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The Newport Heiress Who Never Woke Up

Sunny von Bülow was one of the wealthiest, most quietly extraordinary women in American society. Then her husband put her in a coma, went to parties, and the world asked what she had done wrong.

If you are a woman, you will have experienced some variation of people telling you to choose your husband well. This piece of advice always seems to assume that every woman has thousands of proposals to choose from, and a biological clock that has never troubled her. And from among those many suitors, without the benefit of a crystal ball or being swayed by any anxieties or lusts, you are expected to pick a man who is flawlessly successful, and brilliant, and loyal and kind. Because if you do not, he might kill you, and then people will say it was your fault for not choosing better. Apropos of nothing—certainly nothing like that—let’s look at the case of Sunny von Bülow. 

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When considering the life of Sunny von Bülow, it is tempting to begin at the end. We are inclined to remember her as she was immortalized in the newspapers of the early 1980s—bed bound in a diabetic coma which may (or may not) have been induced by her husband Claus. She remained unconscious in an Upper East Side nursing home for 28 years, finally passing away in 2008.

But there was a great deal before that. Sunny was born Martha Sharp Crawford in 1931, on her father’s personal railroad car on the way to New York. She was the only child of George Crawford, the chairman of a utilities company. Her father called her Choo-Choo, but the nickname evolved into Sunny because of her cold, dour personality. Joking. It was because she was a very upbeat child, though perhaps somewhat less so after her father passed away when she was four. His death left her an heiress with an estimated wealth of around $75 million. As she grew up, society columns declared that “her beauty rivals her wealth.” 

Her mother, daughter of the founder of the International Shoe Company, was extremely affectionate but also very protective, so much so that Sunny always seemed like a somewhat otherworldly creature. The newspapers reported that she was known for being “shy and delicate like a ‘princess.'” 

Among other young Americans, she stood out—a friend from her youth recalled a trip to France where, while everyone else was milling about in Bermuda shorts and jeans, Sunny could be seen nearly floating in a pristine white linen dress and matching hat. On the same trip, Sunny claimed her favorite place in Europe was not Paris or Venice but Assisi because, she claimed, “it had such an air of holiness about it.” She was so shy that, when she had to speak with people she did not know well, she sometimes broke out in hives. She opted not to go to college, but remained a voracious student, frequently reading a book a day.

One oft-repeated anecdote involved a luncheon where Sunny was seated between two men she did not know. It was evident to onlookers that she was struggling to keep up a conversation and seemed to almost shrink in on herself. Then a tiger from the host’s menagerie escaped. Guests ran, but the tiger made its way........

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