Reventlow was the only child of American socialite Barbara Hutton — then among the wealthiest women in the world through her inheritance of the Woolworth department store fortune — and Danish nobleman of German descent Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow. He was born at Winfield House in London, a property his mother restored and named for her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. His birth was difficult and his mother nearly died during delivery. As a child he suffered from respiratory problems and asthma.
His parents' marriage, Barbara Hutton's second of seven, was tumultuous and ended in divorce in 1938, after which Reventlow became the subject of a custody battle. His father was awarded custody in 1944 until school age, before the mother was to regain custody; the father sent Reventlow to Canada before relinquishing him, and Hutton recovered custody in 1945. Reventlow remained largely estranged from his father until the Count's death in 1969. His stepfathers included actor Cary Grant and Prince Igor Troubetzkoy.
In 1948, at age 12, Reventlow was introduced to Grand Prix motor racing when his mother married Prince Igor Troubetzkoy, who won the Targa Florio that year. His wealth as a teenager allowed him access to exotic cars, drawing him into club racing. In Hollywood he became friends with fellow automobile enthusiast James Dean and competed in club events around California. On 30 September 1955, Reventlow and Bruce Kessler were among the last people to speak with Dean, meeting him en route to an auto race in Salinas, California. Reventlow had coffee with Dean at a restaurant approximately thirty minutes before Dean was killed in an accident near Cholame, California, while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder.
Reventlow began his professional career in America in the mid-1950s, initially driving a Mercedes before moving to an 1100cc Cooper in 1956. The following year he travelled to Europe to buy a Maserati, which he crashed heavily at Snetterton without injury. He briefly drove a Cooper Formula 2 car before returning to the United States.
He then established his own company in Venice, California, to build Chevrolet-powered race cars he named Scarab, with Phil Remington as chief engineer. With hired driver Chuck Daigh, the team won the majority of major sportscar events they entered, often against the Cunningham team's Lister Jaguar cars. Reventlow had considered purchasing a Lister Jaguar but concluded he could build a better car. Daigh drove a Scarab to victory at the 1958 Riverside International Grand Prix in California, defeating a field that included Phil Hill and the Ferrari team. Carroll Shelby drove a Scarab to first place at Continental Divide Raceways in Castle Rock, Douglas County, Colorado, breaking the course record.
Reventlow's team was widely noted for building the first Formula One car constructed in America. The team shifted operations to Britain, but achieved limited success in Formula One against the new rear-engined cars. Reventlow returned to the drawing board and built a competitive prototype rear-engined Scarab, but had lost interest in racing before testing was complete. In 1962 he shut down the operation, leased the California facilities to Shelby, and quit auto racing entirely.
In a 1971 interview Reventlow confirmed that his organisation had built eight Scarabs in total: three front-engined Chevrolet-powered sports cars, three front-engined formula cars, one rear-engined formula car, and one rear-engined sports car. Two of the front-engined formula cars were powered by engines drawn up by American racing engine designer Leo Goossen to Reventlow's specifications; the third was powered by a Goossen-designed Offenhauser engine. The rear-engined formula car used a modified Buick powerplant; that engine and the suspension and brake package were subsequently transferred to the rear-engined sports car, the last Scarab built.
At the 1960 British Grand Prix, Reventlow drove the Cooper in practice only; Daigh took over driving duties for the race.
At age 21 Reventlow chose American citizenship over Danish or British, remarking he had thought it over "for a full 20 seconds." On 24 March 1960 he married actress Jill St. John at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. St. John filed for legal separation in July 1962 but withdrew the suit; she filed for divorce in October 1963 citing extreme cruelty, alleging Reventlow called her "stupid and incompetent" in front of others and pressured her into dangerous sports. The divorce was granted on 30 October 1963. While estranged from St. John, Reventlow dated actress Sherry Jackson. On 6 November 1964 he married former Mouseketeer Cheryl Holdridge in a Hollywood ceremony before 600 guests. Barbara Hutton, unable to attend due to illness, gave the couple a $500,000 five-bedroom home on 21 acres in Benedict Canyon.
In 1972 Reventlow was seeking real-estate partners to build a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado, where he owned a home. Although an experienced pilot — rated for IFR on multi-engine aircraft with thousands of logged hours — he was travelling as a passenger on 24 July 1972, scouting locations in a hired single-engine Cessna 206. The pilot was a 27-year-old student with only 39 hours' flying time who flew into a blind canyon during a thunderstorm and stalled the aircraft while attempting to turn around. The plane crashed, killing all four aboard. Reventlow was initially buried; his remains were later exhumed, cremated, and interred in the Woolworth mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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