While it's estimated that anywhere from 50% to 65% of adult Americans haven't taken the time to make a Last Will and Testament, it's even more surprising to learn that quite a few celebrities failed to make a will. Among them:
As a lawyer and the sixteenth president of the United States, many will be surprised to learn that Abraham Lincoln didn't make a will before he died. A little more than two years after his assasination in 1865, Mr. Lincoln's intestate estate, valued at $110,300 (at that time, this would equate to a few million in today's dollars) was equally divided three ways among his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and his two sons who were living at that time, Robert and Thomas. To learn more about Mr. Lincoln's estate, refer to Are You Better Prepared Than Abraham Lincoln Was?
As a civil rights activist who faced death threats, it's surprising that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't make a will. And while Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, today his family is still fighting over control of his estate. It was only a few years ago that the King children were at odds about how the corporation that had been set up to oversee the estate was being run. More recently they have started a battle over his Nobel Peace Prize medal and personal traveling Bible - his daughter wants to keep them and his sons want to sell them: Martin Luther King Jr. ’s children battling over estate.
Shortly after eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes died in 1976, a handwritten will surfaced that was being held by an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Dubbed the "Mormon Will," it left $1.56 billion to several charities; nearly $470 million to executives of Hughes' companies and his aides; $156 million to Hughes' first cousin, William Lummis; $156 million split equally between his two ex-wives, Ella Rice and Jean Peters; and $156 million to a gas-station owner named Melvin Dummar. Dummar claimed that he had met Hughes at his gas station in 1967 and had driven the billionaire to Las Vegas. A few days later a mysterious man appeared at the gas station and gave a document to Dummar for safekeeping, which turned out to be Mr. Hughes' will which Dummar then gave to the church official. A trial was held in Las Vegas in 1978 in which a jury determined that the Mormon Will was a forgery, so in the end 22 intestate heirs inherited Mr. Hughes' massive estate.
While it may seem surprising that singer/songwriter Bob Marley, who was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1977 and died four years later at the young age of 36, didn't have a will, apparently his religious beliefs prevented him from making one. That led to an interesting fight over the rights to his estate among his widow, Rita, and some thirteen children, but not before Mr. Marley's lawyer and accountant convinced Rita to forge some documents after the singer/songwriter's death that would give control of the entire estate to her. Mr. Marley has been a top earning dead celebrity for many years, earning $20 million between 2013 and 2014 alone. And as recently as 2011, the Marley estate was in a court battle with Mr. Marley's half-brother: Are Bob Marley's Heirs Destroying His Legacy?
The frontman for Seattle grunge band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1994. He was only 27. But while the singer/songwriter left behind a detailed suicide note, he failed to leave a will. Cobain was survived by his wife, Courtney Love, and a young daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Apparently a trust known as the NMWH Trust was established for the benefit of Frances Bean, and although Love was not in charge of the trust, she was given trust accountings. In 2009 Love lost custody of Frances Bean, then 17, and in 2010 the rights to Kurt Cobain's name, likeness and appearance were taken from Love and given to Frances Bean.
British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse died in 2011 as the result of accidental alcohol poisoning at the young age of 27. Although initially it was reported that she had left a will, in the end British court records revealed that the singer's $4.66 million estate went to her parents, Mitch Winehouse and Janis Winehouse. In the years following Ms. Winehouse's death her parents have established The Amy Winehouse Foundation. According to the foundation's U.S. website, “The Amy Winehouse Foundation USA ’s mission is supporting and empowering children in need through music therapy and music education and works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people.”
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