However, she found herself in the middle of a cultural tug of war. Miraculously Nini survived. In 1933, Barbara lost her father Frank in one of the most horrific ways imaginable. During his confession, Tony said My mind was slightly wacky and I was very much under my mothers influence. When Leonides succeeded his brother after Cleomenes suicide in 489 BC, his decision to marry his teenage niece was not so outrageous. Barbara Baekeland, allegedly seduced her own son, Tony, to 'cure' him of being gay | Image: Shutterstock. She also lost several children to miscarriage but managed to successfully provide a son and heir, Joseph, as well as several spares. Murdered at her London home, her son Anthony stabbed her with a kitchen knife, killing her almost instantly. Traditionally, many European royal families have kept close ties with each other, with cousins intermarrying for generations. A. In early 2018, I became obsessed with untangling this question. He flew to New York City, posted up with his 87-year-old maternal grandmother, andjust six days after he won his freedomstabbed her eight times with a kitchen knife. Renting houses and villas from London, Paris and Zermatt, to Cap d'Antibes and many parts of Italy; they continued to party, entertain and both to have affairs. During the few days after Tony had arrived in New York and was staying in his grandmother Ninis apartment, he built a macabre shrine to his dead mother and mumbled satanic masses over her ashes. While her mother was still trying to cope with her own nervous . In 1967, and with the family based in both Switzerland and the Spanish-resort of Cadaques, Anthony met the bisexual Australian Jake Cooper. In a year that saw the legalisation of cannabis in Holland, computer company Atari launching the first generation of video games and controversy over the continuing Vietnam war, the murder of a rich American socialite associated with one of the USs richest and most powerful dynasties captured world headlines. 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. 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. Barbara wasnt just pretty, she was incredibly ambitious. After losing all his money in the stock market crash, Frank took his own life, funnelling carbon monoxide into his car while idling it in the garage. The same luck didnt hold for Tony, though. Her mother had experienced a nervous breakdown just a few years prior to her birth. The Princess even expressed a desire to become a nun. Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week, What I Said on My Private Island Was Taken Out of Context! On Celebrity Apologies, 21 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Look Forward to in 2023, How Fine Art Has Become a Tool for the Bad Guys. In the shocking aftermath of the murder sordid details soon unfolded about how Barbara and Tony really lived in what some friends described a volcanic atmosphere of arguments. While some mothers go the horrific route of conversion therapy to fix their gay sons, Barbara had her own twisted methods. It must have been the worst outcome that Barbara could have predicted, and she was at sea for many long months following the split. Perhaps most unsettling of all is the fact that although Tony was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and paranoid tendencies, this diagnosis didnt do him any good. The details are skin crawling: Sickeningly, Barbara supposedly believed she was doing Tony a favor by finally showing him what a real woman could do. It was her friend Gloria Jones who saved her. If they only knew. Despite admitting the brutal slaying of his mother Tony showed little grasp of reality. His 2016 Christmas card is illustrative of his jet-setting lifestyle. If the Baekelands thought that escaping to Europe would help them outrun their marital issues, they were very, very wrong. Baekelands passion was finding ways to get to the worlds most challenging destinationsdangerous places, disputed territories, and, most of all, remote or officially off-limits islands few could spot on a world map. Sophia Di Martino plays Sylvie in "Loki." Disney Platform Distribution. He probably wasnt expecting a calm conversationbut nothing could have prepared him for what he got. Both of her parents had been previously married, and each had children from these earlier relationships. Although we dont know for sure if they carried on their grim bedroom relationship into the new decade, the damage was very much done. Instead of taking Tony to therapy, Barbara insisted on pretending everything was fine. Luckily, Barbaras friend rescued her, but the incident was serious enough that officers actually arrested Tony for attempted murder. Around this time, Barbara fell head over heels for the debonair Brooks Baekeland, a man people in the know called the intellectual Errol Flynn. Brooks was the grandson of Leo Baekeland, the inventor of Bakelite plastic, and his family was stinking rich. Overall, Chulalongkorn had 153 consorts, concubines and wives who gave him over 77 children between them. It was the kind of suffocating devotion borne out of possessiveness and controlling behaviour that may have led to such tragic events and ruining several lives of one of the most privileged wealthy American families. He later confessed and was charged with murder. Excerpted from Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed, and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth by Dave Seminara. She also drank heavily, and both parties had many affairs. Tony and Barbara were reportedly shameless about their relationship while in Majorca, treating it more like an open secret than a skeleton in their closet. In fact, new ones just started popping up. While the chiefs tried to persuade her to marry her brother, her Christian tutors railed against the match. Her son's erratic behavior caused concern among family friends. When court