20 Stars Whose Wills Destroyed Their Families

 

Death did not end these Hollywood fortunes. It only opened the door to forged wills, betrayed families, vanished millions, and courtroom wars that lasted for decades. Howard Hughes’ supposed handwritten will promised $156 million to a gas station operator before a jury exposed it as a forgery. Peter Sellers left his three children just 750 pounds each while almost his entire fortune passed to the wife he had been trying to divorce.

 And Tony Curtis deliberately cut all six of his children out of his will before nearly 500 of his possessions were sold at auction for more than $1 million. One, Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes died in 1976 without a valid will, leaving  a $2.5 billion estate. Three weeks later, a handwritten will appeared at Mormon Church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

 It gave 1/16, about $156 million, to Melvin Dummar, a gas station operator. Dummar claimed he had found a disheveled man beside a Nevada highway, driven him to the Sands Hotel, and learned at the end that he was Hughes. Investigators found Dummar’s fingerprint on the envelope. He admitted delivering it but said a stranger had left it at his station.

 Detectives also found his prints on a book and magazine containing samples of Hughes’ handwriting at a college library.  After a 7-month trial, a Las Vegas jury declared the will forged. Dummar received nothing. In 1983, 22 relatives were recognized as the principal heirs, although distributions and litigation over the remaining assets continued  for years.

Two, Lana Turner. Lana Turner died in 1995 with an estate valued at about $1.7 million. dollars. In her final will, Turner left her only daughter, Cheryl Crane, and Crane’s partner, Joyce Leroy, selected personal belongings and a combined $50,000 bequest. Almost everything else went to Carmen Lopez Cruz, Turner’s assistant, housekeeper, and caregiver of 45 years.

 Cheryl Crane challenged the arrangement, while Cruz expected to receive the bulk of the estate. Cruz later said that probate costs, legal fees, and medical expenses consumed most of the trust. Cruz eventually sued the trustees,  saying Turner had intended to make her financially secure, but that the estate had been drained before distribution.

Cruz said she received virtually nothing from the $1.7 million fortune. Three, Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy Davis Jr. died in 1990, leaving an estate valued at about $4 million and more than $5.2 million in federal tax debt. Because his widow, Altovise Davis, had signed joint tax returns, the IRS pursued both her and the estate.

 In 1991, hundreds of Sammy’s possessions went to auction. His tap shoes sold for $11,000, 10 canes for $7,150, a director’s chair for $3,850, and gold record-shaped cufflinks for $2,250. The sale raised roughly $439,000. Months later, another cache surfaced in a Burbank storage locker rented under the name of a man whose driver’s license had been stolen.

 After he received a $365 storage  bill, police opened the unit. Inside were Sammy’s trumpet, antique record player, jukebox, and records, including The Candy Man. The IRS seized the entire locker. Four, Bela Lugosi. Bela Lugosi died in 1956 without having granted Universal any written merchandising rights to his Dracula  likeness.

 Four years later, Universal began licensing his face on masks, model figures, pencil sharpeners, card games, soap, candy dispensers,  kites, belts, and beverage stirrers. By 1966, the studio had signed about 50 deals. The contracts allowed Lugosi’s unmistakable face, but prohibited manufacturers from using his name.

 His widow Hope and son Bela Jr. reopened the estate and sued. Roughly 35 disputed licenses had produced Universal more than $260,000 in royalties. A trial judge awarded the family $53,023 plus interest and permanently blocked further licensing. In 1979, the California Supreme Court reversed everything, ruling that Lugosi’s publicity right died with him.

 The damages and injunction were erased. Five, Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, leaving 75% of her residual estate and her personal effects to acting teacher Lee Strasberg. When Strasberg died in 1982, the collection passed to his third wife Anna, whom Monroe had not named in her will. Anna placed 576 lots with Christie’s in 1999, raising $13.

