustable
[Laughter] what's not a great flavor remember when I got them to tweet at me about the grilled cheese flavor that was
a good time I need uncrustable to please bring back that flavor I never had that
but I'm intrigued by it it was greasy and beautiful and everything that dreams are made of if you ask me and it also
probably sent me into like a very yeah exactly with my lights off but these people who were the
undesirables to Nanny were Doris's friends yeah they were the musicians artists and writers and they would all
hang out at the Harlem jazz clubs oh that sounds cool which Doris discovered in her late teens and absolutely fell in
love with she was a big big fan of jazz there you go uh what did the watch what Craftsman's
guys call the lady if you love Bravo go listen to watch what crappens Ronnie and Ben are
we love them we do um now try as she might to express her disinterest in The High Society life
that was so important to her mother Doris could not escape the responsibility or the pressure of her
wealth and the most important expectation that she was faced with was finding a husband that her mother felt
was a good match for her status and social position now Nanny tolerated Doris's art and musician friends from
the Harlem nightlife but they would literally never do for a husband in Nanny's eyes yeah now Nanny had her eye
on another man and Doris's laugh oh I don't know why I'm getting Southern because we're not even Southern but this
guy was Jimmy Cromwell he was an aspiring politician and he was also the sole heir to a fortune that was made
from investment banking with uh one JP Morgan I wonder if he was also related to to the family from Halloweentown it's
entirely possible I couldn't find any valuable sources on that information but you should look into it I'm gonna look
into it I think you should you know do you know Marnie do you Jimmy Halloween is cool okay
what's the scale is it Benny the skeleton yeah Benny he's my favorite yeah but Cromwell he sounds like a big
creep he's not like Benny that's not great he had his eye on Doris and she was just 16 years old and he was off 33
at that point so and uh I'm out what's that Tick Tock how we're like that's weird
the relationship was actually encouraged by Nanny Duke I hate that um and Friends of the Duke Family they
all felt that quote a merger of the two families would strengthen their position
and consolidate their wealth ew so they were like yeah it's totally fine that he's been hitting on her since she was
16. will it make us richer let's go let's go girl let's go so Jimmy and Doris they actually did end up marrying
in 1935 Doris was 22 and he was 39. okay the ceremony took place in the library of the Dukes New York home at East 78th
Street which I'm pretty sure is where she was born oh um and was described by the New York
Times as unostentatious and somewhat mysterious which is uh the theme of my way thank you I like the somewhat
mysterious somewhat not entirely mysterious totally but somewhat but there was a little mystery in there and
I like that unostentatious unostentatious I like it yeah I feel that I'm into it they're like Tom
Sandoval and Rachel oh their age Gap I was like in what way their age Gap that's true in the
creepiness of it all there you go yeah now Doris had made it a point to Shield herself from the Press throughout her
entire life and that's why the wedding was as private as it was she was very very private and I feel about too now
she and Jimmy made a quick exit after the wedding they headed to the Haba and they got on board an Italian ocean liner
that was bound for Egypt which was where they would spend their honeymoon oh okay
right my friend actually just went to Egypt hi Holly and it looked so [ __ ] beautiful and now I want to go to Egypt
let's go to Egypt okay cool now in the years before Jimmy and Doris were married Nanny was really confident like
I was just saying that his wealth was sufficient she seemed to think that his intentions with Doris were genuine she
never thought he was a gold digger until the stock market crash of 1929. uh-oh then she said I think he might be a
golden you know what she started getting a little skeptical of Jimmy boy there and his motivations to marry her
precious daughter because the financial crisis had caused his family to lose a large amount of
their Fortune so he was kind of clinging to his relationship and it seemed to be
a way of Keeping Up Appearances and maintaining a lifestyle that he'd gotten used to oh no versus like being in love
Yeah but still no matter how right Nanny might have been about this man her constant criticism of Jimmy only seemed
to push Doris closer to him uh-oh it was like like Doris wanted to fight her mother any chance she could of course
Defiance was kind of a pattern in her relationship with her mom whether it was the coming out party the wedding
celebration or even the marriage if Nanny thought it should be one way Doris was like cool I'ma go the other way I'm
so sad that Nanny was not like a radical nanny I know and I mean radical in the way that's like radical
radical I was like she kind of seems a little radical I think she maybe was yeah yeah
I'm mad that she's not rad yeah yeah I mean she's a product of her environment she sure is but you know you have a
choice yeah don't be a [ __ ] don't be a [ __ ] yeah don't be a [ __ ] don't be a
[ __ ] she's like what did you just say young lady now another theme emerging in
Doris's life was her desire for privacy and this tendency to avoid the press this was probably a behavior that grew
over time I think and most likely came from Buck's last words to her on his deathbed he had told her never trust
anyone I mean solid advice those were his dying words too I can't even I can't even like
13 year old daughter solid advice solid advice I definitely don't trust anyone I
wish she had said like and if you're going out or if you're going out that's all you're like I gotta throw something
important in here that is solid advice to throw out at it lasts at the buzzer like also like go see what you want to
see in the world I mean I hope and I love you was thrown in there so I'm sure it was I bet it was because I loved his
stuff and I'm sure maybe maybe that's what it led up to maybe it was like this whole thing like I love you I never want
anything to happen to you fly fly little bird it was all these wonderful things and it was like follow your dreams
travel the world but don't trust anyone and that was the end of it maybe I'll give my kids that advice when I die I
think it's good advice I would I'm already already handing out that advice to everyone I know I don't trust anyone
don't trust a hoe I'm not giving it to people I don't know because I don't trust anyone so if you don't know them
but anyway she was probably right to guy to guard privacy because like we know since she was a child it was this
endless line of strangers asking for money threatening her safety or prying into her personal habits to write about
them in tablets sounds awesome and even her mom kind of had a way of slipping in
and out of those categories especially when it came to one money and two how Doris's choices choices would affect her
social status oh it was like nanny had I think she had good intentions at her heart but it was also always layered
with like well how will people think of us I think it's literally and I know like like Emily it's like Emily Gilmore
it literally is it's like you there's times when you're watching that show and you're like [ __ ] yeah Emily yeah like
you love them like I know you love them I know you want what's best for them and
then there's times where you like God Emily what the [ __ ] shut your mouth and it's always to do with like appearances
yeah and like what is like socially acceptable and I think it's just like that's that's the
that is a product of how they were raised totally unfortunately the old period the society they were in it's so
surface level though all of it and that's what sucks is like Doris was looked at on such a so like a surface
level from her own mother yeah no it's true and and the reason why I think she was like like she did love Doris and had
good intentions is because she was really really worried about Doris getting together with Jimmy yeah so
