Bobo Rockefeller, 91, Married Well, Divorced Better

Barbara Sears Rockefeller, who died Monday at 91, was a coal miner’s daughter who on Valentine’s Day of 1948 married the Standard Oil scion, Winthrop Rockefeller, in what was billed as “the Cinderella wedding of the century.”The marriage collapsed within two years, and in 1954 she received a settlement worth more than $6 million. Just as shocking as the record-setting sum were courtroom charges that the abstemious John D. Rockefeller’s heir was a philanderer and boozer with a vast collection of pornography.“Bobo Rockefeller,” as she was known to headline writers and society matrons alike, was a tough customer who taught herself divorce law, burned through 20 lawyers, and told Time magazine: “I intend to be a Mrs. Rockefeller until the day I die.” And she was.She used her settlement to set herself up in an East 67th Street townhouse built by the Broadway impresario Martin Beck, replete with squash court and pool. She had it gaudily tricked out with tapestries, murals, mirrors, and a life-size statue of Pan in a niche, and swiftly became one of Manhattan’s most sought-out hostesses.Born September 6, 1916, in Noblestown, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, she was the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants. Her parents split up early, and young Jievute Paulekiute went to Chicago to live in a poor neighborhood near the stockyards. She grew up as a bit of a tomboy, but in 1933 was crowned Miss Lithuania at the Century of Progress exposition.“It isn’t true that I won a beauty contest,” she told the Chicago Tribune in 1951. “The judges were looking for someone who looked Lithuanian.” The young blonde, then known as Eva, became a top Chicago model, including feature shoots for Vogue and Vanity Fair.Calling herself Eva Paul, she moved to New York in 1936, took ballet lessons, and began working as an actress in regional productions. She also had parts in several Hollywood Westerns and got acting tips from Walter Huston. While performing as Pearl in a Boston production of “Tobacco Road” in 1940, she met John Sears Jr., son of a Brahmin family and a well-known socialite. They were married a month later in Washington, D.C., where Sears held a diplomatic post. She stopped performing for a while, then took to the stage again. Sears was stationed overseas for much of World War II, and the couple divorced amicably after the war.Back in New York and performing as Barbara Sears, she began dating Winthrop Rockefeller, perhaps the most eligible bachelor in the country as the sole heir to the Standard Oil fortune. They were married February 14, 1948, in Palm Beach, Fla., at the home of Winston Guest, to tremendous publicity. Their son, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, was born just seven months later.Bobo Rockefeller never said publicly just what went wrong with the marriage, but by the fall of 1950 she had moved to her mother’s farm in Lowell, Ind. There, she freely gave interviews to an increasingly curious press, affirming that the couple had separated. She complained that her husband was not sending an agreed-upon allowance. “A Rockefeller wasn’t born to be raised on a farm,” she said.In 1951, she told Time magazine: “I want him to suffer the way he has made me suffer; as he has humiliated me before the world,” although exactly how was left to the imagination. A series of sensational stories ensued. Winthrop attempted to get custody of their son. Bobo at one point in 1953 stormed into the Park Avenue penthouse where the couple had lived in order to reassert New York residency, while Winthrop moved to Alabama, where the divorce laws were less stringent. Finally, they came to an agreement — most estimates place the total settlement north of $6 million — and Bobo beat Winthrop to the punch, divorcing him in Reno, Nev. She got custody of young Winthrop, too: game, set, and match to Mrs. Rockefeller.Salacious details about Winthrop emerged when her lawyer sued both of them for unpaid bills in 1955.Bobo moved to New York and rarely talked to the press. She set herself up briefly as an antiques dealer, and kept an apartment in Paris. She sometimes featured in gossip columns on the social whirl of Europe. Dali painted her portrait in 1960.In a 1962 interview at the New York nightclub El Morocco, she told the Associated Press that she was on the verge of marrying hotelier Charles Mapes of Reno, Nev. The marriage apparently never occurred.Winthrop Rockefeller remarried in 1956 and went on to serve two terms as a centrist and reforming Republican governor of Arkansas. He died in 1973.In 1998, she told the New York Times that she was putting her townhouse on the market for $12 million. She was tired of New York, she said. The monthly bill for elevator inspection was irksome. “Most of my real friends here have died off,” she said. She was off to Paris, she said, where: “I’m going to whip around and have some fun!”Their son Winthrop was running for Arkansas governor when he was diagnosed in 2005 with Leukemia. Bobo moved permanently to Little Rock to be with him for his last days.

Bobo Rockefeller, 91, Married Well, Divorced Better

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