Didn’t she do well! Brucie leaves widow £11.7million
(but children get nothing)
NICE to bequeath you, to bequeath you, nice…
Bruce Forysth left his wife Wilnelia almost £11.7m in his will, the Mail on Sunday can reveal – but his son and five daughters will inherit nothing.
The move is believed to have been designed to thwart the taxman, as money passed from husband to wife is not subject to inheritance tax.
Bruce himself once described the levy as ‘a bit over the top’, adding: ‘I think your inheritance should go to your children more than back to the country you’ve lived in.’
Probate records reveal the former Strictly Come Dancing host, whose showbiz career spanned more than 75 years, left £100,000 in trust to be
Entertainer’s will thwarts the taxman
split between his nine grandchildren when they reached the age of 21, and £20,000 each to two executors of his estate.
Everything else in his £11,718,242 estate, after funeral and legal expenses, went to 60-year-old Lady Wilnelia, the former Miss World he married in 1983.
He failed to leave anything to daughters Debbie, Julie and Laura from his 20-year marriage to first wife Penny Calvert, and daughters Charlotte and Louisa from his second marriage to his Generation Game assistant Anthea Redfern.
Jonathan Joseph ‘JJ’ ForsythJohnson, his son from his third marriage, also did not directly inherit anything in the will which was drawn up in 2005. After Bruce’s death at the age of 89 last August, his agent said that ‘all his children’ were with him when he passed away peacefully at his £4m home in Surrey.
The entertainer, who left school with no qualifications made his name on the variety hall circuit. His big break came when he was asked to host the TV show, Sunday Night At The London Palladium, in 1958.
Bruce rose to become Britain’s highest-paid TV star by hosting hit game shows including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and The Price is Right, and he presented Strictly Come Dancing until 2014.