Cilla leaves £20,000 of £15m will to housekeeper of 30 years
CILLA Black has left her loyal housekeeper £20,000 in her will – while the bulk of her £15.2million fortune goes to her three sons.
Penny Walker was the only non-family member to be remembered by the late TV presenter and singer, court papers revealed yesterday.
And it has emerged that Miss Walker still lives in the star’s £2million ten-bed mansion in Buckinghamshire, which has its own indoor pool and a tennis court.
A millionaire by 25, Miss Black died with a net estate of £15,217,454 after more than 50 years in showbusiness.
Her sons Robert, 45, Ben, 41, and Jack, 35, will split the rest of her fortune.
However it is thought they will have to pay £6million in inheritance tax, leaving them to inherit around £3million each.
In addition to her country home on the outskirts of Denham, which she bought in 1970, Miss Black left behind a £2million villa in Spain and a £1.5million penthouse in Barbados.
Miss Walker worked for the star, who died of a stroke on holiday last summer at 72, for 30 years.
She became Miss Black’s confidante, and in 1997 accompanied the Anyone Who Had A Heart star when she collected her OBE. She was also there to provide support as the Surprise Surprise and Blind Date presenter grew increasingly frail. In 2014 Miss Black, whose husband Bobby Willis died from cancer in 1999, said her body was ‘falling apart’ after it was revealed she had gone deaf and had an operation on her arthritic hand. She died at her luxury villa in Estepona on August 1 last year after falling on the sun terrace and hitting her head, which caused her to suffer a stroke. A Spanish post mortem report revealed that her son Robert may not have found Miss Black up to five and a half hours after her fall. Last night Miss Walker declined to comment on the bequest.