Trust No One: The Glamorous Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke [Paperback]

Ted Schwarz (Author), Tom Rybak (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 1892323176 | ISBN-13: 978-1892323170

The first book written with a member of her personal staff, Trust No One reveals the fascinating and frightening story of golden-girl socialite and heiress Doris Duke.

With a fortune estimated at over 3 billion dollars and fabulous houses in Hawaii, Newport, Beverley Hills, and New York City, Doris Duke was one of the richest women in America, if not the world. Heiress to the American Tobacco Company fortune made by her father, James Duke, she took to heart her father's admonition "Trust no one!". Although she was a fixture on the international social scene and had countless lovers, ranging from celebrity Errol Flynn to Hawaiian beach boys, she remained desperately lonely. After two failed marriages and a notorious scandal, Duke became a semi-recluse whose behavior grew increasingly strange. But nothing in her life could compare with the headlines about her death, which included allegations of murder.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Details of the late tobacco heiress's life will be familiar to readers of her cousin Pony Duke's Too Rich (Knopf, 1996) and Stephanie Mansfield's The Richest Girl in the World (LJ 6/1/92). With Rybak, a former Duke employee, celebrity biographer Schwarz has done a competent job, but not everyone would speak to him, and the book becomes repetitive in the final chapters. Those looking for a solution to the puzzle of Duke's death?by an overdose of morphine at age 80, in 1993?won't find it here, but they will be given enough information to draw their own conclusions. The most interesting revelation in this "poor little rich girl" bio is that a 1917 study on the fatal long-term effects of cigarettes was destroyed by Doris's father, Buck Duke (another victim of a bizarre death). He then warned friends and family against smoking. Libraries with the above-mentioned titles should consider this one if demand warrants.?Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Depending on your interpretation of glamorous, this book could be more appropriately titled The Bizarre Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke. Born in 1912 to an unhappy union between a tobacco baron and his coldhearted, mean-spirited wife, Duke lost her father in early childhood, leaving her an unimaginable fortune estimated at her recent death as being more than $3 billion. After her father's death, which her mother was apparently instrumental in causing, Duke gradually won her independence from her mother and embarked on a life of failed marriages, sleazy affairs, drug and alcohol dependency, sensationally bizarre acts (like adopting a 35-year-old woman), trying out new religions, and jet-setting between her three exclusive properties. Duke died in her late 70s, and her death, shrouded in mystery, has been the subject of much speculation and innuendo. This book, while rendering a concise, if extremely dark, portrayal of the lives of the very wealthy, leaves the reader with the feeling of witnessing a bad car accident, horrified and repulsed yet somehow transfixed. Kathleen Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: Vivisphere Publishing (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892323176
• ISBN-13: 978-1892323170
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Trust No One, September 24, 2005

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Bobio (Tulare, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Trust No One: The Glamorous Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke (Paperback)

After touring Doris Duke's summer home in Newport, RI, I became increasing intrigued with Ms. Duke. So I sought a book about her life and I came across Trust No One. At first, I felt the initial chapters were plodding and dry, but I realized after reading a few chapters this foundation was needed to understand the woman Doris Duke became. The first chapters did a thorough background on Doris' father and mother, Buck and Nanaline Duke. Doris' father was the love of her life and he taught her how to become an astute business woman before he died when she was 13 years old. Doris Duke was a very complex woman. She was a philanthropist, and a very saavy businesswoman who multiplied her fortune by billions. She was also an avid art collector, a self-taught botanist and, last but not least, a fine jazz musician. Doris was also very flawed: she was an alcoholic; a drug abuser; and, was anorexic. All of this is explained in great detail in the book. It was factual, but yet there was a human side to the story, and I found it to be a great read. In the end, money cannot buy happiness or love - not even for Doris Duke. (Written by Kathee Duncan)

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doris Disappointment, April 28, 2008

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dragonfly12882 "dragonfly12882" (Franklin Park, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trust No One: The Glamorous Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke (Paperback)

The only reason I gave this one a '2' was that it's a very interesting look into Doris Duke's life with alot of insider perspective(one of the co-writers was her chef). However, this book looks entirely unedited and had atrocious spelling, grammer, mistakes ALL OVER and it was unacceptable.

BIGGEST EXAMPLE: The author's name is spelled differently on the front cover and side binding. Was there ANYONE proofreading this book?

Doris' was constantly spelled Doris'ss or Doris's and words didn't have spaces in between them.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Training Manual for Would-Be Proofreaders...., April 26, 2001

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"skoom5000" (NY, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trust No One: The Glamorous Life and Bizarre Death of Doris Duke (Paperback)

Anything interesting in the content of this book is offset by how poorly written (and edited) it is. It repeats the same well-worn Doris Duke anecdotes included in any Duke biography, but it is riddled with so many typos and grammatical errors that I began to suspect I had been conned into buying a self-published book by a semi-literate Duke afficianado! I tried not to be put off by such errors, but after that tenth time I read the possessive "Doris Duke'ss". On the plus side, some of the errors make for the occassional unintentional laugh, such as when the reader learns that Duke's butler (who was with Duke when she died in 1993) died in "1966"! Spend your money on a real book...