After returning to his cell at 3:30PM, he was found dead there 30 minutes later, suffocated with a plastic bag. He later confessed and was charged with murder. Her reaction threw everyone into a tailspin. Tonys already uncertain mental health began to decline rapidly. But no matter, the road is life. The royal family, complete with all the wealth they could carry and the mad queen fled to Brazil. By 1967 the family resided in Switzerland and it is at this time that the twenty-year-old Tony embarked on an intimate relationship with a bisexual Australian man while visiting Morocco which infuriated Barbara and saw her travelling by car to Spain in order to bring her son home. Baekeland oozed sincerity and people of all nationalities found him to be personable and good company. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. In 1968, Barbaras already dramatic life came to a screeching climax. Later introduced to her son, noted pop art curator Green was very unimpressed by his artistic capabilities. It was clear that Virginia felt this abuse bitterly because it made a lie of the person she had believed her brother to be, as much as anything else. In 1967, and with the family based in both Switzerland and the Spanish-resort of Cadaques, Anthony met the bisexual Australian Jake Cooper. This went about as badly as youd expect. After the life insurance payment had been collected, Barbara and her mother moved to New York City, taking up residence in the Delmonico Hotel. One prominent extreme traveler said in an interview that he was destined to become the worlds most traveled person. You see, Frank Daly wasnt the only family member to suffer from mental health issuesboth Barbara and her mother had psychological demons, with Barbara later employing a series of expensive therapists to help her find some modicum of happiness. When the police arrived, they found Anthony, who was 25 years old at the time, ordering Chinese food over the phone. In that first email, William told me that he was working on completing the travel destination lists of two prominent clubsthe Travelers Century Club (TCC) and Most Traveled People (MTP), as well as his own Baekelist of twelve thousand world highlights he developed. . ____________________________________________. UNDERNEATH EVERY soap opera there is another, more potent one wanting out. The journey I took while trying to solve this riddle taught me that I have more in common with William and the mad travelers than I realized. On June 6, 1760, the pious, 25-year-old entered into incestuous wedlock with her uncle. To Barbaras great disappointment, Tony didnt bite even once, forcing her to move on to even more disturbing tactics. According to Herodotus, her political acumen existed at a young age. After falsely telling Brooks that she was pregnant, the couple quickly married in California. Maria I, Queen of Portugal by Giuseppe Troni. In short, her life was spiralling toward a tragic climax. The first American missionaries began to arrive on the islands- and Keopuolani converted. Birthdate: February 21, 1921. These events had a profound effect on Woolf. From this moment both Barbara and Tony were ruthlessly ejected from Brooks new family life back in America. While the rest of her family settled on a country estate, Maria I was cared for in a convent where she died in 1816. She tried to get a young French girl Anthony was friendly with to marry him- only for the girl, Sylvie, to run off with Brook. Baekeland politely concluded that he looked forward to speaking with me, wishing me all the best. But he broke multiple telephone appointments and then did the same to the production company. I have to charter my own yacht or ship. Nahienaena may have been her fathers only daughter by his chief wife- but he had sons by his other wives, and so the chiefs wanted the Princess to form a union with her brother, Prince Kauikeaouli. Much of his initial years were spent in Ghent, Belgium. But he didnt stop there. The infant, a daughter, did not live long after the birth. Jason met Amanda, daughter of singer Paul Anka, when they . Barbara had always been brash and flirtatious, and she had always been preternaturally close to Tony, but people soon realized she was starting to use her feminine wiles on her own son. Sadly, it didnt work, and Barbara only ended up feeling more pathetic. William never mentioned the incident, and, in any case, his credibility among elite travelers couldnt have been higher. At the moment for example, I am working on getting my Antarctic continent and sub Antarctic islands[] full circumnavigation by ship worked out. Virginia later recalled in Moments of Being how Gerald would stand her in front of a mirror just outside the dining room and explore her private parts. Not only did the two begin a steamy affair, Cooper also convinced his upper-class beau to travel to Morocco with him, buy hallucinogenics, and have a grand old time rebelling against mommy and daddy. Then hed focus on visiting every country twice. In 1799, the Queens mental state was so sorry that Portugals officials installed Joseph as regent. It wasnt long after the power couples marriage in California that the relationship started to show cracks. Some reports even say that Astor wanted to marry