Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke

***Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke*** is a 1999 American four-part television miniseries starring Lauren Bacall and Richard Chamberlain which was first broadcast on CBS on February 21 and 23, 1999. It was based primarily on the book *The Richest Girl in the World* by Stephanie Mansfield (Pinnacle Books issued a special movie tie-in edition of the book in February 1999)[1] as well as Bob Colacello's two in-depth articles about Ms. Duke in *Vanity Fair*. Colacello was the magazine's authority on Doris Duke.[2][3]

The title of the series was derived from the book *Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke* by Pony Duke and Jason Thomas.[4][5] Manfield's book was the first to be obtained by CBS, which optioned it for a planned miniseries in early 1995.[6] The Duke-Thomas book, which was "being peddled as a miniseries" by the authors months before publication (it was not published until December 1995),[6] was originally optioned earlier that year by the producer Doris Keating, who planned a miniseries of her own.[7]

*Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke* presents a dramatized account of the life of the heiress, philanthropist, and once richest woman in the world, Doris Duke. It has since been re-broadcast on The Hallmark Channel, and on Lifetime combined together and presented as a 192-minute movie. The film stars Hayden Panettiere as Young Doris Duke, Lindsay Frost as 20- to 50-year-old Doris Duke, and Lauren Bacall as an elderly Doris Duke. Bacall, who had met Doris Duke a few times, was pleased to have been able to appear in a TV miniseries, devoting a few paragraphs to the experience in her autobiography.[8]

While Bacall, Chamberlain and Frost were highly praised for their roles, most reviews of the miniseries were generally unfavorable.[9][10] The *Orlando Sentinel* went so far as to say: "If the real Duke were talking, a curse on the filmmakers would be likely."[11]

Another film about the relationship between Duke and her butler, Bernard Lafferty, *Bernard and Doris*, directed by Bob Balaban and starring Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes, was released in 2007 to much greater critical acclaim, receiving three Golden Globe and ten Emmy nominations.

## Plot

Doris Duke, the famous real-life billionairess, is seen going over her life as she prepares to die. Her life includes the early death of her loving father, being raised by a cold mother, two marriages and numerous affairs that still leave her hungry for love, a fascination with mystics and reincarnation, and a disastrous adoption late in life. Even now as she is dying, her roller-coaster life has one last bump in it: her butler, Bernard Lafferty, is suspected of arranging her death so he can get all her money.

## Cast

* Lauren Bacall as Doris Duke (elderly)

* Hayden Panettiere as Young Doris Duke

* Lindsay Frost as Doris Duke (age 20s to 50s)

* Richard Chamberlain as Bernard Lafferty
* Mare Winningham as Chandi Heffner
* Kathleen Quinlan as Nanaline Duke
* Michael Nouri as Porfirio Rubirosa
* Joe Don Baker as Buck Duke
* Roberta Maxwell as Myra
* Sheila McCarthy as Tammy
* Lisa Banes as Barbara Hutton
* Brian Stokes Mitchell as Duke Kahanamoku
* Brian Dennehy as Louis Bromfield
* Liam Cunningham as Alec Cunningham-Reid