Before Sir Michael Gambon’s passing last year, the only time I ever wrote about him in a gossipy way was back in 2009, when I came across a story about how his established mistress had just given birth to their second child together. Gambon had been married to his British-aristocrat wife, Lady Anne Gambon, since 1962, and they have a son, Fergus Gambon. He had also established a second family with his mistress Philippa Hart and they had two sons, Tom and Will. Lady Anne lives in the Gambon country estate, while Philippa and their two teenage sons live in London. Well, Sir Michael passed away last September, and his will has just become public. He left everything to his wife and eldest son, and nothing much to his mistress and their sons.
Sir Michael Gambon has handed over his £1.5million estate to his wife – leaving nothing to the long-term girlfriend with whom he had two teenage sons. The Dumbledore actor famously shared his time between Lady Anne Gambon and set designer Phillipa Hart 25 years his junior. After his death last September aged 82, his will has been published today, showing almost the entire fortune has passed to Lady Anne.
She is listed as an executor along with her son, Fergus, 60, by the star who appeared in six Harry Potter movies as Hogwarts headteacher Prof Albus Dumbledore. Provision was made for the £1,465,882 fortune to pass to Fergus if his mother had died before her husband.
Meanwhile Ms Hart, who lived openly with Sir Michael in a West London townhouse, does not receive her penny in the will which was drawn up and signed in 2016. She had two children with the actor – Tom, 17, and 15-year-old William, who each received just £10,000 and a trophy, according to the three-page document. They are both given a silver heart Variety Club of Great Britain stage actor award – the eldest getting the one awarded to his dad in 1987, while the youngest gets the trophy presented in 2000.
Ms Hart declined to tell the Daily Mail if she was aware she had been left out of the will. Speaking from her £1.5million Victorian terraced four-bed, she said: ‘It’s none of my business. I really don’t want to talk about this.’
Fergus also declined to comment when approached at their £5million Grade II listed family mansion in Meopham, Kent. He said of his mother: ‘She won’t want to speak to you.’
Sir Michael died in September last year aged 82 following a bout of pneumonia, with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside.
This is just a reminder that the only thing that separates the trailer park and the upper-crust is money. Money buys the thin veneer of “respectability.” But even they can’t hide their completely trashy behavior. To start a whole other family and then leave your mistress and your “other” children next to nothing? £10,000 and a trophy, while the wife and eldest son get everything? The absolute shenanigans of this. It also makes me wonder WTF is in all of those secret royal wills. I’d still like to know how Prince Philip got such a large estate and what kind of money he bequeathed to his special friend and companion Penny.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
-
- Michael Gambon attends the Launch of Sky Atlantic TV Series ‘Fortitude’ at The Northumberland, London, England, UK on Wednesday 14th January 2015.,Image: 505528289, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
-
- Sir Michael Gambon arrives on the Red Carpet for the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards on 13/11/2016 at The Old Vic, The Cut, London. Pictured: Sir Michael Gambon.,Image: 522168638, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS- Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards / Avalon
-
- Michael Gambon attends the UK Premiere of ‘Dad’s Army’ at the Odeon Leicester Square on January 26, 2016 in London, England. 26.01.2016,Image: 528292494, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw / Avalon
-
- 147300, Michael Gambon attends ‘Dad’s Army’ World Premiere at the Odeon, Leicester Square in London. London, United Kingdom – Tuesday January 26, 2016. USA, CANADA, AUSTRALIA ONLY,Image: 532161223, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS, DIRECT SALES ONLY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE IN CAPTION – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: IPA, PacificCoastNews / Avalon
What a disgusting man. At the very least, he should have made sure his other children will have a good life as his “legitimate” son. They couldn’t find a worse actor than him for Dumbledore.
You do know that this is his will. One thing. He might have already set up the other two sons while he was alive. And the mistress was in a flat worth as much as his entire will was. She might already have accounts that he set up in her name. Your making all your opinions on one piece of paper. There might be a lot more that we will never know about.
was just coming here to say this and @ELX below. His public estate is extremely low for the money he earned from all those movies and his mistress and 2 other sons are likely very well taken care of, and it’s the paper wife that got more of the shaft, aside form the value of the home.
Yes, the mistress and sons are not suffering. That flat was surely purchased by him.
A will is just a will. We do not know what provisions, trust funds and so forth, were made during his lifetime. The proceeds of the will are rather small, it seems like dispositions were made prior to his death, probably as part of a tax and estate plan.
I agree @ELX. Inheritance tax seems to be pretty hefty in England and a lot of people start transferring property and monies before their death so their descendants don’t have to pay a lot or anything. He most likely made arrangements and transferred everything before his death. It would also explain why a man who worked all his life in the entertainment industry and was in a very lucrative franchise spanning over a decade would only have a £1,465,882 “fortune” to leave to his wife and kids.
