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Did Doris Duke get away with murder?

New book explores death of heiress’s gay designer

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Doris Duke, gay news, Washington Blade

‘Homicide at Rough Point’
By Peter Lance
c.2021, Tenacity Media Books
$28.79/438 pages

I don’t know if there is an afterlife. But if there is, I hope I don’t meet up with Doris Duke.

Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with Duke, the art collector and tobacco heiress, known as the richest woman in America, who lived from 1912 to 1993?

Because in the fascinating book “Homicide at Rough Point,” investigative journalist Peter Lance illustrates how Duke, believed to have had affairs with many men and women, including Errol Flynn, was likely the meanest woman in America.

On top of that, Lance convincingly argues, Duke got away with murder.

For starters, she’d hire ex-FBI agents to go after her ex-lovers and former employees to make sure they wouldn’t ruin her rep in the media. One night, Duke got angry at Joseph Armand Castro, one of her ex-husbands. He reportedly made a wisecrack while Duke was playing jazz on a piano. Ticked off, she slashed Castro’s arm with a butcher’s knife.

This was child’s play for Duke. Lance, who won five Emmys for his work as a correspondent for WNET and ABC News, makes a compelling case that Duke not only killed a trusted confidant, but used her money and influence to cover up her crime.

Duke had several estates – including “Falcon Lair” in Beverly Hills, the estate Rudolf Valentino purchased in 1925.

One of Duke’s estates, Rough Point, was in Newport, Rhode Island. The estate was on Bellevue Avenue, known as Millionaire’s Row. On Oct. 6, 1966, Eduardo Tirella, 42, flew to Newport from the West Coast. For a decade, he’d been the artistic curator and designer for Duke’s estates. The billionaire hadn’t purchased any art without consulting Tirella. She’d wanted to keep Tirella, who was gay, by her side.

Tirella no longer wanted to work for Duke. Against the warnings of his partner, the sculptor Edmund Kara, and his friends, he decided to tell Duke in person that he was quitting.

Tirella, a New Jersey native, grew up, one of nine children, in a working class family. He earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts fighting in World War II.

After the war, Tirella designed hats for Saks Fifth Avenue and the gossip doyennes Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

He moved to the West Coast, where he and Kara lived fairly openly as a gay couple. Tirella designed Elizabeth Taylor’s shack for the movie “The Sandpiper.” Kara designed the bust of Taylor that’s seen in the same movie. The couple partied with friends from Kim Novak to Bobby Short.

As Tirella prepared to leave Duke, his work on the West Coast was amping up. He was the set designer for the Tony Curtis movie “Don’t’ Make Waves.” He’d earned $43,000 (about $351,000 in today’s money) the year of his death, Lance reports.

Duke, who Lance calls “the possessive, often violent heiress” wasn’t at all pleased that Tirella was leaving. People who were around Duke and Tirella then, told Lance that on Oct. 7, 1966, after Tirella said he was leaving, the two had a “wicked fight.”

Minutes later, Duke ran Tirella over with her car outside the gates of Rough Point, Lance reports. “Because Doris Duke had the money and the power,” he writes, “she succeeded in effectively erasing his death from the narrative of her controversial life.”

The Newport police said Tirella’s death was an “unfortunate accident.” Soon after Tirella died, Lance reports, Duke, who hadn’t contributed to Newport before, became philanthropic. She created the Newport Restoration Foundation to revive the city’s tourism.

For Lance, a Newport native, something about the case, “sat unsolved, like a stone in my shoe,” he writes.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald said the rich “are different from you and me,” he was so on point! “Homicide at Rough Point” is a captivating memoir of gumshoe journalism and an entertaining travelogue of Newport, where the rich and eccentric have lived since the American Revolutionary War.

Above all, it is an arresting reminder: If you’re rich and powerful enough, you can cover-up anything – even murder.

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Books

From genteel British wealth to trans biker

Memoir ‘Frighten the Horses’ a long but essential read

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(Book cover image courtesy of Roxane Books/Grove Atlantic)

‘Frighten the Horses: A Memoir’
By Oliver Radclyffe
c.2024, Roxane Books/Grove Atlantic
$28/352 pages

Finding your own way.