worried so that she actually um before they were officially married hired a private detective to dig into
Jimmy's life hell yeah which I think was again a mixture of caring a lot about her daughter but also like what could
come out yeah making sure that you you aren't gonna tarnish my legacy here exactly now it could have tarnished her
Legacy in her eyes because the investigation for one reason or another led her to believe that Jimmy was a gay
man and that would not be acceptable for her daughter which is lame yeah now of course she
warned Doris but I can literally picture Doris rolling her eyes into the back of
her head and not giving a [ __ ] yeah because she's like cool Mom bye and she probably thinks at this point that her
mom's gonna say anything she doesn't marry Jimmy now whether it was because Jimmy wasn't necessarily interested in
Doris physically or not uh signs of a troubled marriage began almost immediately after they got on the ship
headed for Egypt according to one biographer quote they had delayed sex to enjoy the ship but they retired early
she slipped on a negligee Jimmy asked his bride what he could expect in the way of annual income
wow so like those are two different things she's trying to go a little spicy and celebrate the Mirage of course the
marriage The Mirage I was gone for a minute but I'm back now I literally died like actively actively
died you might have heard some of that actually I don't think we cut it entirely possible that you heard me die
slightly yeah but I'm back now she's back here I am so yeah she's trying to get a little spicy and he's
just focused on his yearly projections yeah I'm just getting ready for taxes which like imagine like the night after
you got married or like a couple nights after you're like oh like let me put on this outfit where I look a little cute
and like let's go and he's like so like how much money are you gonna give me annually I'd be like I [ __ ] up can you
sign this tax form for me like God like yeah that's not good yeah so this night uh laid the foundation oh for a marriage
where Jimmy constantly wanted more more and more when it came to money and Doris
wanted more and more war when it came to intimacy hmm it was not ideal but at the
same time a divorce would have been a scandal so hey brought it back they went on as a married couple for a good while
with both of them just maintaining Affairs on the side trying not to get caught by the Press wow yeah now the
marriage finally did fall apart though in early 1943 and it was a messy divorce oh no Doris told the press that Jimmy
was a reckless spend her and he was constantly demanding more money and Jimmy pointed the finger back at her and
revealed a ton of the Affairs that she had had throughout the years oh did she say like same to you you pretty much I'm
sure yeah you too direct quote but the court did end up siding with Doris probably because she had more money and
influence probably Jimmy got literally nothing and he would spend years contesting the divorce and still begging
for more money oh no so the divorce from Jimmy it really marked the beginning of
a new era fedoris New Year knew her that's right she Dove deeper into her interest she started traveling more she
took tons of trips abroad to Europe and as in the last days of World War II she was like going there constantly wow and
she fell in love with the culture and of course the men we love a European of course the men of course the men she
kept going back more and more and she was so inspired that she started writing and eventually took a position as a
foreign correspondent for major newspapers across the country like bad [ __ ] I didn't know that about her nor
did I until I started looking into it now it was during one of her European trips that she met uh poor Porfirio
rubarosa and I did look up how to say that and I did I'm doing my best like and I nailed it if I do say so myself
maybe I think I did it all right now he was a Dominican Diplomat and actually the former son-in-law of a Dominican
dictator oh so he was a little messy well he was a little bit but a little bit of a lot going on now rubarosa was
usually on the fringes of a violent political movements and a lot of people were really [ __ ] terrified of him
yeah one because he was perfectly fine being aggressive and two he had major major scary scary political ties eek and
also he had a reputation as a popular ladies man oh look at that he's like super handsome is it I don't think he
was the best human being but like sometimes the worst human beings have good faces they sure do definitely he'd
actually even linked to our girl Marilyn oh miss Marilyn Monroe damn and also to
Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake oh wow so he really like he got around yeah now when Doris met him in Paris in 1945 he
was still actually married to popular French actress Danielle deroux I believe is how you say it or dare you uh but
he's my I just looked at the moment is it a little hot in here that's unfortunately
not not the kindest man no but he was still married to this French actress Danielle Dario I believe but he was
completely taken with Doris and she felt the same way toward him he was to her sexy dangerous exciting quite frankly
everything that Jimmy was not all right now it was no surprise that not long after meeting Doris and rubarossa
started an affair that would eventually lead to marriage okay now by the time she married him she knew it was highly
unlikely that she was ever going to build a relationship on love and mutual respect because she was one of the
wealthiest people in the world that sucks and unless she wanted to keep having her heart broken over and over
again she just kind of had to accept that most people were attracted to her at least partially because of money okay
now this was 10 000 million gajillion percent true of rubarosa he was already known to swap one opportunity or partner
out for another if it was for more money oh which is sad yeah so and this is [ __ ] wild Doris put up 1.5 million
dollars for her relationship with him whoa a million dollars went to Danielle with the expectation that she would
divorce her husband and walk away which she did holy [ __ ] she was like all right she was laughing
straight to the bank literally laughing to the bank yeah and that was in 1947. damn and then uh Doris and rubarosa were
married in September of 1947. wow now in true Doris fashion the ceremony was understated it took place I think this
is really cool it took place at the uh Dominican Consulate in Paris and there was just a handful of guests there and
at that time actually Doris was working as a fashion correspondent for Harper's Bazaar look at Doris so a lot of the
guests were co-workers from the magazine now she definitely entered the marriage
with eyes wide open but it also didn't make it suck any less that her husband was almost entirely motivated by her
money yeah within days of the wedding he was already making demands and clearly expected to be showered with expensive
and extravagant gifts including an apartment in Paris and an airplane just a little stuff that's what I got
Drew for our wedding I was gonna say just stuff that you expect when you get married here's a chateau and a floating
device you know love you love you mean it jokes now things couldn't go on that way obviously and be you know hunky-dory
forever so as the years went on Doris started getting more and more jealous and resentful of her husband between his
demands of her and his flirtations with other women so she would try to work on things but he saw it as her making
unreasonable demands of his time so it just forced a greater wedge between them boy now to get away from all of that
just as she had done with her mother when she was a teenager Doris hid from the status and wealth and the quiet
cafes and nightclubs in Paris in the post-war years Paris was getting more and more popular with Americans and
Jazz musicians so that was drawing a huge huge crowds of people who either knew nothing or didn't care about High
Society that's kind of cool yeah it's awesome yeah so she could just be another American Jazz Enthusiast when
she was out with them instead of the richest girl in the world oh that's cool yeah so after spending more and more
