On a crisp November evening in 1930, as the Great Depression gripped the nation, New York City’s elite gathered at the Ritz Carlton Hotel to celebrate the 18th birthday of Barbara Hutton, heiress to the monumental Woolworth store fortune.
Guests from the most illustrious families of the age—the Astors, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, and Rockefellers—were greeted by Maurice Chevalier, the renowned French entertainer, whimsically costumed as Santa Claus.
The Grand Ballroom was transformed into a winter wonderland, adorned with extravagant decorations and a sea of flowers that alone cost $50,000, equal to nearly $1 million today.
Four orchestras provided the evening’s melodies while 200 waiters served 2,000 bottles of champagne. As midnight approached, the festivities escalated with 1,700 suppers, and by the early hours, 1,000 breakfasts were laid out for those who had danced through the night.
The pièce de résistance, however, was the party favors: each attendee received a small jewelry case filled with unmounted diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.
The celebration, which reportedly cost a staggering $60,000—over $1 million today—was capped off by Barbara Hutton herself, clad in a stunning debutante gown, embodying the nickname that would cling to her for life: the “poor little rich girl.”
As one attendee observed, this was the moment when “Bobby” became Barbara Hutton, debutante, glamour queen, and playgirl of the Western World. Few could have guessed that this splendid introduction foreshadowed a tragic life of glamour, heartache, and the eternal pursuit of happiness.
Barbara Hutton was an emblem of wealth from infancy. As early as age 12, with the death of her grandmother Jenny Kraut Woolworth in 1924, she was left a staggering inheritance of $26 million—a sum that would inflate to almost $500 million in today’s currency.
Her mother’s estate cushioned this with an additional $2.1 million in stocks, managed by her father, Franklin Laws Hutton. This trust bloomed to a monumental $42 million by the time Barbara turned 21, crowning her one of the richest women in the world during an era marked deeply by the Great Depression.
Her father, a titan in the financial realm and co-founder of the renowned E.F. Hutton & Co., was a master of his craft. His timely divestment before the 1929 market crash significantly safeguarded and multiplied Barbara’s inheritance.
Yet while Franklin navigated financial storms with acumen, his personal life brewed with scandal. The mysterious death of Barbara’s mother, Edna Woolworth, in 1917—believed to be self-inflicted and linked to Franklin’s infidelities—left young Barbara to stumble upon her mother’s lifeless body, an image that haunted her throughout her life.
In the wake of her mother’s death, Franklin’s subsequent marriage to Irene Bod only deepened Barbara’s emotional isolation. Widely regarded as an opportunistic stepmother, Irene’s presence ensured that Barbara’s upbringing was shuffled among various relatives, leaving her often in the hands of governesses rather than family.
Despite these early traumas, Barbara’s entry into society was nothing short of spectacular, and her debutante ball was legendary.
At its peak, Barbara Hutton’s personal life unfolded like a carefully choreographed ballet of opulence. She owned sumptuous estates across the globe, from the Japanese-inspired Sumo in Mexico to the regal Cidi Hosne in Tangier. Each home was not merely a residence but a testament to her wealth and impeccable taste for the exotic and beautiful.
Her passion for luxury was not confined to real estate. Hutton was known for her incredible collection of jewelry, including the famed Vladimir Tiara, and her wardrobe was a parade of haute couture from legends like Cristóbal Balenciaga and Oleg Cassini.
It was Cassini, commissioned by Cary Grant, who attempted to navigate the tumultuous waters of their marriage through style.
Socially, Barbara was a magnet for high-profile gatherings. Her debutante ball in New York was particularly notable for its extravagance, despite the Allure of this display of wealth being not without its critics, especially given the harsh economic climate of the Great Depression.
Her visibility and lifestyle choices made her a constant subject of media fascination and public critique. By 1934, Barbara’s life had inspired both film and song, capturing the public imagination and solidifying her status as a cultural icon—albeit one often viewed through a lens of scorn and envy.
This public narrative portrayed her as the “poor little rich girl,” a moniker that underscored the complex interplay of wealth, privilege, and personal adversity that defined her life.
To understand how someone could go from a million-dollar debutante party to poverty, one must roll back the clock and begin with a psychological profile rooted in her unique, difficult youth.
Born into opulence on November 14, 1912, in New York City, Barbara Woolworth Hutton emerged as the sole child of Edna Woolworth of the retail empire and Franklin L. Hutton, a founder of the E.F. Hutton investment firm.
