Mark Birley (1930-2007)
Simple division
Nightclub owner Mark Birley had roughly one million pounds, one son and one daughter when he wrote his will. Easy peasy. He divided by two and left £50m to each.
Then he changed his mind - and his will. His son would now receive a mere £1m, a tidy but, in the circumstances, derisive sum. Why did the father change his mind, how would his son react to this 98 per cent reduction, and was a rumble in the legal jungle inevitable?
Birley changed his will for the most typical of reasons - a family dispute. But neither the family nor the dispute was typical.
What's in a name?
Although he had plenty of his own names to choose from, when Marcus Lecky Oswald Hornby Birley opened a nightclub in 1963, he named it after his then wife, Annabel. Soon, Annabel's - exclusive, expensive, chic in the extreme - attracted celebrities and aristocrats alike. The name of the club was better known than that of its owner.
At the opening-night gala, Annabel met one of the many guests, Sir James Goldsmith. They later married after she and Birley divorced in 1975. Annabel had given birth to two children by Goldsmith while she was still technically married to, but no longer living with, Birley. She and Birley remained on good terms, however, and she attended his funeral.
Name-Dropper's Paradise
The members-only Annabel's attracted the likes of Prince Charles, Frank Sinatra, Aristotle Onassis, American President Richard Nixon, and other prominent royals, politicians, entertainers and celebrities.
Shortly before marrying the Duke of York. Sarah Ferguson had her hen party at Annabel's. One guest, who was dressed as a policeman, was Princess Diana.
Annabel's was located in the basement of Crockfords, a casino owned by John Aspinall, who also had a private zoo. When Mark's son Robin was 12 years old, the boy was given a special treat: he was allowed to enter a tigress's den. The hitherto amiable tigress, who was pregnant, sunk her teeth into his face, crushing his cheekbones and scarring him for life despite numerous operations.
The Birley-Aspinall circle included Lord Lucan, who disappeared in 1974 after murdering his children's nanny. Mark's friends and advisers included Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. His sister Maxime de la Falaise and her daughter Lou Lou achieved fame in their own right in the fashion world.
Annabel's became a huge success quickly and enduringly. It was also the springboard from which Birley opened Harry's Bar and other businesses.
By the time he was in his 70s, Birley's medical roster included a knee operation, two serious falls, and a broken hip. No longer able to run Annabel's entirely by himself, he enlisted his son Robin and daughter India Jane into the business. (Another son, Rupert, had vanished without trace in Togo In 1986.)
This threesome fell at the first formidable barrier.
When India Jane had a child by her Canadian boyfriend, Robert Macdonald, Robin - despite himself having a son out of wedlock - was suspicious. Worried that Macdonald might be a gold-digger, he hired private detectives to investigate. The detectives cost £200,000. Robin paid them by dipping into the tills at the nightclub - without informing his father, let alone getting permission.
This money was unwisely spent in more ways than one. The detective provided Robin with a dark and wholly inaccurate - because wholly fabricated - portrayal of Macdonald, who was studying medicine. And when Mark Birley learned that Robin used company funds to pay for this fiction, he ripped up his old will and wrote the new one. India Jane was none too happy, either.
India Jane and Macdonald went their separate ways. In the new will, much of the dosh that had previously been earmarked for Robin went to their son Eben. Birley's other grandchild, Robin's daughter Maud, was not mentioned either in the old or new will, even though Maud and her mother lived in straitened circumstances. Robin married Lucy Ferry, ex-wife of Roxy Music lead singer Bryan Ferry, in 2006. His father did not attend the wedding.
After Birley died and details of his will became public, British newspapers reported that Robin had been left only £1m. Later, a long article in Vanity Fair magazine asserted that Robin was to receive a £5m bequest as well, both of them tax-free. Birley's home, Thurloe House, was apparently left to India Jane in both wills. It is worth about £35m.
Robin instructed solicitors to challenge the will, but before it reached the courts, India Jane, who had been married to a businessman, remarried. Robin was invited to the festivities, and he accepted. Brother and sister had evidently settled their differences. It emerged that
A juicy court case has been cut off in its prime. Robin was to receive about £35m - minus £200,000, an amount equivalent to the money he had appropriated from the nightclub to pay his fiction-minded detectives.
If the case had gone to court, Robin would have been up against not only his sister but also the trustees for her son, a minor. The trustees would have had no choice but to fight his corner as mightily as they could.
In addition, Mark Birley had taken the precaution of being examined by a doctor to attest to his mental capacity. Birley's short-term memory had become impaired, and for a time the powerful drugs he was taking affected him mentally, but many of his friends and associates would have testified that, overall, his thinking was unimpaired.
The settlement means that other beneficiaries will finally get their due, including the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (£100,000). Birley's caregiver was also a beneficiary.
No one inherited Annabel's or Birley's other clubs. A few months before he died, he sold them to Richard Caring, son of a British nurse and an American soldier. The price was a tad north of £100 million.
