Newsmakers - Recent Wills

Entries for the famous, the infamous, and the nearly anonymous

Henry Cooper (1934-2011)

Liliane Bettencourt (b.1922)

The Duchess of Alba (b.1926)

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

Jimi Heselden (1948-2010)

Humphrey Lyttleton (1921-2008)

Alexander McQueen (1969-2010)

Tony Curtis (1925-2010)

Spike Milligan (1918-2002)

Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner (1926-2010)

Edward Stobart (1954-2011)

Huguette Clark (1906-2011)

Donald Windham (1920-2010)

Nina Wang (1937-2007) and Teddy Wang (1933-1999)

Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010)

Elaine Kaufman (1929-2010)

Henry Cooper (1934-2011)

Sir Henry Cooper was British, European and Commonwealth - but never World - heavyweight champion, although he was a genuine contender. Cooper, a widower, left his estate of just under £750,000 to his two sons - less than would have been the case had he not sustained losses as a ‘Name’ in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market. Cooper's highest personal achievement was his OBE in 1969. The high point in his professional career was when he knocked down Mohammed Ali in a championship bout that he ultimately lost.

Liliane Bettencourt (b.1922)

Liliane Bettencourt, multi-billionaire L'Oréal matriarch and heiress, lost a crucial, perhaps the final, round of a multi-year battle with her daughter, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers. In the mid-2000s, Liliane Bettencourt showered a small fortune on a photographer friend. Her money also allegedly found its way into the pockets of politicians, causing a major political scandal (Bettencourt's former butler secretly taped 21 hours of conversations during which juicy tax and political issues were discussed). Finally, in October 2011, a neurologist, a psychologist and a judge determined that the 89-year-old Bettencourt was not mentally competent to control her own fortune. She owns approximately thirty per cent of L'Oréal, which was founded by her father, Eugène Schueller. 

Duchess of Alba (b.1926)

María del Rosario Cayetana Victoria Alfonsa Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva and Alfonso Díez were married in Spain in October 2011. This was no ordinary marriage, the bride was no ordinary woman. She is the frizzy-haired flamenco-dancing Duchess of Alba, a billionaire several times over and, at 85 years old, marrying a man 25 years her junior. Her six children were hardly thrilled at this, her third marriage. To allay their fears, she released the details of her will, which divided her property among them (much is controlled by a foundation anyway). She said, too, that her husband renounced claims to her estate. Her fortune includes 20,000 rare books, and more than double that number of paintings and other art works.

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

Singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home on 23 July 2011. She was 27. The five-time Grammy award winner had drunk herself to death. She had 416mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood - more than five times above the legal drink-drive limit ( 80mg) and also above the amount considered fatal (350mg).

Winehouse made a new will after she divorced Blake Fielder-Civil, leaving her multi-million-pound estate primarily to her father, mother and brother. Her father, Mitch, also a singer, was performing in New York when his daughter died. At some point shortly after she died, some items from her home went missing.

On 14 September, which would have been the singer's 28th birthday, Winehouse's father launched the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity to aid vulnerable young people. The Foundation's assets will be bolstered by profits from her popular album Back to Black, the Duets II album she recorded with Tony Bennett, and her solo album “Lioness: Hidden Treasures,” released posthumously in December 2011.

Jimi Heselden, OBE(1948-2010)

Jimi Heselden, who died after falling from a cliff near Wetherby, West Yorkshire, left his fortune of more than £340m to his widow and family. Heselden's firm, Hesco Bastion, manufactured "blast wall" basket, which are filled with sand - they are shipped as flat packs - which protect soldiers and are also used in floods and for soil erosion. His company also owned and manufactured Segway two-wheel scooters. The coroner concluded that Heselden, who had been riding a Segway just before he fell, might have courteously been trying to make room for a passerby when he fell. His Leeds Community Foundation donated £23m to Leeds charities, and he also supported Help For Heroes.

Humphrey Lyttleton (1921-2008)

The Eton-born jazz trumpeter and host of radio's Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Humph left a £1.2m estate, to be divided among his four children. A few years after his death, his son David was claiming council tax benefit and income support - and allegedly withheld the fact that he had inherited a was from his father.

Alexander McQueen (1969-2010)

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen, whose firm designed the wedding dress of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, had an estate worth £16m. He also £250,000 to each of his three sisters and two brothers, £50,000 to his godson and each of his nieces and nephews, and £50,000 to each of his two housekeepers. He arranged for a £50,000 trust fund to support his pet dogs, and he left £100,000 each to various charities ( the Terrence Higgins Trust, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the London Buddhist Centre and the Blue Cross). He left the remainder in a trust for his Sarabande charity, with a wish that the charity consider funding grants for students at his alma mater, Central St Martin's College of Art and Design in London.

Tony Curtis (1925-2010)

Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz) had several children, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis, with three of his five wives. He had none with wife number five, Jill Vandenberg Curtis. He left nothing to any of his children, writing in his will that he "intentionally and with full knowledge [has] chosen not to provide for them." Well, nobody's perfect. One of his children (not Jamie Lee Curtis) failed in an attempt to legally contest the will. Among the best known of his 140 films were Some Like it Hot and Spartacus.

Spike Milligan (1918-2002), Shelagh Milligan (d.2011)

Shelagh Milligan, widow of legendary comedian Spike, died in June 2011, aged 67. She had no children but Spike did, and they will be very interested in her will. Spike, of Goon Show fame, had three children with his first wife, one with his second, none with Shelagh, and two illegitimate children. He provided for his children in his will - and then changed it, leaving everything to Shelagh. This will was challenged in the High Court, with a judge ruling that Shelagh could have the bulk of the estate, and the children were entitled to “what was surplus to requirements.”