4 million over two days. She later created Marilyn Monroe LLC to license Monroe’s name and image. The Happy Birthday, Mr. President dress sold for $1,267,500.  Monroe’s diamond wedding ring from Joe DiMaggio brought $772,500 despite one missing stone. Mariah Carey paid $662,500 for Marilyn’s white piano, which the actress had recovered after it was sold from her mother’s home.

 In 2011, Anna sold her majority stake in Marilyn Monroe LLC for an estimated $30 million. Six, Sherman Hemsley. Sherman Hemsley died in 2012, leaving his estate worth more than $50,000 to manager and housemate Flora Enchinton. His will, signed on June 13th, about 6 weeks before his death from lung cancer, named Flora sole beneficiary and executor.

 After Hemsley’s death, Philadelphia resident Richard Thornton came forward claiming to be his half-brother  and sought to have him buried in Pennsylvania. Flora filed for probate.  Thornton claimed Hemsley’s signature was forged or that he lacked mental capacity. DNA testing found a 99.99% probability that Thornton and Hemsley were half-brothers.

  Thornton testified that their father, a Methodist minister, had fathered Hemsley in an extramarital relationship. Hemsley remained refrigerated at an El Paso funeral home for nearly 4 months. A judge upheld the will and Flora buried him at Fort  Bliss. Seven, Marlon Brando. Marlon Brando died in 2004, leaving an estate worth more than $20 million.

13 days before his death, a codicil removed Alice Marchak, his long-time confidant, and Jo Ann Corrales, his business manager. They were replaced as executors by producer Mike Medavoy, accountant Larry Dressler, and Brando associate Avra Douglas. Angela Borlaza, Brando’s live-in caregiver and household manager, claimed he was medicated, >>  >> confused, and unable to understand the change.

 She said the signature lacked a private code Brando used on genuine documents. Borlaza claimed Brando had bought a house for her and promised to transfer the deed. After his death, the new executors evicted her and sold the property. She sued for $627,000, the house’s reported market value plus  $2 million in punitive damages, but settled all her claims for $125,000.

The deed  had never been transferred. Eight, Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers died in 1980 before his divorce from fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, became final, leaving a 4.5 million pounds estate. >>  >> They had signed a divorce settlement limiting Frederick to a lump sum payment and their Los Angeles home.

 Because the final divorce decree was never issued, it did not block her rights under his will. She inherited properties, artwork, family heirlooms, film rights, and almost the entire fortune. Sellers’ children, Michael, Sarah, and Victoria, received 750 pounds each. They could not challenge the will as omissions because each had been deliberately named and given a token sum.

 Sellers’ friend, Spike Milligan, and first wife, Anne, asked Frederick  to make a larger settlement for his children. She refused. After Frederick died in 1994, Sellers’ fortune and royalties passed to her daughter, Cassie, who had never met him. Nine, Rudolph Valentino. Rudolph Valentino died in 1926, leaving former wife, Natacha Rambova, $1 and placing the rest of his estate in trust for his nephew, Jean.

 Until Jean turned 25, executor George Ullman was instructed to make monthly payments to Valentino’s brother, Alberto, sister Maria, and Rambova’s aunt Teresa Werner. But, the estate was heavily indebted, so 4 months later, Ullman issued a 95-page catalog for a 5-day public auction. >>  >> More than 2,000 lots included three cars, a powerboat, medieval armor, seven cameras, 60 pairs of custom shoes, horses, and Valentino’s dogs.

 Crowds toured his Whitley Heights home and tore flowers from the garden as souvenirs. >>  >> No bid on the Whitley Heights house exceeded its $10,000 mortgage, so that sale was abandoned. Valentino’s two Italian mastiffs were sold for $58 and $60.  10. Leona Helmsley. Leona Helmsley died in 2007, leaving $12 million in trust for her Maltese, Trouble.

 Two grandchildren received nothing for reasons known to them. Two other grandchildren received $5 million each outright, and another $5 million each in trust. The trust portion would terminate if they failed to visit their father’s grave annually and sign a register  proving it. Helmsley also ordered that Trouble eventually be buried beside her in the family mausoleum.

