Wills and Estates

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    How Stingy Boomer Parents Became the Best TV Villains

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    Older Americans hold an outsize share of the nation’s wealth and power. Television loves watching their children scramble for a taste.Plots about inheritance and succession are not a new phenomenon. The form could hardly be more familiar: Take an empire-straddling lion-in-winter, throw in some desperately competing heirs and watch as the shifting allegiances and loyalty tests devolve into bedlam. The Gospel of Luke gives us the parable of the prodigal son, in which one child does his duty and the other squanders his inheritance. Shakespeare had King Lear go mad after disinheriting his youngest and being betrayed by his older daughters.Still, even by the accustomed standards, recent television feels utterly awash in succession-themed stories. “Empire,” “Yellowstone” and “La Maison” all hinge on the promises and prevarications of parents and their offspring. On HBO alone, we’ve had “Succession” (children vying for control of a media empire), “The Righteous Gemstones” (children vying for control of a religious empire) and “House of the Dragon” (children vying for control of the family dragons).Neither is this trend reserved for fiction. Two recent documentaries revolve around an emergent archetype in succession stories: the crusty, vainglorious old man whose megalomaniacal allegiance to his business empire supersedes his capacity for common decency.Released in September, the six-part Netflix documentary “Mr. McMahon” explores the legacy of professional wrestling’s most consequential overlord, Vince McMahon, who took over the hardscrabble World Wrestling Federation — previously owned by his father, Vince McMahon Sr. — and transformed it into a global juggernaut. By the 1990s and 2000s, World Wrestling Entertainment (having changed its name in 2002) was drawing huge ratings by dramatizing McMahon’s dueling with his two children, Stephanie and Shane, who both desired, in the W.W.E.’s story line, to compete with and succeed their autocratic father.Professional wrestling is, famously, a strange admixture of reality and fiction; its in-ring beefs are often exaggerated versions of offscreen animosities. “Mr. McMahon” reveals the extent to which the McMahons’ televised rivalries were true to life. Shane, in particular, butted heads with his father around the height of what is known in wrestling lore as the Attitude Era. The two men ended up battling each other at WrestleMania 17 in 2001, following weeks of onscreen drama regarding the future of the W.W.E. The ensuing “street fight,” as it was billed, turned nasty as the father peppered his son with actual punches, rather than the usual pulled shots. It is unpleasant to watch and hard to turn away from.The wealth hoarding of older generations may be the lurking subtext of all these plots.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why You May Never See the Documentary on Prince by Ezra Edelman

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      Dig, if you will, a small slice of Ezra Edelman’s nine-hour documentary about Prince — a cursed masterpiece that the public may never be allowed to see.Listen to this article, read by Janina EdwardsIt’s 1984, and Prince is about to release “Purple Rain,” the album that will make him a superstar and push pop music into distant realms we had no idea we were ready for. The sound engineer Peggy McCreary, one of many female engineers he worked with, describes witnessing a flash of genius during the creation of his song “When Doves Cry.” Over a two-day marathon recording session, she and Prince filled the studio with sound — wailing guitars, thrumming keyboards, an overdubbed choir of harmonizing Princes. It was the sort of maximalist stew possible only when someone is (as Prince was) a master of just about every musical instrument ever invented. But something wasn’t right. So at 5 or 6 in the morning, Prince found the solution: He started subtracting. He took out the guitar solo; he took out the keyboard. And then his boldest, most heterodox move: He took out the bass. McCreary remembers him saying, with satisfaction, “Ain’t nobody gonna believe I did that.” He knew what he had. The song became an anthem, a platinum megahit.The next sequence starts to probe the origins of Prince’s genius, how it grew alongside a gnawing desire for recognition. His sister, Tyka Nelson, a woman with owlish eyes and pink and purple streaks in her hair, appears onscreen. She describes the violence in their household growing up. How their musician father’s face changed when he hit their mother. The ire he directed at his son, on whom he bestowed his former stage name, Prince — a gift, but also a burden, a reminder that the demands of supporting his children had caused him to abandon his own musical career. Prince would risk lashings by sneaking over to the piano and plinking away at it — the son already embarked on his life’s work of besting his father, the father giving and withdrawing love, the son doing the same.Cut to Jill Jones, one in a long line of girlfriend-muses whom Prince anointed, styled, encouraged and criticized. Hers is one of the most anguished testimonies in the film, revealing a side of Prince many of his fans would rather not see. Late one night in 1984, she and a friend visited Prince at a hotel. He started kissing the friend, and in a fit of jealousy, Jones slapped him. She says he then looked at her and said, “Bitch, this ain’t no [expletive] movie.” They tussled, and he began to punch her in the face over and over. She wanted to press charges, but his manager told her it would ruin his career. So she backed off. Yet for a time, she still loved him and wanted to be with him, and stayed in his orbit for many more years. Recounting the incident three decades later, she is still furious, still processing the stress of being involved with him.In the next sequence, it’s the evening of the premiere of “Purple Rain,” the movie, which will go on to win the Academy Award for best original song score in 1985. Prince’s tour manager, Alan Leeds, was with him in the back of a limo on the way to the ceremony. He remembers one of Prince’s bodyguards turning to Prince and saying: “This is going to be the biggest day of your life! They say every star in town is there!” And Prince clutched Leeds’s hand, trembling in fear. But then, as Leeds tells it, some switch flipped, and “he caught himself.” Prince’s eyes turned hard. He was back in control. “That was it,” Leeds says. “But for maybe 10 seconds, he completely lost it. And I loved it. Because it showed he was human!” In the next shot, we see Prince emerging from the limo and walking down the red carpet in an iridescent purple trench coat over a creamy ruffled collar, his black curls piled high. He swaggers, twirling a flower, unbothered: a creature of regal remove.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michael Jackson Died With $500 Million in Debt

