Million Dollar American Princesses Episode Rating Graph

Host Elizabeth McGovern continues her exploration of the Million Dollar American Princesses who inspired the series "Downton Abbey" with the stories of three women who looked for love, but found disaster instead. Witness the tragic tales of Barbara Hutton, Clara Ward, and Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, women of beauty, wealth, and power, who married into European nobility but ended up shunned by society, family, and the happy endings they hoped to achieve.

They had passions for paintings, music, entertaining, and obliterating the constraints of societal norms. Meet the "Queens of Culture," three modern, empowered Million Dollar American Princesses who blazed a trail through the arts world in Europe and beyond. "Downton Abbey" star Elizabeth McGovern shows how Winnaretta Singer, Sara Murphy, and Peggy Guggenheim inspired and supported some of the most innovative creative talents of the 20th century, from Stravinsky and Picasso to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jackson Pollock.

Marriages between the daughters of new-money Americans and a cash-strapped British aristocracy hit its stride by 1895. But these unions come at a price, financially and emotionally. While some women find true love overseas, others, like Consuelo Vanderbilt, find themselves mired in misery, loneliness and scandal. Host Elizabeth McGovern reveals how their stories inspired the hit series "Downton Abbey." Then, she explores how the daughters of America's wealthy industrialists survived, and even thrived, in their new aristocratic surroundings.

They're commonly called "the nouveau riche." Snubbed by New York's old-money families, these ambitious new millionaires, along with their daughters, set their sights on England, and quickly gain entry into the highest levels of the British aristocracy. Join "Downton Abbey" star Elizabeth McGovern as she explores the first transatlantic marriages of the late 1800s. Some will be inspired by love. Some are destined to be simply crude dollar-for-title deals. All of them, collectively, will change the course of history.