 Her brother, named as the dog’s caretaker, refused. Trouble was flown to a Florida hotel, where the trust paid about $100,000 yearly for security after death threats, $8,000 for grooming, $1,200 for food, and a $60,000 guardian fee. A judge cut the dog’s trust to $2 million, and awarded $6 million to the disinherited grandchildren.

 New York law barred Trouble from Helmsley’s mausoleum. The dog was cremated. 11. Diana Dors. Diana Dors died in 1984,  leaving her son Mark Dawson an encrypted map to a fortune she claimed exceeded 2 million pounds. 2 years earlier, she had handed him a page of coded letters and said husband Alan Lake knew the key.

 5 months after her death, Lake also died leaving Mark with the sheet but no instructions. Nearly 20 years later, computer forensic specialists identified a Vigenere cipher using Demary Fluck from Dors’s birth name, Diana Mary Fluck, and a bank statement found among Lake’s papers,  they decoded the message. It revealed only surnames and European towns, not account numbers or bank addresses.

>>  >> The experts suggested that a second page containing the missing details may have vanished. No bank account and none of the alleged 2 million pounds were ever found. 12. Rock Hudson. Rock Hudson died in 1985, leaving his estate to a private trust.  After Hudson’s death, former live-in partner Mark Christian sued the estate saying Hudson  and secretary Mark Miller had concealed Hudson’s AIDS diagnosis while their relationship continued.

 Christian repeatedly tested negative for HIV but said learning the truth from television caused years of fear and emotional distress. In 1989, a jury found outrageous conduct and awarded him 14.5 million dollars in compensatory damages then added 7.25 million dollars against Miller, 21.75 million dollars in total.  A judge cut that to 5 million dollars in compensation and 500,000 dollars in punitive damages.

>>  >> The state appeals court upheld the 5.5 million dollars award. The estate ended further appeals with a confidential settlement. Christian later said he received less than 6 million dollars. 13. W.C. Fields. W.C. Fields died in 1946, leaving most of an $800,000 estate to create a Los Angeles college for  white orphan boys and girls where no religion could be taught.

 His estranged wife, Harriet, and son challenged the clause. In 1949, Judge McKay struck down the clause, ruling that Fields could not require the state to administer a racially discriminatory charity. A later compromise preserved only $25,000 for white orphans attending an existing college.

 Taxes, family claims, and legal fees consumed much of the fortune. Harriet ultimately received the bulk of the remaining estate, while companion Carlotta Monti and several relatives received smaller payments. The trustee resigned in 1956 when the estate was nearly exhausted. Probate closed in 1963, 16 years after Fields died. The W.C. Fields college was never built.

14, Lucille Ball. Lucille Ball died in 1989, leaving her Palm Springs home and many personal effects to husband, Gary Morton. After Gary died in 1999, many of those items passed to his next wife, Susie Morton. In 2010, she consigned more than 120 Ball-related lots to Heritage Auctions. A Rolls-Royce, private letters, photographs, an address book, jewelry, backgammon boards, and lifetime achievement awards.

 Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, claimed several items had been left to her and asked a judge to stop the sale. The judge required a $250,000 bond. Lucie could not post it. Her lawyers recovered the awards, but the remaining property went under the hammer. The Rolls-Royce sold for $29,875, the address book for $8,962 and Ball’s first personal letter to Gary  for $3,883.

The auction raised $230,780. 15, Doris Duke. Doris Duke died in 1993, leaving a $1.2 billion estate largely to charity and extraordinary control to her butler, Bernard Lafferty. Her will made Lafferty the sole individual co-executor and allowed him to choose the corporate co-executor.

 He selected US Trust, which later gave him an unsecured $825,000 loan. Court findings said he used estate homes and credit cards as his own, crashed Duke’s  Cadillac, then obtained a replacement car and chauffeur at estate expense. Money also went into renovating Falcon Lair, Duke’s Los Angeles mansion, where he continued living.