time in the club she actually started sitting in with the bands damn playing piano and like socializing with the
people there who liked her for who she was that's wild not what she could buy them yeah her new phone popularity and
acceptance at the jazz clubs of Paris only exacerbated the tension between her and her husband though at first it
started as her getting away but then it was like I'm sure her eyes started to open and she was like what the [ __ ] am I
doing yeah she's like why am I settling for this I can have this life yeah just as easy yeah so the final nail in the
coffin came when rubarosa was named Dominican Republic's ambassador to Argentina which meant that he was going
to have to move to Buena oh what a terrible predicament to be oh what a terrible one Doris she didn't want to
move there for multiple reasons and she was especially concerned over fears for her personal safety yeah so she decided
to stay back in the U.S but she brought or she bought him yet another airplane that he could use whenever he wanted to
see her oh my God by an airplane and she was like for whenever you want to see me but
he like barely came home of course sad yeah so the distance clearly made things worse and by 1948 her second marriage
had completely Fallen apart yeah they were barely together a year but this time she had planned ahead and
they had signed a prenup that actually I read in One Source the U.S government helped pen this holy [ __ ] yeah
um but it allowed for a quick divorce but also unfortunately required her to pay him 25
000 a year for the rest of his life holy [ __ ] which she did until 1965 when he
was unfortunately killed in a car accident wow now allegedly their relationship actually never truly ended
sexually at least oh and she was so upset over his death when he did die she spent several days in bed oh wow so like
it's like so she really loved him she really did really cared for him I think she loved it in a big way for sure
that's sad and I think it's also like apparent how much she loved him because this relationship I think changed her
fundamentally really she knew that everybody wanted something from her and throughout the year she had learned to
use that to her Advantage but I think years of trying not to let that bother her were starting to catch up yeah that
makes sense she was spending more and more time at the jazz clubs and the lifestyle in her case was a bit of a
catch-22 she was learning more and more about the music and the culture and like
having really a lot of fun with that but at the same time she started to experiment more with drugs oh now this
scene eventually led her to Joseph Joey Castro he was a young jazz musician he was gaining popularity in LA and in 1950
Doris invited him to stay with her in Hawaii whoa she had part of the house renovated to accommodate musical
performances you know as one does I was just gonna say that's what you know that's what everybody renovates their
house yeah like my boyfriend's in a band yeah let me just renovate part of my house for him of course now she had
cultivated a lot of relationships with the people in the Jazz scene and a lot of these people she considered Close
Associates but Joey was one of the few people that she actually considered a close friend they shared a passion for
music but he also understood things about her that a lot of people had overlooked like she struggled massively
with social anxiety and he understood that and like could help her yeah it was actually the reason that kept her from
actually pursuing a career in music or performance was her social thing oh that's sad I know social anxiety sucks
it does I get Social Anxiety me too I think it makes things very difficult just like varying degrees oh yeah and I
think hers was like on the higher end of the spectrum yeah for sure but eventually their friendship you know
Joey and Doris here grew into a romantic relationship oh and in 1953 Doris actually bought a home for them in La
where they could unwind unwind this is my unwinding home I was gonna say you just have a HomeTown I unwind in that
one we make music in that one we unwind there we we sometimes eat cereal and this is where we watch The Price is
Right and this is where we watch the spooky stories exactly imagine imagine now according to her biographers Doris's
purchase of the house in La quote implied a commitment to Castro but she had only made the decision to buy the
place after her on and off again relationship with another man novelist Louis Brumfield appeared to be going
nowhere hmm yes now the end of the affair with that means freed up more of Doris's time so she refocused that time
to her relationship with Joey now in 19 or by 1954 Joey had actually assembled a
small Jazz combo with Doris and they were performing together in small clubs with Doris in Disguise so she couldn't
be recognized oh my God she is like Duke silver Ron Swanson [ __ ] I literally wrote that oh my God I love that I
literally I love it I also said I couldn't help but picture her wearing a Sia wig and playing a saxophone
right yeah right [Music] all I could think of was things I'm obsessed I love it so it wasn't quite as stimulating as her
last relationships but this relationship with Dory or with Joey excuse me was comfortable and familiar for Doris and
also allowed her to pursue her love of music yeah it was a bit out of convenience I think it sounds like it
unfortunately again it was a lifestyle that put Doris in contact close contact I'll say with a lot of questionable
characters yeah including those who are more than willing to sell her drugs she's getting a little more on drugs
throughout this time period which we all know doesn't lead to wonderful wonderful
things no always Now by 1956 Doris's world had undergone a dramatic and unexpected transformation in a very
short amount of time she had gone from introverted socialite to secret jazz performer and this is where I wrote it's
giving Duke silver she was literally traveling around the world at this point performing in some
of the most prominent jazz clubs of course still in disguise and while she may have been privately
living out her fantasies she was like I think she was really going through it I think mentally and then I think the
drugs didn't help yeah and she couldn't ignore the reminders of a lot of past failures starting to creep in around her
that year Lewis Broomfield died and it was the first of several events that hit Doris really hard oh after he passed she
learned that rubarossa because this was before he had posted yeah had married socialite and her former rival Barbara
Hutton uh-oh and the disappointments and heartbreak caused her to retreat even further into her secret lifestyle which
made her dive even further into drug use and Casual sexual encounters oh so by the early 1960s her relationship with
Joey Castro started to become more strained because of that yeah mostly because she was also reluctant reluctant
excuse me to fully commit to their relationship Joey really wanted to get married but Doris was like no and
according to her cousin Pony Duke Doris loved you do Pony do because I'm not great Doris loved Joey's Music and
appreciated his companionship but quote was not about to get married again she didn't want to get me okay she'd
been scoring twice I was gonna say I can't yeah you can't really blame her so instead she quote orchestrated a strange
sort of marriage ceremony that was not really a marriage ceremony to appease Joey
so I think she Loki like made a fake wedding I was just gonna say so what you're saying it seems to me like he was
very much under the impression that they were legally married but she just made it it was like nah this is like not for
realsies wow okay now the Sham marriage did ease tensions for a little bit but the fights were gonna start back up
again yeah and by the end of their relationship the arguments between Doris and Joey had not only increased in
frequency but also intensity oh they usually ended violently oh no and things took a dramatic turn for the worse in
June of 1963 when during one of these intense arguments Doris grabbed a butter knife from the kitchen counter and
allegedly stabbed Joey in the arm oh that's not a normal fight she stabbed him y'all that's not a normal argument