It’s a rite of passage for every young person, a necessity on the path to adulthood. You might have had help with it. You might have listened to your heart alone on the quest to find your own way. And sometimes, as in the new memoir, “Frighten the Horses” by Oliver Radclyffe, you may have to find yourself first.

If you had observed Oliver Radclyffe in a random diner a few years ago, you’d have seen a blonde, bubbly, but harried mother with four active children under age seven and a distracted husband. You probably wouldn’t have seen trouble, but it was there.

“Nicky,” as Radclyffe was known then, was simmering with something that was just coming to the forefront.

As a young child, Nicky’d been raised in comfort in a family steeped in genteel British wealth, attended a private all-girl’s school, and never wanted for anything. She left all that behind as a young adult, and embraced the biker lifestyle and everything it entailed. The problem now wasn’t that she missed her old ways; it was that she hated life as a wife and mother. Her dreams were filled with fantasies of “exactly who I was: a man on a motorbike, in love with a woman.”

But being a man? No, that wasn’t quite right.

It took every bit of courage she had to say she was gay, that she thought constantly about women, that she hated sex with men. When she told her husband, he was hurt but mostly unbothered, insisting that she tell absolutely no one. They could remain married and just go forward. Nothing had to change.

But everything had already changed for Nicky.

Once she decided finally to come out, she learned that friends had already suspected. Family was supportive. It would be OK. But as Nicky began to experiment with a newfound freedom to be with women, one thing became clear: having sex with a woman was better when she imagined doing it as a man.

In his opening chapter, author Oliver Radclyffe shares an anecdote about the confusion the father of Radclyffe’s son’s friend had when picking up the friend. Readers may feel the same sentiment.

Fortunately, “Frighten the Horses” gets better — and it gets worse. Radclyffe’s story is riveting, told with a voice that’s distinct, sometimes poker-faced, but compelling; you’ll find yourself agreeing with every bit of his outrage and befuddlement with coming out in a way that feels right. When everything falls into place, it’s a relief for both author and reader.

And yet, it’s hard to get to this point because this memoir is just too long. It lags where you’ll wish it didn’t. It feels like being burrito-wrapped in a heavy-weighted blanket: You don’t necessarily want out, but you might get tired of being in it.

Still, it remains that this peek at transitioning, however painful, is essential reading for anyone who needs to understand how someone figures things out. If that’s you, then consider “Frighten the Horses” and find it.

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‘Radiant’ an illuminating biography of Keith Haring

Author captures artist’s complexities in sympathetic new book

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‘Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring’
By Brad Gooch
c.2024, Harper
$20/502 pages

“Radiant” is an illuminating biography of the talented artist Keith Haring, who made his indelible mark during the 1980s before dying young of AIDS. Brad Gooch, biographer of poets Frank O’Hara and Rumi, follows Haring from his childhood in Kutztown, Pa., to his early days in New York City painting artistic graffiti, to his worldwide fame and friendships with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The eldest of three children and the only boy, Haring learned to draw early on from his father. Art quickly became a lasting obsession, which he pursued fiercely. Growing up in a small, conservative town, he was drawn to countercultural movements like hippies and religious “Jesus freaks,” although he mostly found the imagery and symbols appealing.

He studied commercial art in Pittsburgh but later dropped out, spending several years working and learning at the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center, before moving to New York City in 1978. Studying painting at the School for Visual Arts, he also learned about video and performance art, making interesting projects. He also began drawing images on subways and blank advertisement backboards. One of his most distinctive was the Radiant Baby, a crawling baby shooting rays of light. 

Gooch begins the biography with his own encounter with this public art, which felt colorful and “extremely urgent.” It had to be done guerilla-style, before the authorities could catch him, and they were frequently painted over. He was arrested a few times.

Ironically, a few years later Haring would be paid huge sums and flown around the world to create large-scale art on public property. People were amazed at how quickly he worked, even in terrible conditions. Sometimes at these events, while a crowd was gathered, he would draw and give away the artwork. Knowing that his art in galleries sold for incredible amounts, he enjoyed occasionally frustrating the art world’s commercial desires.

