Dispute Over Will Keeps “The Jeffersons” Star Sherman Hemsley From Being Buried
America said goodbye to Sherman Hemsley last month when the actor, who entertained millions as George Jefferson, passed away from lung cancer on July 24.
But Hemsley embalmed body has yet to be put to rest—it still sits in a refrigeration unit in an El Paso funeral home while a judge rules on a challenge to his will by Richard Thornton, who claims to be Hemsley’s brother.
Hemsley, whom many believe was gay, named friend and former manager Flora Enchinton his sole beneficiary, entitling her to more than $50,000. Enchinton had at one point lived with Hemsley and his friend Kenny Johnston, but she says the actor never mentioned any living relatives.
“Some people come out of the woodwork — they think Sherman, they think money,” Enchinton said. “But the fact it that I did not know Sherman when he was in the limelight. I met them when [Hemsley and Johnston] came running from Los Angeles with not one penny, when there was nothing but struggle.”
Also: It’s his to leave as he wished, and $50,000 isn’t such a large amount, all things considered. Suing over it just means the lawyers get it whoever wins.
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Not one but two successful television series that paid him right at $100k per episode and he died broke? Wow!
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@Bob LaBlah: Setting aside how you know how much he was paid, keep in mind that it’s a fairly expensive occupation (even when it pays well) and that Amen has been off the air around 20 years.
You don’t think old TV stars do Denny’s commercials for the fun of it, do you?
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@Bob LaBlah: Setting aside how you know how much he was paid, keep in mind that it’s a fairly expensive occupation (even when it pays well) and that Amen has been off the air around 20 years.
There’s also the possibility of investments gone bad. Probability, even, given events of a few years ago.
You don’t think old TV stars do Denny’s commercials for the fun of it, do you?
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You can’t be too careful. In a separate document to my will, I wrote a “nice” little letter making it clear that my brother was explicitly not included. Whether this guy is a true brother or not, it can cause undue stress for this woman.
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Could the burial be delayed over a possible DNA challenge? I agree w/ the gent that suggests they’re separate issues.
Seems sad that no one was able to better protect his assets. He had to have made decent money.
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@hyhybt: You do have a credible point. I was thinking along the lines of both of the series still being in syndication should have made him live a very comfortable life. Now that I think about it he was involved in a bankruptcy that made the news where it was challenged that he was doing it more out of having to pay than if he really had the money NOT to pay. I leave it alone because it was HIS (Sherman Hemsley’s affair and not Bob LaBlah’s.
@Avenger: He settled out of court back in the early 1980′s with a young dancer from NYC named Andre (I forgot his last name) who happened to be twenty years younger than he was and amde the accusation that they were lovers and Sherman promised to take care of him for life. It happened right around the time the Lee Marvin/ Michele (something or other) changed the domestic living law in California. They had lived in the same house for years because Hemsley admitted he knew the kid since he was a teen dancer trying out in NYC. It was a nasty domestic dispute and with the Jeffersons being as popular as it was (along with the money rolling in) it was in his best interest to give this kid “something” and let him go his merry way.
I do wish someone who knows this kid’s last name reads this because all info that WAS available a few years back on google has some how managed to vanish. BUT IT DID HAPPEN.
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Perhaps this is a stupid question, but how does a challenge to his will prevent burying the body? After all, wills often aren’t even *read* until after the funeral, which is one reason you shouldn’t put instructions for how you want that handled in one.