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      Jackson owed about $40 million to the tour promoter A.E.G. in 2009, his estate’s executors said in a court filing. They said all the debts have been eliminated.Michael Jackson’s debts and creditor’s claims at the time of his death in 2009 totaled more than $500 million, according to a court filing by the pop superstar’s estate that provides details of his financial woes toward the end of his life.Jackson owed about $40 million to the tour promoter A.E.G., according to the filing, which was made in Los Angeles County Superior Court this month and earlier reported by People magazine. The filing said that 65 creditors made claims against the singer after his death, some of which resulted in lawsuits, and that some of his debt had been “accruing interest at extremely high interest rates.”A representative for the Jackson estate, which is executed by John Branca and John McClain, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The estate filed the court papers as a request to authorize the payment of about $3.5 million to several legal firms for their work in the second half of 2018.In the court filing, the executors say that they have eliminated the estate’s debt and that almost all of the creditors’ claims and litigation have been resolved.Jackson earned hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the 1980s and 1990s as the creator of some of the biggest-selling albums of all time, along with dazzling concert tours that filled stadiums around the world. He bought the Beatles’ song catalog for $47.5 million in 1985 and later sold it to Sony/ATV Music in exchange for a 50 percent share in the company. Sony bought back the estate’s share for $750 million in 2016.But when Jackson died at the age of 50, shortly before he was supposed to embark on a tour called This Is It, he left behind a tangled web of assets and liabilities.Jackson was famous for his lavish lifestyle and spent money with abandon. He incurred millions of dollars in debt from his Neverland Ranch estate in Southern California and had a penchant for expensive art, jewelry and private jets. He was paying more than $30 million annually on interest payments, a forensic accountant testified during a 2013 wrongful-death trial in which A.E.G. prevailed.The Jackson estate is currently in a dispute with the I.R.S. after a tax audit. In a separate court filing this year, the estate said that the federal agency accused it of undervaluing its assets and said it owed “an additional $700 million in taxes and penalties.”Kirsten Noyes More

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      Brian Wilson’s Family Seeks Conservatorship for a Beach Boys Founder

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      Mr. Wilson, whose musical genius powered the Beach Boys, has dementia, according to his publicist. His wife, Melinda, died last month.The family of Brian Wilson, the musical architect whose genius helped power the Beach Boys, is seeking to place him under a conservatorship following the death of his wife, Melinda, last month.According to documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this week by lawyers representing the potential conservators, Mr. Wilson, 81, has “a major neurocognitive disorder,” and “is unable to properly provide for his own personal needs for physical health.” Melinda Wilson had previously provided care for her husband, but following her death on Jan. 30, the appointment of a conservator has become necessary, according to the petition filed on Wednesday.In a statement. the family said that LeeAnn Hard, Mr. Wilson’s business manager, and Jean Sievers, his publicist and manager, would serve as co-conservators.“This decision was made to ensure that there will be no extreme changes to the household and Brian and the children living at home will be taken care of and remain in the home where they are cared for,” the statement said.In an email to The New York Times, Ms. Sievers said Mr. Wilson has been “diagnosed with dementia.” She said that as a co-conservator, she would “ensure that all of Brian’s daily living needs are satisfied and he continues to lead an active life.”A hearing on the petition has been scheduled for April 30.Mr. Wilson, a revered founder of the Beach Boys, is widely credited as a musical visionary who channeled an idealized notion of California into a chart-topping sound.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Weighs Conservatorship for the Former Supreme Cindy Birdsong

