Eagle Eye Drama has acquired television rights to Matthew Sweet’s biography The Great Dictator, about the flamboyant author and public figure Dame Barbara Cartland. The ITV Studios-owned production company plans to develop her extraordinary life into a scripted series, highlighting her influence, public image and complicated private world.

Cartland, born in 1901, was known for her pink outfits, Pekinese dogs and romance novels, which sold nearly a billion copies in 38 languages. She mixed with figures including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, was Princess Diana’s step-grandmother, and was described as the third-best-selling author of all time; Sweet’s book, published this month, draws on extensive family archives and has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.