that's if you are grabbing any kind of knife to stab your partner in the midst of an argument it's time to walk away
yeah any kind of Weaponry that's being um brought into an argument is really that that's the time to think about it
yeah I would say so that's the time to really take stock of what's Happening Here seek guidance yeah you know yeah
everybody needs that occasionally that's not good so by 1964 Doris and Joey had become
completely estranged and he's not not guilty in all of this either yeah but he and we'll get there he was totally cut
off from the life of luxury that he'd been enjoying with Doris for a decade at this point so as a result he filed a
[ __ ] ton of lawsuits and divorce suits demanding financial compensation anywhere from five thousand dollars to a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars oh I guess it just like depended on how you felt that day yeah you know yeah but he
also wanted part ownership of the house in La now among other things his suits alleged that they had been married twice
first in Rhode Island in 1956 and then again in Philadelphia in 1960 but in response Doris filed for and was awarded
a restraining order in May of 1964 which barred him from ever publicly claiming to be her husband
and effectively ended his pursuit of a quote unquote divorce oh damn or any kind of compensation they were like
no he had allegedly broken her jaw at one point in 1966 after she pulled the plug on his record company which she
owned what the [ __ ] the morning after she fled to Hollywood to go to Newport with her designer and a man that would
soon be at the center of this story Eduardo Eddie torella oh now jorus's life before this point had
always been kind of like a fairy tale whether she liked it or not her wealth her money and her privilege shielded her
from a lot of the more difficult realities in her life yeah but they were only going to protect her for so long
and she knew that now that knowledge and that where we're starting to show in her personality
anytime a relationship ended and especially because they usually ended badly she would become harder and
tougher on the outside and more depressed on the inside and at the same time her experimentation with drugs
paired with her mental struggles that was starting to make her a lot more impulsive and that was becoming more
clear especially in the violent fight she was starting yeah I mean she literally stabbed her yeah
sort of husband yeah her fake husband and while she hopefully regretted those arguments and altercations they were not
going to be the last time she became violent oh no and the next time should have come with greater consequences eek
so even though she felt more and more comfortable with the LA nightlife through Joey during the 1950s she was
kind of retreating further into herself and at the same time she was surrounding
herself and uh surrounding herself with what her cousin referred to as a colorful group of Hollywood types oh
which included Eddie torella and I would also assume that he was probably referring to her Butler Bernard Lafferty
and this other woman Shandy Hefner who Doris actually ended up adopting when Shandy was like 35 and Doris was in her
like 60s or 70s um it's like a Sidetrack story that I can't get into here because we'll be
here for hours okay but please go look into that yeah oh yes I will it is wild okay yeah okay yeah I would definitely
accept that information definitely read some of the biographies that I'll link in the show notes and the uh variety
Vanity Fair articles written about her but right now we're gonna focus on Eddie okay now it's crazy that I'm like that
that yeah wow yeah I think there's a whole a e show about adopting adults they should feature Doris oh I'm just
saying okay so anyways Doris met Eddie torella in LA in 1959 this was before she had um cut Joey off and that's how
they met he was an aspiring interior designer and occasionally moonlit as a nightclub singer which I think is really
fun mood lighting is a nightclub singer that's so like old Hollywood yeah bada boom it's also how Lady Gaga like got
big there you go but then she used to sing in nightclubs yeah probably wasn't she on the Hills
oh my God yeah she was yeah I think that's when she was starting like getting her outfit together on an
episode yeah you're not wrong when she was singing like Poker Face I think that's a deep cut
yeah I want to watch The Hills now yeah yeah but Eddie he had played some of those same venues that Joey had played
because remember he's also like a singer Guy oh yes and Joey had learned that tyrella's real passion in life was
through desire was for design and while they were still together Joey told Doris
about Eddie because it just so happened she was looking for an interior designer
ah of course so it was Joey who suggested she'd take a chance and hire Eddie literally the
only thing that Doris and Eddie had in common was that they had both grown up in New Jersey it started and ended there
I feel like that's like the ultimate in common thing though it's like if you're both from Jersey I feel like it's like
that's okay that's it I think so too yeah actually right I just I don't know why you'll just feel pretty great yeah I
think you'll get each other it's not great here no but they they did seem to sort of get each other I think Eddie got
Doris a little more than Doris got Eddie but I think she got him to a degree cool
no by all accounts Eddie was a Charming popular and super super talented dude in
high school his classmates actually referred to him as Playboy of the Western Front wow it's like wow I'm
obsessed with that who are these high school kids that came up with that well like high school kids were like way
better back then that was like the 40s and 50s I feel like they all had like transatlantic accident accents and they
were just like hey yeah these are like high school kids that like had cigarettes rolled up and for sure like
which like don't smoke cigarettes like back then it was cool yeah you know yeah so after graduating from Dover High
School he had pursued a career as a dancer and an artist but at the same as he was like trying to pursue that he got
drafted into World War II and when the war ended and he returned home he worked on Saks Fifth Avenue oh designing hats
for people like Mae West oh who's she yeah crazy I love her now then he decided to move out to LA where he
started gardening and he found work with famous clients like Alan Ladd and Peggy
Lee oh yeah he was like in touch with big people he was an incredibly hard worker he really never had any trouble
finding a job especially through word of both of these very famous influential people yeah it was just that he
struggled to maintain an interest in one job or one field for a long time by the
early 50s he was actually though becoming pretty successful as a designer in Hollywood but because he refused to
join a union it limited the work he could get so to make extra money he was singing in the nightclubs where he met
Joey just moonlighten Moon Lighting now his first work with Doris was when she had him Remodel and Design the 20
greenhouses at Duke Farm now this is actually I thought you would be all over this she wanted him to revive them and
she wanted them to be used as like a public attraction because she was she opened the grounds up again oh okay now
Eddie and pressed the [ __ ] out of her when he redesigned each Greenhouse into a garden that represented a different
ecosystem or part of the world shut the [ __ ] up that's awesome how [ __ ] cool
is that I want to see that right Dan I love a theme I oh I love a good thing you guys know we love a thing we love a
theme but like oh that's so cool transforming Gardens that represent different ecosystems that's cool like
who that's a cool mind right there yeah that was a mind at work yeah so she was like oh let's [ __ ] go like you're my
guy yeah she was super excited to dive into her love of gardening because she actually was an avid gardener with the
completion of the project she was like let's go but she had also gained a new companion and at this point her
relationship with Joey Castro is falling apart and then It ultimately does fall apart so she wasn't interested in a
