For the last 20 years of her life, Huguette Clark, a wealthy and reclusive copper heiress, lived in a Manhattan hospital room, shades drawn, door closed. She played with dolls, watched cartoons and followed the Bush v. Gore hanging chad debacle. (She favored Gore.) Within months of her arrival, the hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, went after her for an all-out fund-raising campaign. They researched her family history, had officials visit her often in her room and plied her with gifts. The effort, described in court documents, quickly extended to the hospital's chief executive and even his mother, who watched the Smurfs with Mrs. Clark and talked to her about making a will.
