Renowned film and stage director Mike Nichols left his estimated $20 million fortune to his newscaster wife, Diane Sawyer, and three children — but took great pains to hide from the public precisely how his wealth would be distributed.
“Mike and Diane cherished their privacy,” said attorney James Purdy, who represents the estate.
Nichols’ will, filed in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court on Wednesday, two weeks after he died at age 83, only details a few specific gifts.
“The Graduate” director left a J.F. Herring painting titled “Horse with Groom” to his son Max Nichols, 40, of Manhattan.
Sawyer will inherit all of her husband’s tangible property including home furnishings, automobiles, boats, jewelry, pictures, clothing and other art.
The 20-page document, signed last May, says the rest of Nichols’ fortune will go in a private trust. In an unusual filing, Purdy asks the court to seal the documents because “it was the expectation of [Nichols] that the revocable trust would be a private document.”
Court papers name Sawyer, Max as well as Nichols’ two daughters, Daisy, 51, of Manhattan, and Jenny, 38, of Brooklyn, beneficiaries of the fund, but the filing does not say how the money will be divvied up.
Daisy was Nichols’ child from his second marriage, to Margo Callas. He had Max and Jenny with his third wife, the writer Annabel Davis-Goff.
Attorney Edward Hayes, who handled Andy Warhol’s estate but is not involved in Nichols’ case, said the opaque trust is “very rare.”
“It really means two things,” Hayes said. “He doesn’t want anybody to know what he has, and two, he doesn’t trust his children to handle the money because they don’t have direct access to it.”
Sawyer, who had no children with Nichols, was appointed to oversee the estate, meaning she’ll hold the purse strings to her late husband’s fortune. She’s also poised to collect at least $500,000 in associated fees. The couple of 26 years lived together in a sprawling Fifth Avenue penthouse that once belonged to Robert Redford.
The Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner died Nov. 19 of cardiac arrest.
Nichols’ decades-long career yielded classic films including “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and stage comedies including “Barefoot in the Park.”
Read Mike Nichols’ will: