14. Barbara Hutton’s Only Child Died At 36 Years Old
Even though Hutton was married seven times and had other relationships, she only gave birth to one child. Lance Reventlow was born on February 24, 1936, to Hutton and her second husband, Kurt. Like his mother, Lance was born into a wealthy and privileged class. In fact, on the day he was born, the world gave him the title of the richest baby in the world. Lance’s parents would divorce in 1938 and engage in a bitter custody battle. In the end, Lance would live with his mother. He then became mostly estranged from his father until close to Kurt’s death in 1969.
It was his mother’s fourth husband, Igor Troubetzkoy, who introduced a then 12-year-old Lance to car racing. Lance would immediately fall in love and later befriend James Dean. Lance was one of the last people to see Dean alive. It was in the mid-1950s when Lance started to race professionally. He would also marry twice in his short life. First, Lance married Jill St. John in 1960, but they divorced three years later. In 1964, he married Cheryl Holdridge. Tragedy would strike the family on July 24, 1972, when Lance was killed in a plane crash.