Before we get into today's story, I feel obliged to point out that anyone who wishes to leave me money in their last will and testament should do so freely, and rest easily, knowing that the money will be put to very good use. Just saying.
Because this is the story of Audrey and Charles.
Audrey was a chemist, with a PhD, and a very private lifestyle. She lived alone all her life, which ended at age 56 in 1997 in the one-bedroom apartment she rented in Louisville, Kentucky. She was known for paying her rent early every month, wearing black clothing most of the time, and her hobby of fencing. And one other word to describe her would be thrifty. She was known to save every nickel she could.
Charles was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, but you would know him better by the name he took to pursue a career as an actor. As Charles Bronson, he became the top box office attraction in the early 1970s, invariably as a tough guy. You would never confuse him with, say, Lawrence Olivier, but then again, he was never asked to play Hamlet.
Now, these two people never met or corresponded or ever were in the same place, except for the time Audrey spent enamored over Charles's image on TV and movie screens. That was enough for her to leave her entire pile of nickels - $291,975 worth - to Charles Bronson.
One year before she died, Audrey took a sheet from the phone book that was to be used as an emergency phone list and wrote out her final will and testament, to wit: “Under no circumstances is my mother Helen to inherit anything from me – blood, body parts, financial assets. I bequeath to Charles Bronson (the talented character actor) and what he doesn’t want can pass through to the Louisville Free Public Library.”
Audrey was a regular patron of the library, and their records show she regularly checked out his movies, and books about Bronson.
At first, Bronson said he was willing to take $160,000 of the loot. The Louisville Free Public Library urged him to pass everything on to them, saying the full amount would allow them to purchase 20,000 books and stock a new branch library.
Enter Audrey's sister Nancy, who, on behalf of the family, disputed the will on the grounds that Knauer was mentally unstable.
“This is a few, really kind of like hysterical lines scratched on top of a phone list. I don’t know what mental state she was in when she wrote that,” Nancy said. But the state of Kentucky allows such nonstandard wills to be executed.
Nancy went on to claim that her sister's infatuation with Bronson was plenty of proof that Nancy was in an impaired mental state.
"She saw the Death Wish [films] where he is avenging his family. She became obsessed with Charles Bronson. She has never met the man. I look at him and I think please, you know, how can you not? I don't understand. You didn't know her. You didn't love her. I did,” Nancy said.
But an expert on such matters (now, there's a great job to have!) ruled that leaving money to Charles Bronson does not necessarily mean one is mentally incompetent. And no one could testify about her emotional state, because she did not seek either medical or psychiatric care during the 20 years she lived in Louisville.
And then, to stir the stew even more, people going through Audrey's personal effects found three more wills, all written in April of 1999, and all leaving all her money to Charles Bronson. One of them detailed her admiration for the beefy actor and said she, a believer in reincarnation, felt sure that Bronson was her father in another lifetime.
In the end, Nancy and Bronson arrived at what lawyers love to call an "undisclosed settlement," and the Louisville library wound up with $10,000.
Again, if anyone wishes to remember me in their will, just have it say, "Hi, Mark!!"
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