 The Surrogate’s Court removed Lafferty for wasting assets, commingling funds, and alcohol abuse. New York’s highest court later reversed the summary removal because Lafferty and US Trust  had not received a proper evidentiary hearing. It did not exonerate them on the underlying allegations. He finally surrendered control for a $4.

5 million executor’s fee plus Duke’s $500,000 annual bequest. 16, George Reeves. George Reeves died in 1959, leaving most of an estate valued between $25,000 and $40,000 to Toni Mannix, his former lover and the wife of MGM executive Eddie Mannix. His will gave Toni the Benedict Canyon house, his car, and the money in his bank account.

 The remaining property went to his mother, Helen Bessolo. Reeves’ fiance, Leonore Lemmon, who was in the house the night he died and expected to marry him days later, received nothing. Helen immediately challenged the will, insisting Reeves had created another document naming Lemmon as a beneficiary. No second will was ever  found.

 Her lawyer also announced that $5,000 had disappeared from Reeves’ house before or after the coroner’s seal was placed on the door. 17, Orson Welles. Orson Welles died in 1985, leaving his unfinished film materials to long-time partner Oja Kodar, while daughter Beatrice managed his estate. >>  >> One of his major unfinished projects, The Other Side of the Wind, was also partly owned by a French company financed  by Mehdi Boucheri, brother-in-law of Iran’s deposed Shah.

After the Iranian Revolution, the new government briefly tried to seize the negative as property of the former regime. It then sat in a Paris vault while Kodar, Beatrice, and Boucheri’s heirs fought over ownership and release terms. In 2017, after a deal with Netflix, more than 1,000 reels, nearly 100 hours of footage, were packed onto eight pallets and flown to Los Angeles.

The film premiered in 2018, 33 years after Welles died. 18, Judy Garland. Judy Garland died in 1969 with an estate valued at about $40,000 and debts large enough to wipe out  the gifts in her will. The IRS already held liens on her home, recording contract, and future earnings. Her 1961 will promised money to relatives, friends, and charities, but the estate could not pay those bequests.

Liza Minnelli helped settle the remaining debts with assistance from Frank Sinatra. In 1978, ex-husband Sidney Luft and children Lorna and Joey auctioned 423 surviving lots at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Fans bought Garland’s false eyelashes, copper cookware, fruit knives, costumes, sheet music, and a frying pan for $50.

The 2-day sale raised about $250,000, six times the value left in her estate.  19, Groucho Marx. Groucho Marx died in 1977 with an estate estimated at $2.6 million. His will left $150,000 and control of his films, television shows,  and other entertainment properties to Erin Fleming, his secretary and manager, while most of the remaining estate went to his children.

 Bank of America, the executor, sued Fleming, accusing her of obtaining more than $400,000 from the aging comedian through fraud. At trial, daughter Melinda testified that Fleming had told her, “I am his daughter. He doesn’t have any other daughters but me.” Another witness said Groucho was restricted to a $10 clothing allowance while Fleming used his money to buy a house.

 After 11 days of deliberation, the jury ordered Fleming to repay $221,843 and added $250,000 in punitive damages. The judge later vacated the punitive award leaving the compensatory judgment in place. 20, Tony Curtis. Tony Curtis died in 2010, five months after rewriting his will to leave everything to sixth  wife Jill and nothing to his children.

 The document named each child and stated, “I acknowledge the existence of my children and have intentionally and with full knowledge chosen not to provide for them.” No explanation appeared. A year later, Jill sent nearly 500 possessions to Julien’s Auctions without consulting the family. A signed Andy Warhol Some Like It Hot Shoe Lithograph sold  for $53,125.

Curtis’s Yachtsman Jacket from the film for $46,875. And his Firebird Convertible for $21,250. Correspondence with Cary Grant, Picasso, and other celebrities also went under the hammer. The auction exceeded $1 million. His children said they received no keepsakes  and none of the proceeds.