ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
Three years and a week after the death of the famous woman he served - the event that thrust him into wealth, but also unrelenting controversy - Bernard Lafferty, the billion-dollar butler, died early Monday morning.
``His heart just stopped,'' his lawyer said.
Lafferty had been at the side of his boss, 80-year-old tobacco heiress Doris Duke, when she died on Oct. 28, 1993, at Falcon Lair, the gated former home of Rudolph Valentino.
House guests said Lafferty was alone when he died, at 51, in his own gated $2 million mansion a short drive up Benedict Canyon, bought with money that came his way after he was named executor of Duke's Gilded Age estate.
The bedroom where he died had a 20-foot ceiling, blood red velvet drapes and a Venetian chandelier. The carved headboard of his bed was made from the door of a Vanderbilt mansion in Newport, R.I. And, yes, he had his own butler the last months of his life.
Still, no one in his inner circle believed that the orphaned Irish farmboy had been fully able to enjoy the fairy tale turn in his luck because people seeking pieces of Duke's $1.2billion fortune never let up on their allegations that he was a scheming servant who wormed his way into his mistress' confidence, a spendthrift drunk who went to town with Duke's credit card as she lay comatose and, of course, that he killed her with overdoses of morphine.
Virtually every detail of Duke's death became ammunition for the lawyers who successfully campaigned to force Lafferty out as executor of Duke's estate, which will become one of the nation's largest charities. They cast especially suspicious eyes on how Duke had been quickly cremated and her ashes scattered off her mansion in Hawaii - a cover-up of murder, they called it.
``I was the one who took care of Miss Duke to her dying moment,'' Lafferty remarked in an interview not long before his death. ``So a lot of these things that were said were very sad to me.''
His death ends the $500,000 a year bequest from Duke that he kept under the May settlement that removed him as executor. Unknown is how much remains of the $4.5million in executor's fees he also received, and who will inherit it.
Though paramedics confirmed that he appeared to have died of natural causes, Lafferty's lawyer said an autopsy probably will be requested.
``Under the circumstances, where there was such a controversy about Duke's cause of death, it does indicate we have to [confirm] the cause of death,'' said Charlotte Hassett.
``This was a very tough fight for him,'' Hassett said. ``He felt it was his duty to carry out [Duke's] wishes, but he was frustrated that three years later, not a penny has gone to charity while the total amount billed by attorneys [challenging and defending Duke's will] may be $50million.''
Even without the strain of the court battle, parts of which were ongoing, Lafferty seemed a candidate for a heart attack. A sedentary man with a taste for A-list restaurants, he let his weight balloon to more than 250 pounds.
Final arrangements were pending. Hassett, however, said the former butler had asked to be cremated and his ashes scattered off Hawaii - right where he scattered Duke's remains three years ago.
A memorial service will be scheduled in Beverly Hills, an event likely to draw some of the luminaries who stood by the pony-tailed former butler: singer Peggy Lee, for whom he once worked; Elizabeth Taylor, an old friend of Duke's who worked with him on AIDS charities; and even actress Sharon Stone.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB