A miniseries (also mini-series), in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term. Various British television productions dating as far back as the 1950s can technically be labelled as miniseries, though in the UK these are referred to as "serials".

Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Though also a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels. The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, deals with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics and power. Dune itself is the "best-selling science fiction novel of all time," and the series is widely considered to be among the classics in the genre.

Frank Herbert was born on October 8, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington, to Frank Patrick Herbert Sr. and Eileen McCarthy Herbert. Due to a poor home environment, he ran away from home in 1938 to live with an aunt and uncle in Salem, Oregon. There he enrolled in high school at Salem High School (now North Salem High School) where he graduated the next year. In 1939 he lied about his age in order to get his first newspaper job at the Glendale Star. Herbert then returned to Salem in 1940 where he worked for the Oregon Statesman newspaper (now Statesman Journal) in a variety of roles, including photographer.

Jacqueline Jill "Jackie" Collins (born 4 October 1937) is an English novelist and former actress. She is the younger sister of actress Joan Collins. She has written 28 novels, all of which have appeared on the New York Times bestsellers list. In total, her books have sold over 400 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. Eight of her novels have been adapted for the screen, either as films or television mini-series.

Collins was born in London in 1937, the younger daughter of Elsa Bessant and Joseph William Collins (died 1988), a theatrical agent whose clients included Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones. Collins' South African-born father was Jewish and her British mother was Anglican. A middle child, Collins has an elder sister, actress Joan Collins (b. 1933) and a younger brother, Bill Collins (b. 1946).

At 15, Collins was expelled from school; after which, she threw her school uniform in the Thames. During this period she reportedly had a brief affair with Marlon Brando, who was 29 at the time.

Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE (born 23 May 1933), is an English actress, author and columnist. Born in Paddington and brought up in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. After making her stage debut in A Doll's House at the age of 9, she was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. After eighteen months at the drama school, she was signed to an exclusive contract by the Rank Organisation and appeared in various British films.

At the age of 22, Collins headed to Hollywood and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958). While she continued to make films in the US and the UK throughout the 1960s, her career languished in the 1970s, where she appeared in a number of horror flicks. Near the end of the decade, she starred in two films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins: The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979). Returning to her theatrical roots, she played the title role in the 1980 British revival of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and later had a lead role in the 1990 revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. In 1981, Collins landed Alexis Colby, the role for which she is perhaps best known, in the long-running 1980s television soap opera Dynasty.

Timothy Peter Dalton (born 21 March 1946) is a British actor of film and television. He is known for portraying James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries Scarlett (1994), an original sequel to Gone with the Wind. In addition, he is known for his roles as King Phillip II of France in the 1968 Academy-award winning The Lion In Winter, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1970), Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1983), Prince Barin in Flash Gordon (1980), Shakespearean films and plays such as Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Henry V, Love's Labour's Lost, Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2. Recently, he had a voice acting part in Toy Story 3 as Mr. Pricklepants and portrayed the recurring character of Alexei Volkoff in the US TV series Chuck and Rassilon in the Doctor Who two-part episode "The End of Time".

Dalton was born in Colwyn Bay, Denbighshire, North Wales to an English father, who was a captain in the Special Operations Executive during World War II and had become an advertising executive at the time of his son's birth, and an American mother of Italian and Irish descent. Before his fourth birthday, the family moved back to England to Milford, a village near Belper, Derbyshire. While in Milford, he attended the Herbert Strutt Grammar School. As a teenager, he was a member of the Air Cadets. He decided to become an actor at 16 after seeing a production of Macbeth. He left school in 1964 to enroll in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and tour with the National Youth Theatre. Dalton did not complete his RADA studies, leaving the academy in 1966 to join the ensemble of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.