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      The singer’s family has asked the court to approve a legal arrangement that would govern her medical decisions and finances after relatives objected to the previous care by a longtime friend.A judge in Los Angeles is set to consider on Tuesday whether to establish a conservatorship for an 83-year-old former member of the Supremes, whose family has argued that her physical and mental frailties have made her vulnerable to undue influence for years.The singer, Cindy Birdsong, spent nearly a decade with the group after replacing one of its original members, Florence Ballard, in 1967, performing hits such as “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “I Hear a Symphony” as one-third of Motown’s marquee act.But after Birdsong left the Supremes in 1976, her finances fell apart — a situation she later attributed to a “bad closing deal” with Motown Records — and later on, several strokes left her unable to care for herself or manage her affairs, her family has said.Birdsong’s siblings have asked that the singer’s brother, Ronald Birdsong, serve as co-conservator alongside an entertainment business manager, Brad Herman. It was Herman, called in by a friend of Birdsong’s, who spearheaded the singer’s removal two years ago from an apartment where she lived with a longtime friend.The family has said the friend, Rochelle Lander, isolated them from Birdsong and withheld information about her ailing health. They have argued that a conservatorship is needed to ensure that her care and finances are being properly managed. Birdsong, who is not known to have retained significant music royalty rights, is currently in a California nursing facility where she is on a feeding tube, according to court papers.“Since I live outside of California, and since my sister has been unable to tend to her affairs herself,” Ronald Birdsong said in the conservatorship application, “I depend on Mr. Herman to keep me updated on Cindy’s well-being as well as helping to keep all of her affairs in order.”Last month, the judge assigned to the case, Lee R. Bogdanoff, referred it to the Office of the Public Guardian, indicating that he will consider whether a third-party conservator should step in to manage Birdsong’s affairs. His rationale for the decision was not made public, but he based it on the findings of a confidential report by a court investigator.Herman and Terri Birdsong, a sister of Cindy Birdsong’s, said they were working with a newly hired lawyer to fill in some of the information that was lacking in their initial conservatorship application, and that they expected the singer’s court-appointed lawyer to ask for a delay in the case while they did so.The court-appointed lawyer, John Alan Cohan, did not respond to requests for comment.It is unclear whether Lander, a former performer with whom Cindy Birdsong started a Christian ministry, is planning to challenge the family’s bid for a conservatorship. She has defended her care of the singer in the past, saying that she had been steadfastly dedicated to helping her over many years, and she has displayed a power of attorney that she said Birdsong signed more than a decade ago.The tensions between Birdsong’s siblings and Lander mounted a few years ago, during a visit to the singer’s Los Angeles apartment, where the family said it was stunned by how her condition had deteriorated, according to interviews with her three living siblings and a sister-in-law. The family ultimately reached out to the police, who enforced Birdsong’s removal from the apartment in 2021.In a video taken by Herman that night, Lander argued against the removal, citing her power of attorney papers.“She needs to have due process before you come in forcefully and think you’re going to take over her life,” Lander said in the video, as several police officers stood in the hallway of the apartment building.Lander has not agreed to an interview and did not respond to requests for comment about the court proceedings.Herman, who holds a power of attorney signed by the three siblings and sister-in-law, said the family wants the legal proceeding to help clarify how the singer’s money has been managed in recent years.“From the time I became power of attorney, I’ve been trying to get documents that tell me what rights, what royalties, what residuals are coming to Cindy,” Herman said in a recent interview. “Whatever monies have come in, where did they go?”Though it was well known that Birdsong had stopped performing and largely slipped from public view, the extent of her deterioration prompted an outpouring of concern several weeks ago, around when the family filed its conservatorship application.“Prayers for a lady who has meant so much to my life,” one fan wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to Birdsong.Some friends and associates of Birdsong, like Jim Saphin, who befriended the singer in the ’60s and ran a British fan club for Diana Ross and the Supremes, said they had been dismayed to hear of the singer’s condition.Steve Weaver, a record producer who lives in England and has worked with former Supremes, said he had spoken with close friends of Birdsong’s who had visited her in recent weeks and reported that she had not been able to speak.“But playing Supremes records really boosts her up,” Weaver said he had been told.Charlo Crossley-Fortier, a singer and actress who became friends with Birdsong after meeting her at church, and John Whyman, a friend since the ’70s who at one point invited the singer to live with him amid financial struggles, said they had become concerned over the years that Lander had been isolating Birdsong from other friends and family and had actively resisted her pursuit of any role in pop music.Weaver recalled that about a decade ago, he was set to record a track with Birdsong when Lander intervened and declared that Birdsong was “not recording any secular music now.” Birdsong, who often recalled how Christianity had lifted her out of serious depression after leaving the Supremes, once said in a television interview with “The 700 Club” that she didn’t “have a desire to sing rock ’n’ roll anymore,” preferring to sing religious music instead.Though Birdsong’s life took a sharp turn after leaving the Supremes, Crossley-Fortier said, “Cindy will forever be part of music history.” More

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      Is Aretha Franklin’s True Will the One Found in the Couch or a Cabinet?