officials were suggesting marriages for the Princess, Maria could have had her pick of European Princes. I knew that she was going to take it badly, but I had no idea about the insane lengths she would go to just to get revenge and mess with my life. Gorgos advised against it- and Cleomenes listened to her. Ex-wife of George Middleton Baekeland In the blink of an eye, she was one of New Yorks ten most beautiful girls and one of the top models of her time. After the death of their parents, George took over the abuse of Virginia. To her, Tonys macabre taste in art, erratic behavior, and cruel sense of humor were just signs of his genius, and she adored him all the more for his, uh, quirks. One mother who most certainly seduced her son was Barbara Daly Baekeland. One mother who most certainly seduced her son was Barbara Daly Baekeland. In 1807, Napoleon invaded Portugal. She began to satirized George, likening him to a pig. His father Charles Baekeland was a cobbler and mother Rosalie Baekeland was a housemaid. In fact, she once proudly showed her dinner guests a series of drawings Tony had done. 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. However, they did not win the war. I had heard a lot about the brainy and daring young billionaire explorer from other prolific travelers I had profiled, most for a BBC series called Travel Pioneers. After one intense session with the boy, the doctor gave Barbara some disturbing news. Heck no. 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. Tony Baekeland . He and his wife, Joan Davis Baekeland, established Toyobi Far Eastern Art, selling fine Japanese art to serious collectors and major museums in the US and London. In 1980 when Anthony was released, he returned home to America- only to attempt to kill Barbaras mother, who he had initially blamed for his mothers death. He was the eldest son of Mongkut or Rama IV, immortalized as the king in The King and I. King Chulalongkorn, as he was known during his lifetime, took over the throne in 1863, after his fathers death. Baekeland attempted to "fix" her son by having prostitutes have sex with him. Later introduced to her son, noted pop art curator Green was very unimpressed by his artistic capabilities. 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. The abuse began when she was six, with her eighteen-year-old brother, Gerald. It was based on the book of the same name. Barbara dismissed the doctor's assertion. Unfortunately, this vulnerable state produced some blood-curdling actions. At some point, Tony's father, Brooks, began having an affair with Sylvie instead. Anthony undertook sessions with a psychiatrist while living at home; the doctor became so concerned about Anthony's condition that on October 30, he warned Barbara that he was capable of murder. At the end of October 1972, he warned her that he believed Tony was capable of murder. But everyone in the tight-knit community of extreme travel, including several men whom I had profiled, had heard that he was a billionaire who had inherited his fortune from his great-grandfather, Leo Baekeland, considered the father of the plastics industry for his invention of Bakelite, an inexpensive, nonflammable, and versatile plastic, in 1907. She introduced Barbara to her younger brother Brooks, a trainee pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Barbara Daly Baekeland (September 28, 1921 - November 17, 1972) was a wealthy American socialite who was murdered by her son, Antony "Tony" Baekeland. In the long term, though, this would lad to all-out carnage. The source of such conflicts was due to Barbara having arranged and encouraged her son to sleep with female prostitutes in the hope of curing his homosexuality. Instead, Green believes Barbara bluffed about the taboo tryst in order to gain attention. He had visited 163 countries, and his goal was to see the 30 others that he hadnt been to. Then one day, it all came crashing down. The thirty-three-year-old former Broadmoor inmate was accompanied on the plane to the US solely by a stranger, the daughter of one of his grandmothers friends who just happened to live near Broadmoor. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. 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. Just six days after he had left Broadmoor Tony got into a heated argument with his grandmother over a telephone call he wanted to make to England. One ferocious stab with a domestic knife ended what had been a turbulent and at times combative mother-son relationship. Titled "January in Westchester," it was painted about 1935 and depicts one of the bridges on the . Tradition and perhaps her heart may have won the battle. Chulalongkorn was grief-stricken. Some reports even say that Astor wanted to marry her. The brutal murder was the violent climax to an emotional rollercoaster ride for the beautiful socialite who was linked by marriage to the Bakelite empire the worlds first plastic. Such was the case of Virginia Woolf who was assaulted by both of her older half-brothers when a child and a young woman- actions which may well have been at the root of the mental health problems Woolf suffered for her whole adult life. Anthony was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Brooks decided that he had had enough of Barbara's behaviour, and decided to pursue a divorce. She was murdered at her London home when her son Antony stabbed her with a kitchen knife, killing her almost instantly. In short, the wealthy, dashing, and intelligent Brooks was everything Barbara wanted in a man. I doubled back to my network of extreme travelers in search of younger, more demographically interesting country collectors, and several made the same recommendation: William S. Baekeland. When the police arrived, they found Anthony, who was 25 years old at the time, ordering Chinese food over the phone. 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