Yet the wealth that defined her birthright would also shape a life marred by emotional turmoil. Barbara’s upbringing was steeped in material wealth but plagued by emotional neglect. Her father, notorious for his infidelities, was a distant figure, while her mother, ensnared in loneliness, sought comfort in an affair with Bud Bouvier, Jacqueline Kennedy’s future uncle.
This chaotic household environment left Barbara profoundly isolated, craving the affection that her fractured family could not provide.
Tragedy struck with brutal force at the tender age of five when Barbara discovered her mother lifeless—an image that would haunt her for decades. Officially, Edna’s death was attributed to complications from mastoiditis, but whispers of a self-inflicted ending persisted, with some suggesting the family influenced city officials to avoid probing too deeply into the actual cause.
Reeling from this loss, Barbara’s childhood became a relentless shifting of guardians as she moved from one relative’s home to another. She spent significant periods at her maternal grandparents’ luxurious 60-room Long Island mansion, a place where material excess was abundant but emotional warmth was scarce.
Her grandmother was consumed by dementia, and her once-doting grandfather, Frank Woolworth, was ailing. He affectionately called her “princess,” but his failing health meant he could not provide the stable affection she desperately needed.
After her grandfather’s death in 1919, Barbara’s father moved her frequently, each relocation eroding her sense of stability further. Described as a wistful, imaginative, lonely child by those who knew her, Barbara harbored complex feelings for her father, intertwining threads of fear and a yearning for his approval.
Throughout these formative years, Barbara’s cousin Jimmy Donahue was a kindred spirit. He, too, knew the cold embrace of wealth coupled with familial neglect. This bond, forged in shared experience, became a rare constant in her early life.
Barbara’s education was reflective of her status, with stints at prestigious schools like Miss Hitt’s Classes and Miss Porter’s School for Girls. However, the luxury of her educational background did little to heal the deep emotional wounds inflicted by her turbulent upbringing.
The imprint of such a fraught childhood left an indelible mark on Barbara Hutton. As she matured, her life became a quest fraught with troubled relationships and a continuous search for the love and stability that her youth had so cruelly denied her.
Barbara Hutton’s quest for love was as storied as it was heartbreaking, beginning with her first marriage to Prince Alexis Mdivani in 1933.
Barbara first met Alexis through a calculated encounter orchestrated by Alexis’s sister Rousa, known as Rusi. The Mdivanis, a family of social climbers, were known for marrying into wealth, which they often flaunted in high society.
Rousa arranged for her brother to meet Barbara under the pretense of social gatherings, exploiting Barbara’s vulnerability and immense wealth. Their initial encounter led to a scandalous affair while Alexis was still married to his first wife, Louise Van Allen.
This affair culminated in a hasty marriage to Barbara after Alexis’s quick divorce from Louise. At the young age of 20, the Woolworth heiress married the self-proclaimed Georgian prince in a grand ceremony in Paris, dressed in a white gown with dramatic shoulders and a sweeping veil.
She hoped for a fairy tale ending, yet the reality was far from it. Mdivani, infamous as one of the “marrying Mdivanis,” quickly set about spending Hutton’s vast inheritance on a luxurious home, polo ponies, lavish attire, and men’s jewelry.
Their marriage dissolved in March 1935, not even two full years after they had exchanged vows.
But her divorce from Mdivani did little to deter Hutton’s marital pursuits. In May 1935, she entered into marriage with Count Kurt Heinrich Erdmann Georg von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow. This relationship brought her only child, Lance Reventlow, into the world in 1936. However, like her first, this marriage crumbled by 1941.
Barbara Hutton’s third marriage, to the charismatic Hollywood icon Cary Grant, began just a year later in 1942. The couple’s union was highly publicized, partly due to Hutton’s immense wealth as a Woolworth heiress and Grant’s already-established fame as a leading man in Hollywood.
Initially, their marriage was marked by numerous social events and public appearances, reflecting their high-profile statuses. They were famously dubbed “Cash and Cary,” a moniker that played on Hutton’s wealth and Grant’s screen persona, although Grant himself was independently wealthy and did not need Hutton’s financial support.
However, the relationship began to deteriorate as Hutton felt overshadowed by Grant’s growing film career. Despite the initial allure of their glamorous lifestyle, she later remarked that Grant was primarily interested in growing his star power, which she felt was a significant factor in their separation.