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      A trial starting on Monday is to decide whether either of two handwritten documents represents the singer’s last wishes. Her sons have battled in court for years over the question.At first, Aretha Franklin’s family believed the division of her estate after her death in 2018 would be a straightforward task: Without a known will, the celebrated singer’s assets would be equally distributed among her four sons.But months after Franklin’s funeral, a family member found documents, scrawled by hand and outlining her wishes — one set under a couch cushion in her home in suburban Detroit, another in a locked cabinet — plunging the estate into uncertainty.In the four years since, Franklin’s sons have battled in a Michigan probate court over which of the conflicting documents should take precedence. On Monday, the issue heads to trial, with the precise distribution of Franklin’s remaining fortune, property and music rights at stake.“I think they all wish this had been settled a week after she passed away,” said Craig A. Smith, a lawyer for Edward Franklin, the singer’s second eldest son. “But they’re not blaming anyone — it is what it is.”At issue in the trial is which document best reflects Franklin’s wishes before she died, at age 76, of pancreatic cancer.Two of her sons, Edward and Kecalf Franklin, assert that the document found in a spiral notebook under the couch cushions, which is dated March 2014 and substantially favors Kecalf, should be considered primary. Another son, Ted White Jr., contends that the papers found in the cabinet, dated June 2010, should take precedence.The jury could also decide that neither document is a legitimate will, reverting back to an even division of the singer’s estate between her children, based on Michigan law. There is also a possible combined solution in which items from both documents would be taken into account.Franklin’s eldest son, Clarence Franklin, who has a mental illness and is under a legal guardianship, has long been a player in the legal jockeying, as the 2014 will would appear to cause him to inherit significantly less than his brothers. But in recent weeks, his representatives reached a settlement for an undisclosed percentage of the estate. As a result, they will not be taking a side in the trial, said Joseph Buttiglieri, a lawyer for Clarence Franklin’s guardian.A pathbreaking musician acclaimed as the Queen of Soul, Franklin won 18 Grammy Awards, had more than 100 singles on the Billboard charts, and left behind the trappings of a star: four homes, several cars, furs, jewelry and gold records. The total estate was estimated at about $18 million after she died, Mr. Smith said, though another appraisal suggested the figure might be lower.But Franklin, who was known to be intensely private about her finances, also left a significant tax liability. In 2021, her estate reached a deal with the Internal Revenue Service to pay off about $8 million in federal income taxes by setting aside a portion of any new revenue from music royalties or projects like the recent Hollywood biopic starring Jennifer Hudson.At the heart of the trial are more than a dozen pages of Franklin’s scrawled-out wishes, filled with crossed out words and insertions. The process of interpreting a deceased person’s intentions from the lines of a handwritten document can be a confusing, contentious process, one that made for a gripping story line in the HBO series “Succession.” In the show’s final season, the family patriarch’s heirs struggled to decode penciled-in addendums to his last wishes that were found locked in a safe.The effort to determine Franklin’s true desires has turned up three voice mail messages, recorded months before the singer died, in which she discussed another will that she had been preparing with an estate lawyer, Henry Grix.In the messages, which were played in court earlier this year, Franklin said she had already decided some details around her estate, including that she wanted her pianos to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s, but she noted that she was leaving other decisions for a future meeting at the lawyer’s office.Franklin’s estate after her death had an estimated value of $18 million, according to a lawyer for one of her sons.Pool photo by Paul SancyaTed White Jr., whose father had been Franklin’s manager and first husband, asked that the court favor documents that had been drafted by Mr. Grix, an experienced estate planning lawyer, in the final three years of the singer’s life, arguing that it was the most recent expression of her wishes. But the judge overseeing the case, Jennifer S. Callaghan, excluded the documents from consideration in the trial, citing testimony from Mr. Grix maintaining that he had been left with the impression that Franklin “hadn’t made up her mind” about the will.“It is clear to this court,” Judge Callaghan wrote in a May decision, “that the attorney who was retained to personally memorialize the Decedent’s estate plan did not believe that the Decedent had yet reached a final, complete plan.”That leaves two documents for the six-person jury to consider.In the 2014 document, three of Franklin’s sons — excluding Clarence — would receive equal shares of their mother’s music royalties, but the distribution of her personal property would be weighted toward Kecalf. According to the document, Kecalf would receive two of four homes and the singer’s cars, the number of which is not specified.In court papers, a lawyer for Kecalf Franklin argued that the 2014 document should be considered a legal will because it is the most recent handwritten document by Franklin outlining her plans. (There is a dispute over whether the singer officially signed the document. One side says a smiley face paired with “Franklin” represents her signature on the final page of the document; the other has disagreed.)The singer’s heirs have disputed whether the smiley face next to “Franklin,” included on one of two conflicting documents, constitutes a legitimate signature.Oakland County Probate CourtMr. Smith said that although his client, Edward Franklin, would benefit more financially if the wills were deemed invalid, his client supports the 2014 document because he believes “that’s what Aretha wanted.”In steadfast opposition to the 2014 will is Mr. White, whose lawyer, Kurt A. Olson, wrote in court papers: “If this document were intended to be a will there would have been more care than putting it in a spiral notebook under a couch cushion.”As evidence in support of the 2010 document, which specifies weekly and monthly allowances for the four sons, Mr. Olson pointed to the fact that it was notarized and that Franklin had signed each page.Mr. White has yet to sign off on the settlement reached around Clarence Franklin’s piece of the estate, and it will ultimately be subject to the judge’s approval.Witnesses in the trial, which is expected to last less than a week in Oakland County Probate Court in Pontiac, Mich., are likely to include some of Franklin’s sons; the person who notarized the 2010 estate document; a handwriting expert; and a niece of the singer’s, Sabrina Owens, who discovered the potential wills in 2019. Ms. Owens had initially served as Franklin’s personal representative — similar to the role of executor — until strife within the family prompted her resignation.Nicholas E. Papasifakis, a Michigan estate lawyer, currently serves as Franklin’s personal representative and is not taking a side in the dispute between the heirs.After the trial has concluded and the estate has been settled, there will still be issues that will require cooperation within the fractured family. Biopics or tribute concerts would require universal agreement, unless the heirs were to appoint a business manager to manage such decisions, said Mr. Smith, the lawyer representing Edward Franklin.“We’re hoping that everyone gets along a little better after this has been resolved,” he said. More

