Things Found In Richard Attenborough's Will
Richard Attenborough, the British filmmaker and actor, was very explicit about what he wanted after he died, from where his ashes were to be buried to who would benefit from his stellar art collection. On August 24, 2014, Attenborough passed away at age 90, according to the BBC. He was best known as an actor for such films as "The Great Escape" and "Jurassic Park" and as a director for the Oscar-winning biopic "Gandhi,"
His will stipulated that a third of his ashes were to be interred with the remains of his eldest daughter and his granddaughter who died in 2004 with the other two-thirds of his ashes to be scattered at two of his properties, per The Telegraph. His art collection was split between two museums, one in London and the other in his hometown of Leicester, and he left various amounts of money to the rest of his family, per Celebrity Archive.
A family tragedy
On the morning after Christmas in 2004, one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded unleashed a massive tsunami from the Indian Ocean that wiped out huge swaths of coastal land in Southeast Asia, killing nearly 230,000 people, per History. Among the more than 5,000 killed in Thailand that day were Richard Attenborough's daughter, Jane, and teenage granddaughter, Lucy, per History and The Daily Telegraph. Their family had been vacationing at their new residence in Khao Lak, Thailand, when the tsunami hit, per the Telegraph. Also killed was Jane's mother-in-law, Jane Holland.
Attenborough's will, which he filed in 2011, stipulated that a third of his ashes were to be buried with Jane and Lucy's cremains, located in a vault at St. Mary Magdalene church in London, England. The rest of his ashes were scattered at his estates in Chateauneuf de Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, France, and on the island of Bute in Scotland.
Art collection
At the time of his death, Richard Attenborough, the older brother of naturalist David Attenborough, had been living with his wife, the actress Sheila Sim, at a London nursing home, according to The Guardian. Sim, who had dementia, died two years later in January 2016, at age 93, per Variety. Attenborough had been using a wheelchair after a catastrophic fall at home in which he struck his head in 2008. Four years later he moved to the facility with his wife in the face of his failing health. When he died his estate in the U.K. was worth not quite $2 million with the bulk going to his wife, according to the Telegraph. That amount did not include international assets or trust funds, which may have increased his net worth to an estimated $20 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. He left £50,000 (roughly $60,000) to each of his grandchildren, along with lesser amounts to a brother, his wife, and some nephews, according to Celebrity Archive.
His collection of 150 Picasso ceramics that he and his wife had collected beginning in the 1950s, went to the Leicester Museum of Art, located in the city where he'd grown up, according to the Telegraph and the Leicester Museum website. He also donated several paintings to the Tate Gallery in London. And to the world, he left an impressive body of work as an actor and director over his 60-year career.