The marriage was ultimately unable to withstand these internal and external pressures, leading them to divorce amicably without seeking monetary compensation from one another.
Continuing her search for marital happiness, Hutton married Prince Igor Troubetzkoy in 1947, though this union also ended in divorce by 1951.
Her fifth marriage, in 1953, to Dominican diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa, was notably brief, dissolving after only 53 days.
Then, in 1955, Hutton’s marriage to German tennis star Baron Gottfried von Cramm raised societal eyebrows given Von Cramm’s known sexual orientation and past imprisonment for then-illegal homosexual activities. This union, too, ended in 1959.
Her final marital attempt was with Prince Pierre Raymond Doan Vinh Na Champassak, an adopted member of the former royal family of Laos, in 1964. This last venture into matrimony concluded in 1966, closing the chapter on Hutton’s marriages.
Hutton’s numerous marriages, each ending in disappointment, painted a portrait of a woman endlessly searching for stability and happiness that eluded her. Her romantic endeavors, coupled with her immense wealth, made her a perennial subject of media intrigue and public sympathy.
Despite her efforts, lasting love remained just out of reach, and her later years were marked by loneliness and financial difficulties.
Barbara Hutton, once one of the wealthiest women globally, witnessed her fortune dissolve under the weight of extravagant spending and financial mismanagement, particularly during the 1940s to the 1960s.
Her collection of properties worldwide and her incessant travels to exotic locales marked a lifestyle that contributed significantly to her financial downfall.
Her tumultuous personal life, marked by seven marriages, heavily influenced her financial choices. Several of her spouses were accused of siphoning her wealth, with hefty divorce settlements further depleting her fortune.
For example, her first husband, Prince Alexis Mdivani, secured a $2 million settlement during their marriage, and another costly union with Count Kurt von Reventlow allegedly cost her an additional $1.5 million.
These financial drains, coupled with her lavish gifts to her husbands, steadily eroded her vast resources.
But Hutton’s spending was not limited to her marital affairs. She frequently made impulsive purchases, including costly jewelry and artworks, which continued to strain her finances. Her lack of financial acumen and dependence on others for estate management left her vulnerable to exploitation.
Entering the 1960s and 1970s, Hutton’s life shadowed darker themes as she faced severe health issues and addiction battles—a struggle that began around her son Lance’s birth in her 20s but worsened with age.
Hutton’s health woes were compounded by her addiction to barbiturates, particularly Seconal, which she used to manage her anxiety and stress. Her substance use, often mixed dangerously with alcohol, led to several near-fatal overdoses and even a coma.
In her later years, Hutton’s physical health deteriorated significantly. She became nearly blind and suffered from a hip injury causing chronic pain. Her mental health also declined, marked by erratic behavior, mood swings, and paranoia.
Increasingly reclusive, Hutton spent most of her days bedridden, dependent on her staff for care.
The tragic death of her only son, Lance Reventlow, in a 1972 plane crash plunged her into profound despair, exacerbating her isolation and depression.
She retreated further from the social world that once defined her, moving into an upscale hotel in Beverly Hills to live out her remaining years in seclusion. Her health, both physical and mental, declined sharply during this period, and she grappled with severe anorexia and a debilitating hip injury that rendered her bedridden.
Financial ruin paralleled her physical deterioration. Despite her precarious financial situation, she continued her pattern of giving, often to strangers who paid her any mind, further straining her resources.
By the time of her death, it was reported that she had a mere $3,500 to her name, equal to around $115,000 today. This figure is hotly contested by those close to her, yet it remains symbolic of her dramatic fall from financial grace.
Hutton’s life came to a quiet close on May 11, 1979, due to a heart attack in her hotel suite at the age of 66.
Her passing was a poignant bookend to a life characterized by both dazzling wealth and deep personal tragedy. The public, who had watched her rise and fall with keen interest over the decades, reacted to her death with a mix of shock and sympathy.
The funeral of Barbara Hutton was as subdued as her final years were lonely. It took place in the Woolworth family mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, where she was laid to rest among her relatives.
The service was attended by only a close circle of family and friends—a muted affair far removed from the lavish social gatherings she once hosted.
This solemn gathering served as a reflective homage to a woman whose life had been a complex interplay of immense isolation and public fascination.