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      Review: A Pianist’s Inheritance Inspires Little Masterpieces

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      Adam Tendler’s program of works that he commissioned from 16 composers after the death of his father is emotionally involving and musically rewarding.When the pianist Adam Tendler received an inheritance — really, a manila envelope stuffed with cash — it did not take him long to think of a smart way to put it to use.Weeks after his father’s death, and being handed that money, Tendler began to commission new piano solos around the theme of inheritance. As he recalled in an essay for The New York Times, he realized that by doing this, he could both process his grief as well as fashion a program that could live on in his creative practice.It’s a touching and sagacious concept — though hardly one guaranteed to be an artistic success. The classical world has seen a number of similar, small-scale commissioning initiatives since the beginning of the pandemic; even when they draw some of the brightest names in the field, as Tendler has done, the result has often seemed frustratingly diffuse.But Tendler’s project, “Inheritances,” registered as emotionally involving — a musically rewarding and tightly plotted 80-minute set when he performed the collection on Saturday at the 92nd Street Y, New York. It was presented in collaboration with Liquid Music, the group that helped the pianist develop the show over multiple years.Nearly every one of the 16 composers on the bill responded to Tendler’s prompt with an A-game effort. Missy Mazzoli’s “Forgiveness Machine” opens with nervy, high-register oscillations that give way to grave bass interjections, before making space for a more relaxed treatment of melody in its middle section. But the score isn’t a simplistic journey toward acceptance: Some of the initial mechanistic churning returns at the close.Other composers reveled in similar ambiguity: music that suggested some arc of understanding, while also observing the persistent notes of friction in a relationship. In its opening bars, Scott Wollschleger’s “Outsider Song” includes sustained-tone airs of mourning, stark prepared-piano pitches and bursts of extended technique. So far, so typical, you might think, at least when it comes to post-John Cage experimentalism.But before long, Wollschleger’s piece works a gorgeous changeup by allowing its more striated tones to flower into full motivic passages, beautiful on their own terms even as the overall harmonic world remains somber. Call it a small masterpiece — a term you might also apply to Timo Andres’s “An Open Book,” which moves between contrapuntal strictures and more free-associative lines with casual discipline.It was a joy to hear so much good music from so many contemporary artists — and in such quick succession; “Inheritances” moves fast, and without an intermission. Just as I was fully appreciating the dancing qualities of Angélica Negrón’s aesthetic in “You Were My Age,” the rug was pulled, giving way to the melodic gifts of John Glover’s “In the City of Shy Hunters.” When Christopher Cerrone’s hypnotic and meditative “Area of Refuge” ended abruptly, without the kind of closing, inventive flourishes I’ve come to treasure in his music, I glanced at the program notes and learned that it was written shortly after his own father’s unexpected death.If any piece appeared less distinct than what had come before, that was largely on account of the strong standard set by this cohort. Throughout, you could hear some artists plying familiar ground with assurance. That was the case with Pamela Z’s “Thank You So Much,” which relied on her practice of looping, editing and phasing samples of someone’s recorded voice — here, Tendler’s — to create motifs.Some composers took risks, as Marcos Balter did when punctuating the more abstruse edges of his piece, “False Memories,” with select, dreamy sequences of jazz-chord harmony. His program note said that this idiom was not usual for him, but that’s no reason for him to stop pursuing the line of thought in future pieces; the result on Saturday was transporting.It would have been enough for Tendler to perform these discrete compositional languages persuasively and call it a night. But there was also a sense of true dramatic stakes. The piece “hushing,” by inti figgis-vizueta, played out over archival video of Tendler as a child; the intense chordal pounding of the piece had the feel of eerie, silent-film piano accompaniment. And I teared up when Tendler spoke directly about his father over Darian Donovan Thomas’s gently reflective work “we don’t need to tend this garden. they’re wildflowers.”Tendler’s concert, by the end, amounted not only to a display of contemporary compositional force, but also a true show. The 92nd Street Y date was a one-night affair, but I hope that additional audiences can experience the live version of “Inheritances” — and that Tendler chooses to close the book on it with a recorded album.Adam TendlerPerformed on Saturday at the 92nd Street Y, New York, Manhattan. More

