MAKING HEADLINES: Arkansans often appear in the most unlikely places. Take, for example, Hadassah Peri of New York. For 20 years, she served as the private nurse, companion and confidante of the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark of New York, worth more than $300 million when she died in 2011 at 104. Even though she was in good health after treatment for skin cancer at a New York hospital in 1991, Clark chose to live in modest hospital rooms for the last 20 years of her life rather than in her lavish homes in New York, Connecticut and Santa Barbara, Calif. She was attended to by Peri, her doctor, her accountant and her lawyer. Peri tended to Clark 12 hours a day, seven days a week, after being randomly assigned by a private health care agency.
Two biographies, Meryl Gordon's Phantom of Fifth Avenue and Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr., recount Clark's story.
Clark gave Peri $31 million in gifts during her lifetime and left her $30 million in her will. After a court battle with Clark's distant relatives, Peri received nothing from the will and agreed to return $5 million from the earlier gifts.
Peri's Natural State connection? Born in 1950 as Gicela Tejada Oloroso in the Philippines, where she received a nursing degree, she immigrated to this country in 1972 and, according to Gordon's book, worked at "a small county hospital in Arkansas" before moving to New York in 1980.
Anyone remember her?
HIGH NOTE: Arkansas native Al Bell is being inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame this year along with eight other inductees, including Carl Perkins.
Bell, born Alvertis Isbell in Brinkley in 1940, worked as a disc jockey in Little Rock before later running and owning Stax Records in Memphis during the 1970s. There he worked with artists such as The Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes and Sam & Dave before becoming president of Motown Records Group.
A new exhibit and museum, administered by the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum, is being built in conjunction with the relocation of Memphis' Hard Rock Cafe. It is set to open on Beale Street in 2015.
NOTED AUTHOR: Monday's issue of Publisher's Weekly on the self-published authors of children's books featured Little Rock residents Darcy Pattison and her award-winning book, Wisdom, the Midway Albatross, illustrated by Kitty Harvill.
MAJOR STEPS: Former North Little Rock resident Cal Chester, (North Little Rock High School, Class of 2008, and University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Class of 2012) has joined the world-renowned Diavalo Architecture in Motion Dance Co. of Los Angeles. He's been offered a two-year contract with the touring company and begins rehearsals July 21.
Founder Jacques Heim describes the company as a fusion of "ballet, contemporary, acrobatics, gymnastics, martial arts and hip-hop."
Contact Linda S. Haymes at (501-)399-3636 or lhaymes@arkansasonline.com
SundayMonday on 07/06/2014