WORLD'S RICHEST GIRL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORLD'S RICHEST GIRL

" QUIET, SHY, LITTLE LADY " GIFT OF £2,250,000 FEARS OF KIDNAPPERS Some secrets of the private life of the world's richest girl were told recently at Somerville, New Jersey, United States of America. She is " D. D.," —Doris Duke —the beautiful heiress who has just received more than £2,250,000 as a coming-of-age birthday present. According to intimate friends there is nothing hectic about the elusive millionairess. Far from it. " D. D.," as she is known, is just a nice, quiet, shy little lady, kind and very human, a tall and slender blonde. Contrary to the many stories that have been spun about her, Miss Duke lives quietly and normally. Invariably she is accompanied by her bodyguard, because of the fears that she might be kidnapped and held to ransom, but this is not so always. The £2,250,000 birthday present that Miss Duke received is one-third of the residuary estate of £6,800,000, which was left by her father, James B. Duke, who died in 1925, after making one of the world's greatest fortunes out of tobacco. Sho will have to wait another nine j r ears—until she is 30—before she obtains control of the full amount. On reaching 21, she has automatically become a trustee of the £30,000,000 Duke Endowment Fund created by her father for educational welfare and religious and medical aid. In addition to her Somerville estate, Miss Duke owns a luxurious town house in New York, valued at £320,000, con-

taining furniture worth £120,000, and managed by 16 servants. She owns Hough Point, a Tudor-style castle at Newport, Rhode Island; Lynnewood* an estate near fornia, and a villa off the French' Riviera. But the beautiful heiress is not always happy. " I wish I could go to shops and buy things just like an ordinary girl," she Bighs. "When people know who I am, prices usually go up twice as high." She finds she cannot be just " ordinary " in public, but she certainly makes sure that she is " ordinary " in private. Like millions of other girls the whole world over, she practises her piano every day. She wants to be ordinary—just " ordinary!"