Dame Gillian, choreography queen of Cats, leaves £13.7m
SHE was the choreographer who created the dances for iconic musicals Cats and Phantom Of The Opera – bringing joy to theatregoers around the world.
And her genius also brought Dame Gillian Lynne, who died last July aged 92, a fortune of £13.7 million that she left in her will.
Dame Gillian, who choreographed some of the most famous shows in West End history, began dancing as a child partly as a means of blotting out the death of her mother in a car crash when Gillian was just 13.
A principal dancer at the Royal Ballet between 1946 and 1951, she starred with Errol Flynn in the 1953 film The Master Of Ballantrae, claimed him as a conquest, and took roles in pantomime, stage musicals and TV, before moving into choreography in 1961.
She staged the musical numbers for the 1964 Cliff Richard movie Wonderful Life, Barbra Streisand’s Yentl in 1983 and the Muppet Show – winning multiple Emmys and Baftas and a Golden Rose of Montreux.
She worked on West End shows, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Director Sir Trevor Nunn invited her to choreograph Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats, and she also created dances for Phantom Of The Opera and Aspects Of Love.
Lord Lloyd-Webber renamed the New London theatre – where Cats was first staged – in her honour. In the spectacular naming ceremony last year, weeks before her death, she was carried on stage on a golden throne surrounded by dancers. In a speech before a star-studded audience, Lord Lloyd-Webber told Dame Gillian: ‘You’ve made many stars look wonderful over your career, but today you are the star.’
Her first marriage to barrister Patrick Back ended in divorce but the pair remained friends, and she married the actor Peter Land in 1980. She received the CBE for services to dance in 1997, and in 2014 she became Dame at the age of 87. In 2011, she published her memoirs, A Dancer In Wartime. She also released a DVD called Longevity Through Exercise – at the age of 88.
Dame Gillian left a gross estate of £14,805,891 – £13,686,614 net – and the balance of the estate will be held on trust for individuals and charities including her husband Peter, to whom she left £1.5 million along with a string of legacies to friends and colleagues.