Barbara Hutton, "Poor Little Rich Girl"

 

Barbara Woolworth Hutton (November 14, 1912 – May 11, 1979) was an American debutante, socialite, heiress, and philanthropist. She was dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl": first when she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball in 1930 amid the Great Depression, and later due to a notoriously troubled private life.^[1]

Heiress to one-third of the estate of the retail tycoon Frank Winfield Woolworth, Barbara Hutton was one of the wealthiest women in the world. She endured a childhood marked by the neglect of her father and the early loss of her mother at age four who died from suffocation due to mastoiditis.^[2] Rumors have persisted that she committed suicide.^[3] This set the stage for a life of difficulty forming relationships. Married and divorced seven times, she acquired grand foreign titles but was maliciously treated and often exploited by several of her husbands. Publicly she was much envied for her possessions, her beauty and her apparent life of leisure; privately she remained deeply insecure, often taking refuge in drink, drugs, and playboys.

Hutton had one child, Lance Reventlow, with her second husband, but was an inconsistent and insecure parent and the subsequent divorce ended in a bitter custody battle. She later developed anorexia nervosa and perhaps thereby prevented further childbirth. Her son died in a plane crash in 1972 at the age of 36, leaving her devastated. She died on May 11, 1979, at age 66. At her death, the formerly wealthy Hutton was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of both lavish spending and exploitation by those entrusted to manage her estate. 

Barbara Hutton married:

1. 1933: Alexis Mdivani, a self-styled Georgian prince, divorced 1935
2. 1935: Count Kurt Heinrich Eberhard Erdmann Georg von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, divorced 1938
3. 1942: Cary Grant, divorced 1945
4. 1947: Prince Igor Troubetzkoy, divorced 1951
5. 1953: Porfirio Rubirosa, divorced 1954
6. 1955: Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt von Cramm, divorced 1959
7. 1964: Pierre Raymond Doan, divorced 1966  Wikipedia