His Pop Shops also revealed Haring’s competing impulses. Opened in 1986, first in New York and later in Tokyo, they put his art on all sorts of merchandise, including T-shirts and posters. On the one hand, they allowed ordinary people to buy his work at reasonable prices. However, they also earned him more money and increased his public image.

He made art for everyone. His best-known pieces, featuring babies and dogs, are colorful and family friendly. Some even consider it “lightweight.” He eagerly created murals and artwork for elementary schools and neighborhoods. But he also made art with social and political commentary and sexual explicitness. “Michael Stewart – USA for Africa” depicts a graffiti artist’s strangulation by New York City Transit Police officers. He painted “Once Upon a Time…” for the men’s bathroom of New York City’s Lesbian & Gay Community Center.

Haring worked nearly right up to his death in 1990. The Keith Haring Foundation keeps his work in the public eye, while also funding nonprofits working with disadvantaged youth and AIDS education. Gooch captures Haring’s complexities; he befriended graffiti artists of color and dated working-class men, but was sometimes ignorant about how his wealth and fame affected these relationships. Well written and sympathetic, the book can sometimes overwhelm in detail about life in the 80’s and Haring’s celebrity friends.

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Books

New book is a fun whodunit set in London drag world

‘Murder in the Dressing Room’ will keep readers guessing

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(Book cover image courtesy Berkeley)

‘Murder in the Dressing Room’
By Holly Stars
c.2025, Berkeley
$19/368 pages

Your alter ego, the other half of your double life, is a superhero.

When you’re quiet, she’s boisterous. Your confidence is flat, hers soars. She’s a better dresser than you; she’s more popular, and maybe even a little smarter. By day, you live a normal existence but by night, your other side roars and in the new mystery, “Murder in the Dressing Room” by Holly Stars, both of you solve crimes.

Lady Lady had been a little off all evening.

As owner of London’s most fabulous, elegant drag club, she was usually in command but her protegee, Misty Devine, could tell that something was wrong.

She discovered how wrong when she found Lady Lady on her dressing room floor, foaming at the mouth, dead, poisoned by a mysterious box of chocolates.

Hours later, Misty de-dragged, morphing from an elegant woman to an ordinary, binary hotel employee named Joe who was heartbroken by the tragedy. Only employees had access to Lady Lady’s dressing room – ergo, someone they knew at the club had to be the killer.

Obviously, the London detectives assigned to the case had a suspect list, but Misty/Joe and their boyfriend Miles knew solving Lady Lady’s murder was really up to them. They knew who the killer wasn’t, but who had reason to kill Misty’s mentor?

Maybe Mandy, the club’s co-owner. The club’s bartender and bouncer were both sketchy. Lady Lady had spats with two employees and a former co-worker, but was that motive enough? When the dress Lady Lady was wearing that night proved to have been valuable stolen goods, Joe’s investigation list grew to include people who might have sneaked backstage when no one was paying attention, and a shady man who was suddenly following them around.

Then Misty learned that she was in Lady Lady’s will, and she figured the inheritance would be minor but she got a huge surprise. Lady Lady’s posthumous gift could make others think that Misty might’ve had reason to kill her.

And just like that, the suspect list gained another entry.

When you first get “Murder in the Dressing Room” in your hands, hang onto it tight. It’s fun, and so fluffy and light that it might float away if you’re not careful.

The story’s a little too long, as well, but there’s enjoyment to be had here, and authenticity enough to hold a reader’s attention. Author Holly Stars is a drag performer in London and somewhat of a murder maven there, which gives her insight into books of this genre and the ability to string readers along nicely with solid characters. If you’re unfamiliar with the world of drag you’ll also learn a thing or two while you’re sleuthing through the story; drag queens and kings will like the dual tale, and the settings that anchor it.

As a mystery, this is fun and different, exciting, but tame enough for any adult reader. If you love whodunits and you want something light, “Murder in the Dressing Room” is a double delight.

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