romantic relationship with a man she just missed companionship which she had found in Eddie and he was the ideal
companion because he was a gay man he wasn't after her for like love or anything like that yeah
she knew that he would stick by her and not lose interest in her sexually and at
the same time he was funny talented and also nice to look at now according to Pony Duke Eddie quote was Mick was the
mixture of masculinity and taste that Doris Duke found so very attractive and the perfect ornament for Doris as she
aged I was like Wow damn but her dramatic and Theatrical aesthetic was also a perfect match for Eddie because
he was just starting to make a name for himself in the theater and film industry
very multifaceted man okay oh he was a handsome man too wasn't he just looking at him super handsome
now like I know really good just like he looks friendly doesn't he does he's got
a friendly face I like his face I'd give him a little smooch but probably not because he'd be like get away from me
I'd give him a little a little smooch a little Smoochy kiss if you watch Bluey Smoochy case now before long Doris had
actually made space for Eddie and all of her houses and apartments which there's
a lot of them yeah he always had his own room wherever they went he could have privacy when they traveled together
but aside from him getting to like sleep in his own space Doris was starting to dominate all of his time because
remember she doesn't have a man's right now and she I she's somebody that needed
to have someone yeah I could I'm starting to see that about her she treated Eddie like a romantic partner in
all ways other than sexually and a lot of times she would actually get jealous if she wasn't feeling like his first
priority but like they're not together yeah so it's like uh and that was a lot for him and by the mid 90s oh sorry I
just kicked you in the foot kicking my feet foot five but by the mid-1960s her demands were starting to wear on him he
was on the payroll and happy for the work but the expectation that he would be at her beck and call every hour of
every day was getting exhausting it was a little Bubba's pay grade it was one of
those friends one of his friends said he hated those nights the nights that he worked for her and had to spend time
with her oh but as tired as he was he was trying to stick with it as long as he could because he had bills he had
debt and we're working for Doris paid a pretty penny yeah now as she got older and started cutting more and more people
out of her life Doris was actually starting to seem a lot more like the generation before her that she used to
hate yeah her mom's generation that treated working people like that people that were working for them like the help
that's how she was kind of starting to act yeah she was getting that attitude and that's something that Eddie was
starting to really hate the most it was making it harder and harder for him to stick around and he also felt
like he was getting pulled in another Direction he really wanted to make a name for himself in Hollywood and it
actually seemed like that dream was headed in the right direction because by 1965 his work in La was finally paying
off and he had landed a job doing the set design for the Sandpiper which was starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth
Taylor who are they I don't know to relative unknowns yeah just like credited briefly yeah then in 1966 film
producer Martin ransohoff is that how you say I think that's how you say that sounds good to
me him he offered Eddie the production design job on don't make waves which was a movie starring Tony Curtis and Sharon
Tate oh Sharon T yeah and it was due to start production that fall now this opportunity was like exactly what he was
hoping for and it was proof to him that he could make it in Hollywood he's starting to make strides and it was also
proof that he could get out from Doris's thumb but Doris lost her GD mind when Eddie
told her about the job office yeah I was thinking it would happen he was sure that she was going to fully freak out if
he told her that he had already accepted the job which he had oh so instead he told her he was only considering it now
Doris was begging him not to take the job and she thought of every last thing she could offer him to stay but he just
wasn't committing one way or the other so she kept begging and pleading for months and months and she invited him to
come to her family estate in Newport Rhode Island for the fall remember rough point from the beginning of the story
okay here's where it becomes a Pinnacle Point of the story now Eddie did finally cave and he agreed
to spend the fall in ref point with Doris and that was a decision that was going to change his life forever oh no
Eddie arrived at Rough Point early in October of 1966 and he had still planned actually to work on don't make waves but
at the time he was really behind on taxes so when Doris offered him more money than he was making before he
couldn't refuse he had to go there with her his plan was to get the work done for Doris that fall and then returned to
Hollywood and begin building the career that he wanted and he was finally going to be free
so it's really unclear what happened on the evening of October 7th but by most accounts Doris's mental state was not
very good that night eek in the months leading up to that fall at ref Point she had been drinking a lot more than usual
she was still using drugs and she was experiencing very intense mood swings and depression that related to her
failed relationship with Joey and then the most and then the recent death of rubarossa this is what he did
and it was that was among like many other things too now she could have she for most of her life was used to getting
what she wanted she even meant she could get from them what she wanted but at some point they were gonna leave her and
move on to someone else and now it seemed like that was happening with Eddie and she simply couldn't take it
yeah no that fall she had rented a 1966 Dodge polara station wagon to use while she and Eddie were in Newport on the
evening of the seventh when she was not in a very good headspace they got into the station wagon a little after 4 pm
they were going to actually meet with the president of the Newport preservation Society because Doris
wanted to discuss her interest in funding a project that was actually going to preserve a lot of newport's
historic homes oh she was like I want to pay for that that's pretty cool yeah it
was also probably a really good tax write-off yeah but I'd say so for one reason or another Eddie and Doris were
arguing with each other even before they headed out and they were still said to be arguing as they were getting into the
car and when they got to the bottom of the driveway leading to the road Eddie put
the car in park pulled the parking brake and hopped out of the driver's seat to open the large iron gates so they could
pull out I'm very nervous you should be okay as he turned around to start back walking back to the car he saw that
Doris had moved from the passenger seat to the driver's seat where she disengaged the parking brake shifted the
car into drive and quote pressed down so hard on the accelerator that she left tire wide gouge marks in the gravel oh
my the car sped forward struck Eddie which sent him flying up onto the hood then she tapped the brakes he rolled off
the car and landed in the middle of Bellevue Avenue holy [ __ ] she stopped the car momentarily while Eddie laid
screaming in the middle of the road and then she hit the accelerator again drove
forward crushing Eddie under the front tires oh my God and dragging his body across the Street under the weight of
the station wagon before the car jumped onto the curb on the opposite side of the street drove through a fence and
came to a stop when she finally hit a tree holy [ __ ] so Days Later an autopsy would show that
the first impact had broken Eddie's hip which had sent him up onto the hood but the second impact caused crushing
injuries to his lungs spinal cord and brain which killed him almost instantly damn the police arrived on the scene no
more than five minutes later it said where they found Doris in a daze behind the wheel of the car
