Sunny von Bülow
| Sunny von Bülow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Martha Sharp Crawford September 1, 1932 Manassas, Virginia |
| Died | December 6, 2008 (aged 76) Manhattan, New York City, New York |
| Occupation | Socialite |
| Spouse(s) |
Prince Alfred von Auersperg (m. 1957; div. 1965) Claus von Bülow (m. 1966; div. 1987) |
| Children | Annie-Laurie von Auersperg Alexander-Georg Auersperg Cosima von Bülow Pavoncelli |
| Parent(s) |
George Crawford Annie-Laurie Warmack |
Martha Sharp Crawford von Bülow, known as Sunny von Bülow (September 1, 1932 – December 6, 2008), was an American heiress and socialite. Her husband, Claus von Bülow (b. 1926), was convicted of attempting her murder by insulin overdose, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. A second trial found him not guilty, after experts opined that there was no insulin injection and that her symptoms were attributable to over-use of prescription drugs. The story was dramatized in the book and movie, Reversal of Fortune. Sunny von Bülow lived almost 28 years in a permanent vegetative state until her death in a New York nursing home on December 6, 2008.
Sunny was the only child of utilities magnate George Crawford (a former chairman of Columbia Gas & Electric Company) and his wife Annie-Laurie Warmack. She was born on her father's personal railway carriage, en route from Hot Springs, Virginia, to New York, for which she was known as "Choo-Choo" as a child before being nicknamed "Sunny" because of her nature. Upon her father's death, when she was four years old, she inherited a reported US$100 million. Her mother, the daughter of the founder of the International Shoe Company, later married Russell Aitken, a sculptor and writer.
On July 20, 1957, Sunny married Alfred Eduard Friedrich Vincenz Martin Maria Prince von Auersperg, the son of Prince Alois von Auersperg and Countess Henrietta Larisch von Möennich (a distinguished but impoverished Austrian family). She was his tennis instructor in a Swiss resort. They had two children:
The Auerspergs were divorced in 1965. At this time, Sunny's net worth was over $75 million. Alfred died in 1992 after lingering in an irreversible coma for nine years following a 1983 car accident in Austria.
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Wikipedia