Should Gore Vidal Have Left a Nicer Will?

If a famous author wants to leave the bulk of his wealth ($37 million, by one estimate) to Harvard, fine.

Vidal in 2009,
two years before altering his will.

But wouldn't it be nice to leave something to his half-sister and her son? And surely he'd want to pension off his longtime housekeeper-chef?

Not Gore Vidal.  “I’m exactly as I appear," he once said. "There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”

Result: yet another celebrity will contest. Nina Straight, Vidal’s half sister, "is challenging her half brother’s will on the grounds that Mr. Vidal was not mentally competent when he changed the terms of his will the year before he died."

Do you get the feeling that Vidal would have been sorry if his estate planning had not provoked a legal battle?

Photo via Wikimedia Commons