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      As a Film Revives Elvis’s Legacy, the Presleys Fight Over His Estate

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      After the death of Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’s ex-wife initiated a legal battle with her granddaughter over control of the family trust.When the camera panned to Priscilla Presley and her daughter, Lisa Marie, they appeared enraptured.Austin Butler had rekindled the good memories of Elvis with his portrayal in a lauded biopic. And for a few magical minutes on that January evening, Butler was there, on the stage at the Golden Globes, conjuring the voice and radiating the charm of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll as he accepted a best actor award.Lisa Marie clasped her hands around her mouth. Priscilla placed her hand on her heart. Mother and daughter had had their run-ins over the years, but they were together again — nestled at a table, like family.“One of the greatest nights of my career,” said Jerry Schilling, a Presley family friend and business associate who escorted Lisa Marie that evening.But days later, the sadness that has long trailed the family had again taken hold. Lisa Marie, only 54, died suddenly. Within weeks, Priscilla, who had long helped administer Elvis’s estate, went to court to challenge the validity of documents that say her granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough, is now the sole trustee.The dispute got underway just as Keough prepared for the release of the new Amazon Prime Video series “Daisy Jones & the Six,” in which she stars. It is unclear what acrimony may arise as the litigation unfolds, but Keough stayed conspicuously quiet when her grandmother urged the public not to view it as a family fight. Keough’s lawyers have yet to file court papers in response.Riley Keough, who stars as Daisy Jones in a new Amazon Prime series, has not responded to her grandmother’s decision to challenge her standing as the sole trustee of the family trust.Lacey Terrell/Amazon Prime VideoReaction has been swift, though, at Graceland, Elvis’s former home in Memphis, where emotions over the Presley family run high. Lisa Marie Bailey, a visitor named after Elvis’s only child, said last weekend that she supported Keough.If the King knew what was happening, she said, standing near where Elvis is buried, “he would be turning over in his grave.”The latest Presley family dust-up echoes the messiness that marked Elvis’s life, which, beyond the hit records and Hollywood films, was filled with its share of public dramas, including divorce, profligate spending and, late in life, a struggle with drug addiction.Despite those troubles, the Elvis brand today continues to take in more than $100 million a year as the licensing juggernaut behind apparel, pink Cadillac plush toys and tickets to tour Graceland. But the family trust receives only a fraction of its proceeds, according to court filings that detail its earnings.In 2005, Lisa Marie and her business manager sold off 85 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises for roughly $97 million in cash, stock and debt relief, according to court documents — funds that have since been nearly depleted. Still, last year, before her death, Elvis’s daughter drew an income of $1.25 million from the trust, which continues to be worth tens of millions of dollars, according to financial filings. The beneficiaries are now Keough and her two younger half sisters.This weekend, the curious are likely to search for Keough and Priscilla at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where Butler is a strong contender for the best actor Oscar.Neither camp would comment on whether the women plan to attend.The family today owns only 15 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises, which operates Elvis’s former home Graceland, a major draw for fans. Brandon Dill/Associated PressSuccess and excess in the house of ElvisWhen Elvis died unexpectedly in 1977, his estate was worth roughly $5 million. His spending had drained his earnings, which had long been limited by his business arrangement with his longtime manager, Col. Tom Parker. He received as much as half of the King’s income, including roughly half the $5.4 million fee that RCA Records paid in 1973 when Presley gave up future royalty rights from sales of recordings he had made, which included the majority of his hits.The money that remained was left in a trust and, after several family members died, Lisa Marie, emerged as its sole beneficiary. Priscilla, who divorced Elvis four years before his death, became a trustee and eventually engineered an overhaul of the estate, turning it into a moneymaker, in part by opening Graceland to the public in 1982.It was a painful but necessary tactic — “like being robbed,” Priscilla said later of watching strangers enter the home. The Los Angeles Times estimated in 1989 that the value of the estate had climbed to more than $75 million and that Elvis Presley Enterprises was bringing in an estimated $15 million a year in gross income.The assets grew to more than $100 million by 2005, according to court documents. By that time, they had been moved into a new vehicle, the Promenade Trust, established by Lisa Marie in 1993. She was its beneficiary; her mother and Barry Siegel, the family’s business manager, served as trustees.Then began what Lisa Marie’s lawyers have called her “11-year odyssey to financial ruin.”Siegel and Lisa Marie would later trade accusations over who was to blame for her precipitous financial decline. In a 2018 court fight, which was eventually settled, Siegel contended that, though the trust received millions of dollars in annual income, “Lisa’s continuous, excessive spending and reliance on credit” drove it into significant debt.In 2005, as the bills mounted, Lisa Marie and Siegel engineered the sale of 85 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises to a group led by the investor Robert F.X. Sillerman.The deal paid about $50 million in cash. The trust also