The Richest Girl in the World Died Alone

For a few decades of the twentieth century, two American baby girls were born a week apart and grew up sharing the same title: the richest girl in the world. One was Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress. The other was Doris Duke, who inherited a tobacco-and-power fortune at the age of twelve and spent her life quietly growing it into one of the largest private fortunes in America. So how did Doris Duke end up dying alone in 1993, with her butler placed in charge of her billion-dollar estate, and a court, forty lawyers, and three years of legal war deciding who was even allowed to touch it? In this documentary: how James Buchanan Duke built two fortunes in tobacco and electricity; how his daughter became a war correspondent, an art collector, and a preservationist, not the idle heiress the tabloids painted; how a lonely fortune gets circled at the end of a life; how the courts clawed the estate back from the people trying to capture it; and the wealth-protection lesson that explains why one "richest girl in the world" left a foundation that still gives away tens of millions a year, and the other died with about three thousand five hundred dollars. If you have ever wondered where old American fortunes really go, this one is for you. Next: the family that ruled American high society for fifty years, and then lost the money, the mansions, and even the name. Subscribe for more forgotten fortunes:    / @fortunesgraveyt   Sources: Forbes and Wall Street Journal archives; probate and court records; period newspapers via the Library of Congress; and the standard biographies of the era. No "experts say." No guessing. Images are public-domain and archival materials (Library of Congress; Wikimedia Commons, non-restricted), used under fair use for commentary, criticism, and education per Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. 0:00 The butler and the billion 2:27 The farm boy who built two empires 4:15 A 12-year-old, the richest girl in America 6:58 She wasn't a spoiled heiress 9:40 The other richest girl in the world 12:47 The daughter who lived one day 13:34 The circle closes in — enter the butler 15:47 Her health gives way 18:20 The will reads like a heist 21:09 The estate war becomes a spectacle 22:46 The court fires the thief — and the watchman 25:36 The fortune that outlived everyone 27:05 Two endings: Duke and Hutton 33:00 The money lived, the dynasty didn't #documentary #gildedage #dorisduke #oldmoney