12/23/2025
Martha Sharp Crawford, later known as Sunny von Bülow, was a transcontinental heiress and socialite, straddling the line of European and American aristocracy. It is the only world she knew. Born into immense privilege, she was nicknamed “Sunny” for her cheerful personality. As the only child of energy magnate George Crawford, founder and executive with Columbia Gas & Electric., she inherited his fortune.
Her first marriage was to Austrian Prince Alfred von Auersperg, from centuries-old European nobility. In 1966, she remarried, Claus von Bülow, was a charming Danish noble and one-time aide J. Paul Getty – who built billions in petroleum via Getty Oil and endowed the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
It would seem like a perfect union, Claus von Bülow bridged American old money with international royalty. Sunny was a baroness by title, a socialite by fortune, a celebrated face – gracing society columns and fashion magazines. She was a power player of the upper crust. But by 1980, Claus was enmeshed in a two-year affair with a soap opera actress. It was an unkept secret that the woman was pressuring Claus to leave Sunny, adding to the mounting marital strain.
On the evening of December 21, 1980, Clarendon Court was awash in holiday glow. The opulent mansion, glorious in its elegance, was a jewel in the crown of the Gilded Age. Clarendon Court exemplified the lavishness reserved only for generational wealth. Built in 1904, it was among the exclusive residences along Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. The 12,000-square-foot English neoclassical mansion with grand marble foyers and fireplaces, sweeping staircases, mahogany doors, with garden terraces lining Narragansett Bay. Purchased by the von Bülows in 1970, it was transformed into a posh retreat.
That night, the lady of the house was radiant as she hosted her family and friends, but partygoers began to notice a shift in Sunny. Her family recognized the change almost immediately: unsteady, with slurred speech, and an unfocused gaze. She had been drinking, and may have mixed alcohol with medication. Around midnight, her son Alexander gently led his mother upstairs to bed, not realizing those would be her final waking moments.
The next morning, December 22, the celebratory atmosphere of Clarendon Court turned cold. Sunny was discovered unconscious on the bathroom floor. With no signs of trauma, no struggle – Sunny’s breathing was so shallow it was barely detected. Her husband Claus was notified, but waited hours before calling for help, reportedly believing she was just sleeping off a hangover.
Sunny arrived at Newport Hospital on the morning of December 22, 1980 in critical condition. She was unresponsive, barely breathing, in cardiac arrest, with profound hypoglycemia – critically low blood sugar. She had elevated insulin levels, alcohol, and traces of sedatives in her system. She would never regain consciousness.
Her story became one of the most sensational legal scandals of the 1980s, when her two oldest children from her first marriage hired a private investigator to look into their mother’s husband, alleging he was having an affair and stood to inherit millions if Sunny died.
Claus von Bülow, was indicted in 1981 on two counts of attempted murder for allegedly injecting his wife Sunny with insulin, causing two comas -one in December 1979 that she recovered from, and in 1980 from which she remained in a vegetative stage. Key evidence in his case included the presence of a black bag with insulin, a syringe, and the testimony of one of the members of the mansion's maid staff. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years. Von Bülow appealed, hiring Harvard University attorney, Alan Dershowitz, who took up his defense, portraying Sunny as an alcoholic drug abuser, subject to attacks of hypoglycemia. He called on high profile witnesses like writer Truman Capote and Joanne Carson, former wife of TV host Johnny Carson, to testify to Sunny’s extensive use of drugs. Sunny’s older children denied this.
Claus von Bülow's conviction was overturned on the grounds of mishandled evidence by police. In 1985, Rhode Island prosecutors charged him with attempted murder a second time, but he was acquitted.
Dershowitz wrote a book about the case called “Reversal of Fortune” that was made into a film of the same name starring Jeremy Irons as Claus von Bülow, Glenn Close as Sunny von Bülow, and Ron Silver as Dershowitz.
The movie portrayed Sunny much like the defense painted her, as a nagging wife with substance abuse issues. Her children objected to the depiction, saying: “Our mother has been portrayed as pathetic and self-destructive. We reject this injurious and erroneous portrayal.”
The von Auersperg children filed a $56 million civil suit against Claus von Bülow, in 1985. It was settled two years later with the agreement that von Bülow, who was 82 and living in London, would file for divorce and never speak in public about the case again. He renounced any claim to her fortune.
Sunny von Bülow spent almost 28 years in a coma. She died on December 6, 2008 in a care facility in New York City. She was 76.
