Although a recluse most of her life, heiress Huguette Clark had an active social life before suffering a nervous breakdown after being interviewed by the FBI over her ties to Japan during World War II, according to a new book.
Meryl Gordon details in her tome “The Phantom of Fifth Avenue” how Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104, was a social butterfly in her younger days, often accompanied by the accomplished Polish artist Tade Styka.
Clark and the painter attended dinner parties, went dancing at nightclubs, including the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, and attended the opening of “Carmen” and the Ziegfeld Follies, where Josephine Baker performed. The two also took in the 1939 World’s Fair. The relationship was only platonic — Styka married model Doris Ford in 1940, while Clark later married and divorced William MacDonald Gower.
While many believed Clark fell into a depression over failed relationships, Gordon writes that she withdrew from society after suffering a breakdown following the Pearl Harbor attack.
Clark was obsessed with Japanese culture at the time, and often bought toys, dolls and artifacts from Japan. “For Huguette, the outbreak of war was emotionally shattering. She loved Japanese culture and had been collecting Japanese artifacts for a decade, but now Japan was the enemy,” wrote Gordon.
Once fighting broke out, writes Gordon, “All of it — the specter of attack right after Pearl Harbor, the FBI interrogation, the demonization of Japan — sent Huguette into a tailspin . . . At her Fifth Avenue apartment, she received a series of unsettling visits from the FBI.”
Her withdrawal from society began, and after her mother’s death in 1963, Clark was rarely seen in public again.
Clark lived her last 20 years of life at Beth Israel Hospital despite owning homes in Manhattan and Santa Barbara, Calif., leaving behind a $300 million fortune. Recently, former Coach designer Reed Krakoff bought one of Clark’s homes in Connecticut for $14 million.