received $25 million in stock in Sillerman’s entertainment company, CKX, and $22 million in debt relief, according to court documents. The trust kept the remaining 15 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises and the main Graceland house, appraised at $5.6 million in 2021.In 2013, Sillerman sold Elvis Presley Enterprises to Authentic Brands Group in partnership with Joel Weinshanker, who now operates Graceland. Three years later, Sillerman’s company declared bankruptcy, rendering Lisa Marie’s CKX stock almost worthless, according to court documents.And by that time, the $50 million in cash that Lisa Marie’s trust had received was also largely gone, spent on things like a $9 million home in England. In her court papers, Lisa Marie blamed Siegel for allowing that purchase and said he had enriched himself with exorbitant fees and failed to alert her to how dire the financial situation had become.By 2016, her lawsuit said, the trust “was left with $14,000 in cash and over $500,000 in credit card debt.”Siegel’s lawyers were blunt in their 2018 cross complaint, which denied their client was responsible for the diminished assets. “Sadly, since inheriting her father’s estate in 1993, Lisa has twice squandered it,” they wrote. “She now has only herself to blame for her financial and personal misfortunes.”Meanwhile, Elvis Presley Enterprises was churning along. Last year, it pulled in $110 million, at least $80 million of which was generated by operations at Graceland. Another $5 million came from the sale of the rights for the Baz Luhrmann biopic, according to Forbes, whose estimates were confirmed by two people with knowledge of the company’s finances.In addition to the $1.25 million she got last year from the trust, Lisa Marie received a monthly salary of roughly $4,300 as an employee of Graceland, according to a financial filing she made last year. It also listed roughly $95,000 in liquid assets, $715,000 in stocks and bonds, and debts that exceeded $3 million.Priscilla and Elvis were married for six years before divorcing in 1973. GETTY‘Family is everything’Though it’s surrounded now by a hotel and other amenities, Graceland is largely the same home Elvis bought in 1957, at 22, and lived in for two decades. The large, once bustling kitchen remains, as does the pool room and the jungle room, with its waterfall and carved wooden furniture.The audio tour offers visitors a glimpse of Presley family life.“Today, Lisa Marie and her family still have dinner around this table when they’re in town,” the audio intones during a stop in the dining room, where Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding china is displayed on a table near a portrait of Priscilla and a young Lisa Marie.The relationship between mother and daughter had become strained in recent years, according to people close to the family who requested anonymity to describe intimate Presley matters. One family confidante said Lisa Marie became particularly upset in 2016 when she filed to divorce her fourth husband, Michael Lockwood, and felt her mother was siding with Lockwood in the dispute.Still, they sat together at the Golden Globes.Schilling, who escorted Lisa Marie that night, declined to discuss Presley family matters. But he said the celebration of the “Elvis” film and the King’s legacy had been something of a salve for Lisa Marie, helping her “come out a little bit” after a difficult period. Her son, Benjamin Keough, died by suicide in 2020.On Jan. 26, two weeks after Lisa Marie’s death, Priscilla filed papers in Superior Court in Los Angeles challenging a 2016 amendment to the trust purportedly authorized by Lisa Marie. That amendment had removed Priscilla and Siegel as trustees. It had also designated Riley Keough and Benjamin, her brother, as co-trustees in the event of Lisa Marie’s death.Siegel had acknowledged receiving notice of his removal as trustee during his 2018 court battle with Lisa Marie. But Priscilla’s lawyers argued that the amendment was invalid, saying that it had never been delivered to her during Lisa Marie’s lifetime as required under the language of the trust. They also argued that the amendment was potentially fraudulent, asserting that Lisa Marie’s signature was “inconsistent” with her usual penmanship. Priscilla asked the court to recognize her as a trustee.Discord in the Presley family appears to have grown since the death of Lisa Marie, left, in January. She is shown with her mother, center, and daughter, Riley, at an event in Los Angeles last year.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressA spokeswoman for Priscilla did not respond to requests for comment on her motivations for the court challenge. But Priscilla, in a statement last month, asked the public to “allow us the time we need to work together and sort this out,” imploring fans to “ignore ‘the noise.’”Keough’s representative declined to comment on the estate matters.Weinshanker, the managing partner of Graceland, also declined to comment but has said since Lisa Marie’s death that he believed it was her intention to have Keough and her brother run the trust.“There was never a question in her mind that they would be the stewards,” he told Sirius XM’s Elvis Radio, “that they would look at it the exact same way that she did. And obviously when Ben passed, it really sat with Riley.”In Memphis last weekend, people touring Graceland said they had been closely watching the dispute unfold. Many have been Elvis fans for their entire lives and have grown accustomed to Presley family drama. Still, some worried that the schism might lead to Graceland’s being sold.Kristie Gustafson, 54, said she grew up listening to Elvis’s music with her mother. “I’m a very family-oriented person, so I would say it’s very important to keep it in the family,” she said, beginning to tear up.“Family,” she said, “is everything.”Nicole Sperling contributed reporting from Los Angeles, Jessica Jaglois contributed reporting from Memphis and Ben Sisario contributed reporting from New York. Sheelagh McNeill and Jack Begg contributed research. More

