That isn’t a big deal today but in 1972 homosexuality was listed in the DSM III as a Mental Disorder. Further, Barbara suspected her young son had a problem of his own she believed correctly that he was a homosexual.
He tried to help his mother, but at his young age, was unable. She burdened her son with her marital and mental woes. Barbara and her son shared a co-dependent relationship. There was a problem with that living arrangement. His father didn’t care. After all, he was shacked up with his son’s former girlfriend. His erratic behavior caused concern among family friends, and over the years, Baekeland and his mother had several threatening arguments involving knives. However Brooks refused to allow his son to be treated by psychiatrists, stating they were “ professionally amoral” (unlike Brooks, who was personally amoral).īarbara insisted that Baekeland live with her in their penthouse in London, England. It was painfully clear that the young man needed psychiatric help. This wasn’t a happy family for young Baekland to grow up in but he lived the hand he was dealt. He himself displayed signs of schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies. In all, Barbara had made four suicide attempts to keep Brooks from leaving her. It was her friend Gloria Jones who saved her. When Antony was 21, his parents divorced, leading Barbara into a severe depression and a suicide attempt. Brooks finally left her for a younger woman, Sylvie, Antony’s first girlfriend. She drank heavily and, like her husband, engaged in many casual sexual encounters.
She was known for her unstable personality, rude outbursts and bouts of severe depression. However during their marriage, Barbara’s mental instability became obvious. The first time Baekeland set eyes on the beautiful Barbara, he was smitten and within months they were married. Baekeland was the wealthy grandson of the man who invented Bakelite, the world’s first plastic. Plagued by incest, drug use, homosexuality and murder/suicide, this elite group were a spectacular recipe for disaster.Īntony Baekeland was a sinewy, indulged young man who hid a murderous rage for his mother, a gorgeous ex-film starlet and model, with flaming red hair and porcelain skin, Barbara Daly Baekeland, for several years until November 17, 1972, when he stabbed her to death with a knife. She was the wife of Brooks Baekeland. However, all of this family’s money couldn’t tempt me to join this clan. Their entire financial empire was built on the world’s first commercially made plastic called Bakelite. Do you remember the first line Mr. McGuire utters to Dustin Hoffman (Benjamin) in “ The Graduate ?” “ I just want to say one word to you, one word….Plastics.” If there was ever a family that knew a thing or two about the lucrative living to be made by plastics it had to be the Baekeland family.
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