Barbara Hutton. America’s richest orphan

Written by Rory Thornfield

When Barbara Hutton was born in 1912, she was one of America’s wealthiest heiresses. When she died in 1979, her account held just $3,500. Between these dates unfolded a drama that newspapers dubbed „the tragedy of the poor little rich girl”.

Childhood in a Golden Cage

Edna Woolworth and Franklyn Laws Hutton gave their daughter everything money could buy, but Barbara experienced a loss that no wealth could repair. In 1917, at age four, she found her mother’s dead body. The official cause of death – mastoiditis – didn’t convince everyone, and rumors of suicide circulated for decades.

After this tragedy, the girl was placed under the care of her grandparents and a succession of governesses. She lived in mansions where the number of rooms exceeded the number of people willing to show her affection. Frank Woolworth, her grandfather and creator of the chain store empire, was among the wealthiest men of his era, but he couldn’t replace the girl’s parents.

When her grandfather died in 1924, ten-year-old Barbara inherited the equivalent of today’s $378 million. By adulthood, her fortune had grown to $42 million, not counting an additional $8 million from her mother’s estate. For comparison – the average salary in the U.S. in the 1930s was about $1,500 annually.

Money didn’t bring her a sense of security. On the contrary – it became a magnet attracting those who saw the young heiress as nothing more than an open safe.

Debut at the Worst Possible Moment

The year 1930 went down in history as the beginning of the Great Depression – millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and homes. At the same time, Barbara Hutton entered New York society during a ball celebrating her eighteenth birthday. The party cost $60,000, equivalent to the annual earnings of several dozen working-class families.

The press treated this event as a symbol of obscene extravagance in times of widespread poverty. Barbara, barely an adult, became a symbol of everything wrong with American plutocracy. The media gave her a nickname that would haunt her for the rest of her life – „poor little rich girl.”

This contrast between her fortune and the suffering of millions of ordinary people shaped Barbara’s public image for decades. Her every move, every extravagance, every marriage was meticulously analyzed by a tabloid apparatus ready to condemn.

Paradoxically, Barbara did engage in charitable activities, supporting organizations helping the poor, including projects in Morocco. However, her philanthropy was drowned out by media noise focused on scandals.

Seven Marriages, Seven Disappointments

Barbara Hutton’s list of husbands reads like a catalog of European aristocracy and Hollywood elite. The first, Alexis Mdivani, called himself a Georgian prince, though his title was questionable at best. He exploited her wealth and forced her into debilitating starvation diets to match his beauty ideals.

Her second husband, Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, proved even more toxic. He subjected her to violence and forced her to renounce her American citizenship. From this union was born in 1936 Barbara’s only son, Lance Reventlow, who later became a racing car designer.

The only marriage the press deemed happy was her union with actor Cary Grant (1942-1945). Grant had his own career and fortune, he didn’t need his wife’s money. For the first time, Barbara could be sure that someone loved her for herself, not her bank account.

The remaining husbands – Prince Igor Troubetzkoy, Porfirio Rubirosa (the famous playboy), Baron Gottfried von Cramm, and finally Pierre Raymond Doan – continued the pattern of financial exploitation. Each divorce cost Barbara millions of dollars in property settlements.

Decline in Solitude

The 1970s brought a culmination of tragedies. In 1972, her son Lance died in a plane crash, plunging Barbara into deep depression. Their relationship had never been close – after her divorce from Reventlow, she sent the boy to boarding school, losing the chance to build a bond.

Her fortune melted away at an alarming rate. A combination of extravagant lifestyle, costly divorces, and dishonest financial managers led to the depletion of wealth that had once seemed inexhaustible. Barbara struggled with addiction to alcohol and drugs, experienced anorexia – a disease only recognized in the second half of the twentieth century.

When she died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on May 11, 1979, she was sixty-six years old. The woman who in childhood commanded the equivalent of hundreds of millions of today’s dollars left an estate valued at approximately $3,500. That was the value of a watch or jewelry she once wore to a single party.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rory Thornfield

+ posts

Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.

His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.

Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.

Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.