Eddie or excuse me Edward Angel who was the first officer to arrive he remembered seeing a small amount of
blood coming from Doris's mouth and his report describes that as a steering wheel injury
but other than that she was physically fine as he approached the car she jumped from
the driver's seat and just started frantically pacing back and forth and then she ran back into her Mansion
looking for someone named ed even though she knew he was underneath the car she had just driven over him oh
no now once they were able to calm her down police escorted her to the new nearby Newport Hospital where she was
treated for facial cuts and severe shock but other than that she was literally fine oh no so the next day this is very
upsetting it's horrible yeah the next day the local paper the Newport Daily News ran with the headline Doris Duke
kills friend in car crash the article was like very light on information and noted that Police Chief Joseph Reedus or
yeah Raiders quote could not be reached for comment on the case oh and reporters
were told that he would not be available that day for questions it would actually be two days before the
police chief made a statement to the Press about the death of Eddie torella and when he did it was to inform them
that in an investigation had been conducted and it was determined that Eddie's death was the result of an
unfortunate accident oh that's okay that's what we're going with yeah okay according to Doris who wasn't
interviewed by the police until over a day after the incident okay she was in the passenger seat when Eddie got out to
open the gates she slid over into the driver's seat to drive the car out onto the street she told police it was
something we'd done hundreds of times before but this time she said quote the car
leaped forward and after that everything was a blank oh my cars usually like don't Leap Forward
I've never had that experience the old car leapt forward defense very similar to doggate my home
yeah that's not a great defense now the only other information that the police was the police chief was willing to
report on was that as far as he knew Eddie and Doris were quote on very good terms
no they were not no no the hell they were they were literally arguing as they got into the car and he was planning on
leaving and she was begging him not to oh no now two days after he responded to questions from the Newport Daily News a
larger Press Conference was held and the police chief told reporters that tyrella's death was definitely an
accident quote and quote as far as we're concerned the case is closed how was that quick quick Hush Hush bye-bye how
though is what I need to know yeah how though yeah so Doris may have been able to use her money to hide from uh any
kind of responsibility or public scrutiny in the past but times had changed and people cared a lot less in
1966 about this random American socialite times they are a changing they were pissed by the lack of information
on the case yeah and they found it extremely suspicious in Newport the Press were super critical of the way
that this was handled and the way that the police released information and they felt actually like the police Chief had
handled similar incidents poorly because in the years past he had written off crimes like this that involved the rich
summer residence shocking even though people were upset and critical over the investigation it still
seemed like whatever had happened at the gates of rough Point were to remain a mystery and as far as Doris Duke was
concerned Eddie torella's death was nothing more than a tragic accident and she went on to live the rest of her life
saying so that is shocking shocking that that just was like Crescendo Crescendo Crescendo
then it's like no it's fine oh no we're not done yet like but I mean like that part of it oh yeah just that it's like
it ended oh and this big crazy thing happened and oh my God but everything was fine it was an accident yeah it was
just like you're like oh don't you know that car sleep forward you should watch out you don't even have time to be like
oh no because like oh oh okay well it's just an accident okay right we're just gonna live the rest of our lives that's
fun insane what the [ __ ] so the following year Eddie's five siblings filed a wrongful death suit against
Doris in the superior court of Rhode Island they were seeking 2.5 million dollars in Damages and they alleged that
Doris had quote negligently and carelessly operated the car that led to their brother's death which is literally
the truth damn now the case actually eventually made its way to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in 1973 but the
adjusted justices mostly sided with Doris and the family only received a nice say only because she's a
billionaire yeah 75 000 wow that's it wow like who did you pay off I'd be so pissed they were also treated terribly
by her legal team they made it seem like Eddie was like worse like they made it seem like he was worse than Doris
somehow what the [ __ ] yeah very strange and in the uh sorry I messed up hold on
oh salimi what I meant was it was worse in the way that the family was treated by the legal team during the trial
particularly when it came to their brother's Legacy they described him as an opportunist who hung around famous
people hoping their talent and fame would rub off on him wow I'm like okay no he didn't need it to he was
incredibly talented on his own I was just gonna say like let's just ignore the fact that he had any success on his
own yeah absolutely actually didn't need Doris ignore all that fully intending to
leave her employment I don't know his niece later told the reporter she killed him twice she destroyed his body and
then eviscerated his memory yeah which is so sad that is so sad and throughout the trial investigators privately and
publicly tried to get any information from Doris about the incident or the accident excuse me but by then she had
completely shielded herself with lawyers and doctors that made it impossible to get anywhere near her damn but by the
early 1990s she was a [ __ ] shell of herself after Eddie's death she pulled even more into herself and she became
almost entirely reclusive and more and more people were cast out of her Circle in the end there was only a very small
group of doctors lawyers and quote-unquote Hangers On who hoped she was just going to leave them something
in the will oh when she turned 79 in 1992 allegedly her Butler talked her into getting a
facelift and that started a slew of health problems oh it would go on to include a broken hip
um a knee replacement surgery and a Severe stroke in the fall of 1993. [ __ ] is so scary right like the stuff
that can happen from plastic surgery yeah and you hear about like implants and stuff like that scary stuff like
health problems that can come from it it's crazy watch Michelle visage's documentary on that yeah it freaked me
out I was like okay never never but on October 28 1993 Doris Duke did die of a cardiac arrest at 80 years old damn she
had no children and no spouse to leave her enormous Fortune too wow because she had a huge falling out with the woman
that she had adopted oh I forgot she stopped at a 30-something-year-old yeah but they had a huge falling out and
that's like its own whole separate story that involves her very shady Butler oh holy [ __ ] but she left a lot of her like
enormous Fortune to the butler I knew it and a lot of people speculate on his motivations and whether or not he
had something to do with accelerating her death I'll say oh boy yeah yeah but that's like layered and it's for another
time velocity so when Doris passed away most people figured any Revelations about the more mysterious aspects of her
life had gone with her especially um the accident that murdered Eddie torella yeah that's a big one yeah but that all
changed in the summer of 2020. whoa when journalist Peter Lance published an article about Eddie turrella's death in
Vanity Fair I love Vanity Fair I do too I actually just signed up to get their hard copies too nice because I had
online access and then I got like signed up for some reason and I was like ooh give me hard copies yeah they have great
articles they do now Peter Lance he had actually been born and raised in Newport
