Biography
Lance von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow was the only child of Danish nobleman Count Court von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow and American socialite Barbara Hutton, who almost died giving birth to him. He was born at Winfield House in London, restored by his mother and named for her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. His parents' marriage was a tumultuous one, filled with his father's emotional and physical abuse of him and his mother, and his mother's growing alcohol and drug addiction. She had inherited the Woolworth department store fortune and was then one of the wealthiest women in the world. The marriage, Barbara Hutton's second of seven, did not last and the child became the subject of a bitter custody battle.
Left to be raised by nannies and boarding schools, Reventlow was six years old when his mother married actor Cary Grant, who took the already troubled boy under his wing. Reventlow's mother and Grant divorced on July 11, 1945, and two days later the then-nine-year-old was abducted by his biological father and taken to Canada, but later returned. Grant remained close to Reventlow, who spent a great deal of time in the Los Angeles area.
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