Celebrity Estate Lessons Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr
Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. was a bigamist, one of the richest men in America, and was once implicated in the Kennedy assassination. In 1912, at the age of 23, he was running a cotton plantation in Arkansas. A prolific gambler, he used his earnings to purchase his first oil field in Arkansas. He went on […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Luke Perry
Luke Perry’s stroke in 2019 when he was 52 years old was unexpected. After all, it’s rare that you hear of someone so young dying from such an ailment. His family elected to remove Perry from life support after he had a second stroke and his doctors said it was unlikely he would ever recover. When […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is possibly the most famous poet of modern times. She was chosen by Bill Clinton to recite her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at his first inauguration. The autobiography of the first part of her life, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, is well known by high school students across the […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons James Brown
James Brown died from a heart attack due to pneumonia on Christmas Day 2006. He had created a Will and Trust in 2000. As a side note, the Will was witnessed by J. Strom Thurmond Jr., son of the long serving Senator. The Will covered his personal belongings while the Trust covered his music rights, […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons J. Howard Marshall II
This week’s topic is a surprise sequel to last week’s (I didn’t know either)! J. Howard Marshall II co-founded Great Northern Oil. A few years later, Fred Koch bought a substantial share in the company, with his company eventually acquiring a majority share. In 1969, Charles Koch traded shares in Koch Industries for Marshall’s remaining […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Huguette Clark
You might think the founder of the city of Las Vegas was pretty rich; and you would be correct. It turns out that he was. W.A. Clark was a copper and railroad baron during the Gilded Age. But we’re not going to talk about him today; we’re going to focus on his daughter, Huguette Clark. […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Fred Koch
If you know anything about Republican politics, or just politics in general, you’ve likely heard of the Koch brothers, two very rich backers of conservative candidates and causes. But did you know there are two other Koch brothers? There are; brother Bill, a philanthropist and sailor, and older brother Fred, a philanthropist and art collector. […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov was well known as the actor who played famous detective Hercule Poirot in six films. You would think someone around so many unexpected deaths would at least consider their own, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. At the time of his death in 2004, his most recent Will was written […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Kurt Cobain
committed suicide in 1994. Afterward, an attorney came forward to say that Kurt Cobain approached her to have documents written excluding his wife, Courtney Love, whom he was planning to divorce from his Will. Unfortunately, he never went forward with this estate plan. So, when he died, his estate passed to Love and their daughter, […]
Celebrity Estate Lessons Heath Ledger
Today’s case is an interesting one, involving both a very common mistake wrapped inside a less common mistake. An important part of any person’s probate is based on where a person is domiciled (aka where they officially live) at the time of their death. So, for example, if you were a snow bird who lived […]