and he remembered not only Eddie's death but the controversy and the suspicion surrounding it a lot of people in town
believed that there was a cover-up and the story he wrote prompted a flood of comments and memories from newport's
residents who pretty much confirmed the suspicious nature of the quote-unquote accident oh man one man in particular
would take Peter down a path that would eventually uncover what many except as the truth about Eddie's death what Bob
Walker was a 13 year old paper boy living in Newport when Eddie turrella was killed and on the afternoon of the
quote-unquote accident he was out on his route delivering papers near the rough Point Mansion when he heard a commotion
coming from the direction of a massive estate he would later tell Peter quote I initially heard the argument and
screaming of two people and he said because it was usually such a calm and quiet area it was very easy
to hear that these people were definitely pissed off at each other he said the argument was followed by
silence and then quote the Roar of a motor the crash and the screaming of a man oh no now according to Bob he could
hear the accident happen and rush to the scene arriving well before the police did and when he got to the gates he said
Doris was just getting out of the car and was staring down at the wreckage when he wrote up on his bicycle and he
asked if he could do anything to help because he had no idea what was going on Doris turned to him pointing and
screaming you better get the hell out of here oh that just gave me chill and then she
began what he described as a kind of crouched pacing in front of the car like she was trying to block his view of
whatever was beneath it and she kept yelling at him get out of here now it was literally like walking around like a
carnival like an animal exactly like an animal holy [ __ ] hiding his View so Bob was completely shaken by this and
as far as he could tell she wasn't hurt so he got back on his bike and got out of there because he had that's all he
had seen yeah he's like what the [ __ ] but when he got his bundle of papers for
delivery the next day he saw that headline about the accident and he read the article but everything in the paper
didn't match what he had seen and heard that afternoon so he ran home to tell his father and explain what had happened
the day before but he got a very different reaction than what he was expecting when he got
home and he told his dad everything his dad grabbed him by the shirt and slammed
him up against the wall and told him no you listen to me son you will never ever
tell anybody this story again you will not tell your brother you will not tell your friends
all and of all people you're not going to say anything to the police do you understand me do you understand me what
Bob Walker did not understand because his dad was usually completely adamant that his children always tell the truth
but Bob said he was so serious that it was scary and he didn't want to say anybody didn't want to say anything to
anybody about what he had seen until years and years later and by that point everybody had more or
less forgotten about Eddie turella [ __ ] so years like way down the road years later as his dad was declining in health
Bob asked his dad why he reacted that way and this is what his dad told him you know son at the time when you told
me the story I recognized that you could have shown motive and intent I was concerned that you as a key witness
could have gone or could have been doing your paper route on the Ocean Drive and
a Truck could have come up on you from behind the life of my child was more precious to me than that woman on
Bellevue Avenue that's why I reacted the way I did oh my God so basically he was
saying like that woman has all the money in the world and all the power and I was
protecting you you a little informant anything could have happened to you or our family and I love you more than I
love anyone in this world oh my God I got full chills because at first I was so mad at Bob Walker's Dad when I first
read it I was like what the hell seeing in my head I was like he's scared he's scared like he's scared that something
is going to happen to his kid and he's like I don't give a [ __ ] about anybody else right I care about you when I found
that out I was like I'm literally crying because I would be the same way you don't give a [ __ ] about anybody else
exactly I'm protecting you exactly damn and the thing is even if Bob had gone to
the police and spilled everything that he had seen that day it wouldn't have made a difference
no because Doris was spending all that money restoring the home exactly so it wouldn't have made it the only
difference it would have made was putting Bob in danger exactly so but literally the reason why Eddie's death
was covered up is because she had so much money and power and she was doing so much for the community that they were
like okay we'll take blood money for you to restore these homes damn so as Peter dug
deeper into Bob Walker's story he found that there were other people who had come to similar conclusions about
Eddie's death including a police Sergeant who had been assigned to the case at the time his report concluded
there was no way this could have been an accident and that tyrella's death was most certainly intentional and he also
learned that right after the accident Doris hired the County's acting medical examiner the one who was literally
filing the autopsy and the death certificate as her private doctor wow conflict oh I'm interested I was
gonna say can you say and there were other people in town including police chief Reedus there whose lives and
personal fortunes seemed to drastically improve in the weeks and months following Eddie's death holy [ __ ] AKA
she paid a [ __ ] ton of people that certainly looks that way allegedly so Peter allegedly Peter definitely took
all that information to the police and they sat on it until they felt enough public pressure to reopen the case whoa
and they especially felt that pressure after Peter Lance's book homicide at Rough point which I definitely recommend
reading was published now unfortunately the reinvestigation of the case was just
as doomed as the initial case and just after a few days of review days the Newport Police determined quote that
new evidence presented in the book is insufficient to Warrant further investigation I love that they were like
we've thought about it for 48 hours and we decided that after that long think on
it we're not even gonna look into it yeah like that cool in a statement to the Press Town Administrator said it
Remains the opinion of the Newport Police Department that there is not sufficient evidence to draw any firm
conclusions as to the motivations of Mrs or Miss Duke for that reason it appears
that this will continue to be a case that will have to be left to the court of public opinion yes
you can think whatever you want and you're probably right but according to us nah we're going to agree to disagree
but exactly but as far as Peter and pretty much all of the residents of Newport Rhode Island are concerned the
police had all the evidence that they needed to prove Beyond a reasonable doubt that Doris Duke intentionally
murdered editorella but it seemed that even 30 years after her death nobody wanted to [ __ ] with the Duke Family name
wow trust no one trust no one and that's the really really sad story of the death
of Eduardo terrella that is very sad right damn mom what a story a bunker story what a life
what a legacy right what a downfall yeah like [ __ ] I definitely recommend like
looking even more into Doris because I'm sure that felt like a very long episode
I think it might have been but there was so many things that I ended up skipping
over because we could have just been here for like hours and hours that's so that's a wild story she lived a crazy
ass life yeah and at the end of it she wasn't a great person allegedly allegedly you know you know just say the
car hopped forward you know maybe the cars do they do Leap Forward allegedly allegedly
that's all there is allegedly that's it so allegedly we hope you keep listening and we hope you allegedly keep it
it weird allegedly [Laughter] [Music] foreign

