She Inherited a $100 Million Fortune — Then Everyone Turned Against Her

At twelve years old, Doris Duke inherited one of the largest fortunes in America. Newspapers called her “the richest girl in the world.” But what did that money cost her? In this documentary, we follow the life of Doris Duke, the only child of tobacco and power tycoon James Buchanan Duke, from her childhood among Gilded Age mansions to the bitter legal fight over her estate after her death in 1993. We look at her two failed marriages, the 1966 Newport accident that shadowed her for decades, her rise as a preservationist, and the final years in which her butler, her adopted daughter, and her lawyers all became part of the story. Did everyone really turn against her? The documented record tells a quieter and more complicated story than the title suggests. In this video: How James B. Duke built a tobacco and hydroelectric empire The inheritance that made Doris famous at twelve Her marriages to James Cromwell and Porfirio Rubirosa The Newport Restoration Foundation and Shangri La Bernard Lafferty, Chandi Heffner, and the estate battle Where the fortune ended up Note: Some figures, including the original inheritance amount, are press estimates and vary by source. Where records do not clearly establish something, we say so. Subscribe to Dark Vault for more true stories about old money, powerful families, and the secrets behind famous fortunes.