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      Amanda Bynes, Former Child Star, Is Released From Conservatorship

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      A judge in California freed the former Nickelodeon star from the arrangement that had governed her life after highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship that for the better part of a decade has governed the life of Amanda Bynes, who shot to fame as a child star on Nickelodeon and went on to have highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A court in California first ordered that Ms. Bynes be put in a conservatorship — a legal arrangement typically reserved for people who are older, ailing or have disabilities — in 2013, after erratic public behavior and a series of arrests. Over the years, Ms. Bynes’s parents have overseen her life, taking control of medical and mental health decisions and, for a time, her finances.The conservatorship system has come under intense scrutiny in the last year, after Britney Spears condemned her own as abusive and accused her father and others of exploiting her and seeking to capitalize off her wealth and stardom. A judge agreed to terminate Spears’s conservatorship in November.But Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship appeared to reach a smoother ending. Her mother, Lynn Bynes, who had acted as her conservator, told the court that she agreed that her daughter was now ready to live without that level of oversight, and a psychiatrist signed off, writing that Ms. Bynes had “no apparent impairment in alertness and attention, information and processing, or ability to modulate mood and affect.” Ms. Bynes’s lawyer, David A. Esquibias, held her case up as an example of how a conservatorship could be effective in rehabilitating a person while allowing them a degree of autonomy.“For the most part, mom has allowed Amanda to live freely,” Mr. Esquibias said. “She never wanted to be conserved, but she understood why.”At Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Roger L. Lund granted Ms. Bynes’s request to terminate the conservatorship. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” Judge Lund said.Ms. Bynes, 35, gained prominence as a young cast member of “All That,” Nickelodeon’s “Saturday Night Live”-style show, before headlining her own sketch comedy program, “The Amanda Show,” which helped define the network’s goofy brand of non sequitur humor. Ms. Bynes then graduated to roles in mainstream romantic comedies including “She’s the Man” and “Easy A.”A series of run-ins with the law in 2012 and 2013 drew intense media coverage, as she was arrested and accused of driving under the influence, hit and run and possession of marijuana. Ms. Bynes was held involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital in 2013 after setting a small fire in a driveway, and was later ordered into a temporary conservatorship.In an interview with Paper Magazine in 2018, Ms. Bynes said, “I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.” She told the magazine that she had been sober for nearly four years.At a time of reassessment of how the media, the entertainment industry and the public have treated female celebrities going through mental health or substance abuse struggles — spurred in part by Ms. Spears’s case — Ms. Bynes offers another example of a young woman raised in the spotlight whose subsequent breakdown was breathlessly covered by tabloids.In recent years, Ms. Bynes’s life has stabilized, her lawyer said. She is now studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and lives in an apartment community for women “poised to transition into an autonomous lifestyle,” according to papers filed with the court last month that requested Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship be terminated.“Ms. Bynes desires to live free of any constraint,” the filing said.The former actress has said little publicly about the conservatorship, aside from a video posted to social media in which she took issue with the cost of her mental health treatment.Conservatorships, often called guardianships, have received a great deal of public interest as a result of Ms. Spears’s case, disability rights advocates say, and a bill in California making its way through the state legislature would make it easier for conservatorships to be terminated and would require courts and potential conservators to consider alternative options first.Judy Mark, the president of Disability Voices United, a nonprofit organization that is working to get the legislation passed, said that while she supports the termination of Ms. Spears’s and Ms. Bynes’s conservatorships, she is not seeing it getting easier for a more typical conservatee to assert their freedoms.“Not everyone has Instagram accounts with millions of followers and a fan base that cares about them,” Ms. Mark said. “Most people conserved are normal people with disabilities, and most courts are very paternalistic.”Ms. Bynes and her parents have long been preparing for the termination of the conservatorship to ensure a smooth transition, said Tamar Arminak, a lawyer for Ms. Bynes’s parents. (The conservatorship of Ms. Bynes’s estate was ended several years ago, leaving the conservatorship in charge of her person, which involved medical and basic life decisions.) The court’s ruling allows Ms. Bynes to make personal choices that she did not have before, such as getting married to her fiancé, Ms. Arminak said.“The moment that it was clear and apparent that Amanda would do well off this conservatorship we agreed to terminate this conservatorship,” she said. More