On a cold October afternoon in 1966, billionaire heiress Doris Duke returned to her palatial Newport estate in the company of friend and interior decorator Eduardo Tirella, stopping her car just outside the large iron gate that barred entrance to the driveway. Having offered to open the gate, he stepped out of the car and walked toward the gate, when the car began rolling forward, knocking Eduardo to the ground and crushing him under the two-ton weight of Duke’s station wagon. Within four days of Tirella’s death, the Newport Police had closed the case, calling it an “unfortunate accident,” but the residents of Newport, Rhode Island weren’t as convinced.

Thank you so much to the remarkable David White for research assistance!

References

Duca, Rob. 2021. "Newport police closed Doris Duke case, again." Newport This Week, November 24.

Duke, Pony, and Jason Thomas. 1996. Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Lance, Peter. 2021. Homicide at Rough Point: The Untold Story of How Doris Duke, the Richest Woman In America, Got Away with Murder. Auburn, NH: Tenacity Media.—. 2021.

The triple 'murder' of Eduardo Tirella, gay confidant of Doris Duke. November 29. https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2021/11/29/triple-murder-eduardo-tirella-gay-confidant-doris-duke-newport-rhode-island.—. 2021.

"The Doris Duke Cold Case Reopens: The Only Known Eyewitness Speaks for the First Time." Vanity Fair, August 5.

Mansfield, Stephanie. 1992. The Richest Girl in the World: The Extravagant Life and Fast Times of Doris Duke. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam Sons.New York Times. 1964.

"Divorce suit filed against Doris Duke."" New York Times, January 11: 14.—. 1935.

"Doris Duke is wed to J.H.R. Cromwell."" New York Times, February 14: 23.—. 1966. "Duke estate death ruled an accident."" New York Times, October 12: 25.

Newport Daily News. 1967. ""Crash victim's kin asks $2.5 million of Doris Duke."" Newport Daily News, December 8: 1.—. 1966.

"Death of Miss Duke's friend ruled 'unfortunate accident'." Newport Daily News, October 10: 1.—. 1966.

"Doris Duke kills friend in crash." Newport Daily News, October 8: 1.—. 1966.

"Press blasts police chief Radice on handling public information." Newport Daily News, November 3: 1.

Schwarz, Ted, and Tom Rybak. 1997. Trust No One: The Glamorous Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke. New York, NY: St. Martin's

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Doris Duke's life, marriages, and the suspicious death of Eddie Torella are discussed, raising questions about wealth and legacy.

Key points

Puppy Chaos in the Morning. Elena and Ash discuss their chaotic mornings with new puppies.
Doris Duke's Birth. Doris Duke is born into wealth, becoming the richest girl in the world.
The Pressure of Wealth. Doris's immense wealth brings challenges and pressures from birth.
Doris Inherits a Fortune. After her father's death, Doris inherits a massive fortune, complicating her relationship with her mother.
Doris's Defiance. Doris often rebelled against her mother's expectations, including her marriage to Jimmy.
Doris's Troubled Marriage. Doris's marriage to Jimmy was fraught with tension over money and intimacy.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was just surrounded by money!

Discussion about Doris's birth and wealth.

13:18WatchApr 21, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Morbid | Podcast

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.