her. He was closing in on his goal of visiting all 193 countries (as defined by the United Nations), and planned to visit his final targetSerbiaalong with his mother, Lady Violette Baekeland, in October 2017 for an elite extreme traveler conference where they were set to become the first mother-son team to have visited every country in the world. In the warm light of his lusty affair, Brooks realized how desperately unhappy he was in his marriage and asked Barbara outright for a divorce. They dated for 1 year after getting together in 1943 and married in 1944. According to the book, Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family, Tony was gay or bisexual and his mother hired prostitutes and even slept with him in failed bids to convert him to heterosexuality. Over the years, Anthony and his mother had several violent arguments involving knives. He kept traveling, and, in February 2017, while on a trip to Antarctica, Baekelands father died, and he couldnt get to the funeral. Born in 1922, Baekeland was a model whose face graced the pages of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. It was part of Hawaiian culture that royalty married royalty. Mother of Anthony Baekeland, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Daly_Baekeland. Baekeland attempted to "fix" her son by having prostitutes have sex with him. Barbara Daly Baekeland (1922 November 17, 1972) was a wealthy socialite who was murdered by her son, Anthony Baekeland. Meanwhile, although Tonys father Brooks was certain his son was evil, he spent more time running away from him than helping him. After failing to make it in Hollywood as an actress, she married Bakelite heir, Brooks Baekeland and they had one child, a son called Anthony. While her mother was still trying to cope with her own nervous . This time, though, it had the opposite effect: Brooks filed for divorce once and for all, even stonily weathering another suicide attempt right after he served Barbara the papers. She pursued him relentlessly; when she returned to the United States that fall, she walked barefoot across Central Park in the snow wearing nothing but a Lynx fur coat to demand entry to his apartment. As well see, Barbara never fully accepted Tonys diverse bedroom tastes, so she was especially thrilled when he stopped hanging around Jake Cooper and his hippie friends, and instead brought home a real live girl. Nini refused him permission enraging her disturbed grandson. By 1790, she was in a deep state of melancholia. As young Tony grew into a toddler, the Baekeland heir started to exhibit some disturbing signs. While the chiefs tried to persuade her to marry her brother, her Christian tutors railed against the match. When the police arrived at the apartment to discover the carnage Tony complained to the officers that she wont die despite the multiple stabs wounds and broken bones he had inflicted on the frail still alive screaming woman. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. I am f***ing my mother, he told a friend. The young socialites introduction to the dashing Brook Baekeland, a trainee pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force, cemented the status of a celebrity couple bestowed with looks, money and in Brooks case, a lineage linked to the Bakelite empire, as he was the grandson of Leo Baekeland who invented what was the worlds first plastic. She didnt believe him. Jack Kerouac But all of that changed once they got back from their vacation. Nini loved her grandson and believed that under her supervision he could lead a normal happy life. Accordingly, the courts felt immense pity for him and a judge decided to institutionalize him at the infamous Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric ward, rather than give him jail time. With snow on the ground, she dressed up in nothing but a fur coat, walked across Central Park in bare feet, and, once she made it to her ex-boyfriends apartment, banged on Greens door while begging him to take her back. Barbara tried her best to fix up her son with a variety of the young ladies who floated on the edge of the prominent social circle that she and her elite friends and acquaintances occupied, however, Anthony was not interested. Then one day, it all came crashing down. He was the godfather of country collecting in that he worked tirelessly to help get the worlds top travelers to the hardest-to-get-to geographic oddities on the lists of the three biggest travel clubs: MTP, TCC, and a third called NomadMania/The Best Traveled (TBT). What is not so well known, is that his wife, Gorgo, was also his niece: the daughter and only child of his half-brother, the former King, Cleomenes I. But her beauty hid a history of mental health problems that were to plague her entire life and see her employing the services of expensive therapists and psychiatrists. He became paranoid and angry, and doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia. High Society Facts About Lee Radziwill, The American Princess, Absolute Legends: The Wildest Pranks Ever Pulled, Over My Dead Body: These Outrageous Funerals Prove Drama Never Dies, Tragic Facts About Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIIIs First Wife, Overheard Once, Forgotten Never: These Hurtful