Sheila's estate will be larger than Spike's, which totalled slightly more than half a million pounds. She sold their matrimonial home for £800,000 and her assets were bolstered by, among other things, proceeds from the sale of his memorabilia. Details of her will - when available - will be reported here.

Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner (1926-2010)

Lord Glenconner owned properties in Scotland and the Caribbean, and apparently had separate wills for each. Seven months before he died, aged 83, he changed his Caribbean will. He disinherited his family, a fact they discovered only after his demise.

Glenconner and his wife, who was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, lived separate lives, on separate continents. Glenconner lived, and died, in St Lucia, but he is best remembered for Mustique, the Caribbean island he once owned. His neighbour was Princess Margaret, who built a home on a plot of land he had given her. Glenconner left his St Lucia beachside house to his devoted friend of 26 years, Kent Adonai.

Glenconner's two sons predeceased him. According to the Scotland Herald, his grandson Euan inherited his Peeblesshire castle, and his grandson Cody inherited the title.

Glenconner was also the biological father of Joshua Bowler, whose mother, artist's model Henrietta Moraes (Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud painted her) had a brief fling with Glenconner. Delighted by the belated news that Bowler was his son, Glenconner reportedly said that he would include him in his will. Glenconner's sister is novelist Emma Tennant.

Edward Stobart (1954-2011)

The great haulage master started with eight trucks and 12 employees,  and grew those numbers to some 1,000 lorries and 2,000 staff. He sold the business in 2004 and managed, somehow, to die bankrupt. End of story (unless and until we find out why he died broke).

Huguette Clark (1906-2011)

William Andrews Clark (1839-1925) left his daughter Huguette a small fortune, including art works by Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck, and fiddles by Stradivarius.

When she died on 24 May 2011 at the age of 104, Huguette still had the art collection to pass on, bolstered by other possessions including a 42-room apartment in Manhattan, mansions in California and Connecticut, and a valuable antique doll collection.

And pass it on she did, via a will that favoured numerous people and charities but not her relatives.  A fight was inevitable - especially when, six months after her death, it was revealed that she had made a will much more favourable to her kin only two weeks earlier. Let the games begin. (full story)

Donald Windham (1920-2010)

June 2011: American writer Donald Windham (2010) inherited some money, earned more and, in his own will, left a bundle to fund lucrative annual literary prizes - several grants of $150,000 each. The Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes for fiction and nonfiction will be administered by Yale University and are among the world's most generous prizes for writers.

Nina (1937-2007) and Teddy (1933-1999) Wang

Nina Wang was a multi-millionaire who brought doggy-bags home from parties as well as restaurants (her favourite eateries were fast-food joints). She inherited her fortune (billions!) from Teddy Wang, her late husband, who was kidnapped and ransomed, then kidnapped again and killed. Probate for each involved accusations of forgery, tales of adultery and drug-taking and millions in legal costs. Full story.

Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010)

Several times in her 61 years, Elizabeth Edwards hit rock bottom - only to then plunge to even deeper depths of misery.

Elizabeth led a charmed life at first. Her husband John, a handsome lawyer, made a fortune mostly from medical-malpractice suits, and they had two children. Then, in an instant, their lives were upended: their 16-year-son was killed in a car crash. It was years before they were fully functional again.

John swapped law for politics and again enjoyed rapid success. He was elected US Senator for North Carolina and was the vice presidential nominee with presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. They lost to George W Bush and Dick Cheney. The day after the election, Elizabeth learned that she had breast cancer.

While she was in remission, her husband had a secret affair with a woman who then had a baby. John reluctantly admitted adultery but said it was a one-off, and he also denied paternity. The baby was indeed his and that fact, and many other damaging accusations and information surfaced during - and doomed - his campaign for the Democrat nomination for president in 2008.

Elizabeth and John Edwards separated in January 2010 after 32 years together. She died of cancer on 7 December 2010.

She signed her last will only six days before she died. She appointed her eldest child, Cate, a lawyer, as executor and left her possessions to her children.

"All of my furniture, furnishings, household goods, jewellery, china, silverware and personal effects, and any automobiles owned by me at the time of my death, I give and bequeath to my children."

She makes no mention at all of her husband. Elizabeth Edwards was buried next to her son Wade.

Elaine Kaufman (1929-2010)

Elaine's, the Manhattan restaurant more famous for its celebrity patrons than for its cuisine, took its name from feisty owner Elaine Kaufman, who died aged 81 in December 2010.

The restaurant, at Second Avenue and 88th Street, is on the ground floor of two five-storey buildings owned by Kaufman. In her 2007 will, she left the restaurant and the buildings to Diane Becker, the restaurant manager for the last 26 years and a close friend to Elaine.

Kaufman left $50,000 to each of four nephews, and $10,000 each to three employees. She directed that estate tax should be paid through the sale of her co-op apartment.

Kaufman's will also directs that her ashes be scattered over Second Avenue. However, New York State law restricts the scattering or disposal of human remains, and the fulfilling of that instruction would probably be illegal.

In May 2011, six months after the death of its founder, the restaurant stopped trading.

An auction of Elaine's possessions yielded a reported $385,000 and her apartment was listed for more than $2m.

In early 2012, the New York Post reported that a group of Elaine's friends formed a foundation bearing her name to help writers. However, Diane Becker, who had not been included in that group, blocked them from using the restaurateur's name.