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.
Lauren Bacall had guest starred in The Oracle (1963) which series had been headlined by Richard Chamberlain.
Richard Chamberlain and Mare Winningham had previously been castmates in Les oiseaux se cachent pour mourir (1983).
La vie secrète d'une milliardaire (1999) is an 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). 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.
The title of the series was derived from the book "Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke" by Pony Duke and Jason Thomas.