Comments Are Completely Brutal, These Eerie Supernatural Experiences Sent A Chill Down Our Spines. It must have been the worst outcome that Barbara could have predicted, and she was at sea for many long months following the split. But it didnt take long for the cracks to show. This small spat pushed Tony over the edge, and he finally made good on all the dark omens. A baby didnt fix those issues. Chulalongkorn was grief-stricken. I relayed his bio to the production company and they were sold on him before they even heard his voice. SAVAGE GRACE. Barbaras end was instant, and she probably had no time to even understand what was going on. He later confessed and was charged with murder. She immediately drove across Europe, set on bringing Tony back to mommy dearest in Switzerland. In 1980, wealth, money and connections involving Coutts bank, the American Embassy and contacts in Washington finally did the job securing Tonys release on the proviso he was to be entrusted under the duty of care to his 87-year-old grandmother Nini in New York. Brooks had also received abusive letters from Tony, some threatening to murder his . When Gorgos was a child, her father, Cleomenes, was visited by a foreign diplomate intent upon persuading Sparta to support a revolt against the Persians. In early 2018, I became obsessed with untangling this question. In late July 1972, Anthony tried to throw his mother under the traffic outside her penthouse on Cadogan Square in Chelsea, London. Months before, I had pitched a television production company on making a TV series about the worlds top travelers and they paid me a trifling sum for the rights to my idea, with the promise of significantly more if a network bought the show they developed. Childhood & Early Life. Barbara wasnt much better off, either. In his life away from the small screen, Jason is a doting dad of two adorable daughters, Francesca and Maple, with his wife, Amanda Anka. Barbara Baekeland, allegedly seduced her own son, Tony, to 'cure' him of being gay | Image: Shutterstock. Google Images. Just as she had done when he was a child, Barbara stubbornly refused to see that anything was wrong with Tony. Born and raised in Boston, her mother Nini had had a mental breakdown a few years before Barbara was born. Morrow. Was William a con man or just a kid with incurable wanderlust who had gotten in over his head while trying to fund his travel ambitions? Dancy Mason is the Editor-in-Chief at Factinate. So its no surprise that trouble came knocking. By Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson. Barbara Daly Baekeland and son Anthony as a baby. In 1933, Barbara lost her father Frank in one of the most horrific ways imaginable. Anna Delvey: The socialite who didn't exist. Barbara then decided to ply Anthony with prostitutes, but when this failed too, she hatched a further plan to cure him. This time there was no rich influential people in the US defending Tonys right to freedom and he was incarcerated for life at Rikers Island, New Yorks main prison where his access to family money provided a merry-go-round of sexual partners, protectors and possible enemies in the top security prison. She was only saved by his physical weakness, and the intervention of her friend Susan Guinness. Tonys paternal grandmother Nini Daly took a more compassionate view of her grandsons troubles and was instrumental in garnering powerful family allies such as Hugo Money-Coutts (connected to the famous bank family) to help steer a campaign to get Tony repatriated back to the US. It was a conundrum even beautiful Barbara couldnt flirt her way out of, and she and Tony ended up in the slammer that night. Travelers told me that he had probably bailed because, as a billionaire, he liked to keep a low profile, and, in any case, had nothing to promote on television. Barbara brought Tony into the world and as a young man - he provided her exit from it All her life, Barbara Baekeland had been partial to autumnal colours: the rust-coloured skirts and bronze. Sign up to our newsletter to receive email updates on new series, features, and more from your favourite Crime+Investigation shows: He was then twenty-nine. If they only knew. Although the Metropolitan Police arrested Anthony for attempted murder, Barbara refused to press charges. So why did the match occur? Now, this news would upset many an uptight mother, but Barbara took it to the next level. In the short term, this was everything Barbara wanted. He was by turns cold and wrathful toward his mother, and prone to rude outbursts and aggression. It was her tall, thin 25-year-old son Tony, the only child of Barbara and Bakelite heir Brooks Baekeland who hours after she returned home to their exclusive Cadogan Square apartment viciously murdered her in the kitchen. With her life still spinning around her, Barbara quickly became obsessed with Green, introducing him to Tony after mere weeks of dating. An invitation to Hollywood for a screen test with the actor Dana Andrews didn't lead to film stardom but did lead to a friendship with fellow aspiring actress Cornelia "Dickie" Baekeland. Barbara wasnt just pretty, she was incredibly ambitious. The royal couple was devoted to each other despite their age gap and close family ties. [CDATA[// >