The richest girl in the world

On November 22, 1912, Doris Duke was born in the family house on Seventy-eighth Street, New York. Her father [James Buchanan Duke, known as “Buck”] immediately cabled his friend Lady Paget in London, “Fine girl just arrived. Mother and child progressing satisfactorily.”

According to the received wisdom of 1912, and of her class, Nanaline Duke [Doris’s mother] seldom held Doris when she was a baby. Nanaline may have doubted her maternal competence after the death of her first child, prompting her to turn her baby daughter over to a series of uniformed nurses. The august presence and massive scale of the Seventy-eighth Street house certainly influenced the atmosphere of Doris’s childhood. The staff would have ministered to virtually all of her needs.

But in early childhood, Doris could always depend on her father’s affection. In 1923, when Doris was 11, Buck wrote to his daughter: “You certainly are the dearest daughter that any daddy ever had. Your affection and devotion to me are the brightest spot in my life.”

When Doris was eight, her mother enrolled her in the distinguished Brearley School for Girls, at Park Avenue and Sixty-first Street. Two years later, in 1922, while Doris was still at Brearley, Nanaline hired Mademoiselle Jenny Renaud as governess and companion. Jenny remained with Doris until 1935. The long-standing companionship she provided, the affection, understanding, and fun, proved essential to Doris’s development. With Jenny, Doris would venture out into the world.

Buck’s legacy

At 68, overweight, inactive, and a smoker of cigars, Buck had rapidly failing health. He must have had a sense of foreboding. In 1924, with his financial advisers – and nearly 12-year-old Doris often at his side – Buck drew up the terms of his will and of the Duke