I agree that it does seem the will doesn’t really reflect the majority of his assets. He starred in 6 HP movies in a central role, on top of his body of work outside those films, and he was only worth $1.5M? Somehow I doubt that. Seems like financial arrangements were put in place outside of his will but who knows, besides the family of course.
Edit: lol @B you posted my exact thoughts as I was typing them out
Finally I’m useful! I’m an estate planning and asset structuring lawyer who acts for very high net worth individuals (Australia, but I have clients with assets in multiple jurisdictions including the UK and I’m familiar with UK succession and tax law)!
There is no way in hell his assets were limited to his personal estate. That £1.5m was probably just his walking around cash.
Rich people set up trusts during life for a whole bunch of reasons. Asset protection, income streaming and, importantly, tax minimisation. I’m not rich by a long shot and even I hold all my assets in a trust (if I’m successfully sued, they can’t be touched).
In this case there’s another good reason for trusts – because they aren’t part of an estate they aren’t available in estate claims. Spouses and kids are entitled to claim from an estate if they feel they haven’t been left with adequate provision. Keeping assets outside the estate is a good way to minimise the chance of a claim (litigation is expensive and is usually an estate expense, depleting it further) whilst maintaining control of disposition of assets.
Basically, since no one has sued, everyone feels perfectly well taken care of, and the media who published this for clicks is just super gross.
I mean, I assumed if there was trust fund, the tabloids would find out about it. They have got the info on his girlfriend’s house. If he did a super secret trust fund for his other children, that’s good. I hope it is true, because they didn’t choose to be his other family.
@sevenblue The whole point of trust funds is that they are generally private and don’t need to be disclosed the same way a will has to be disclosed. The press got the info about the girlfriend’s house because there are public records on property ownership. I would be surprised if the younger sons are not taken care of.
@ambel, I know they are private, but that didn’t stop tabloids from reporting about it when it comes to other celebrities, even Camilla’s children. Tabloids pay people to get this kind of info. I mentioned the house, because it is apparent they did look at what the girlfriend has.
Ah yes, Dumbledore, famously non-manipulative and completely open across the board…or not.
@Andrea, it isn’t about the man’s character. I didn’t like his acting choices for the character. He may be a good actor, but the wrong one for this specific character.
It’s one thing to not leave anything to the mistress, even if he lived with her half time. But to leave pittances to his teenaged sons?? What an absolute jerk.
As his younger children are still minors, is there a requirement that the estate provide at least what would be owed in child support?
That said, he was well off for a working actor but this is not an enormous inheritance. Hopefully the kids have what they need to get a decent start in life and then off to work for a living like the rest of us.
My thoughts, too. The mother can and should sue the estate for child support.
I also can’t believe Dumbledore didn’t have more money.
Yeah, I thought that too. That’s a very small estate, all things considered.
For all we know he DID have more money and dispersed it in trust funds or whatever. We assume King Charles has done that for Camilla and her children, it’s much more likely Michael Gambon did that for his minor children.
The mistress could have commented and chose not to. That suggests to me that she’s been taken care of.
@MinorityReport, one difference: we didn’t assume it, it was reported by tabloids. They usually pay people to get info, it is interesting they didn’t report on any trust funds he may have established.
At least in the US, very little passes through a will anymore. Most people arrange for their retirement/investment and bank accounts to pass directly, for example, no probate needed. Even a house can be placed in trust and not have to be probated. Wills are for personal property (cars, furniture), especially for the wealthy who have the resources to set up alternatives to wills, which require probate.
That makes a lot of sense. I hope that’s what’s happening here.
Not shocked at all. Men will be men. Which is why I don’t understand women who are okay being someone’s girlfriend or mistress till the end of time. Of course he left everything to his wife, she was his wife. He should have provided more for his two minor children though – but perhaps something was established for them prior to his death. Lots of men with second families do that and then upon death everything goes to the wife.
Yeah, I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, this is why marriage exists. While inheritance isn’t a gimme, you’re signing yourself up to a certain level of rights and protection when you sign that paperwork. Having a longterm relationship with someone who has that arrangement with somebody else is certainly a risk. On the other hand, this is really sh–ty and classless of him. I just hope the mistress knew what the details before he died.
I’m puzzled as to why someone who “appeared in six Harry Potter movies”, one of the biggest blockbuster franchises, and not in an unimportant role would have such a small “fortune” to pass on… Maybe the mistress has access to a number of Swiss bank accounts or a little flat in Hawaii that no one knows about?
and @Marycontrary, Better Call Saul taught me that there is a minimum amount you can leave someone so it makes it harder to contest a will (as opposed to if you cut them out entirely) In the US that amount is precisely 10,000 dollars but I don’t know if that exists in the UK…
I’d be very confident that the rest of his £££ has already been handed around in trusts and the like. The richer you are the less tax you pay and we do have inheritance tax here that he will have wanted to avoid as much as possible.
He is behaving like the aristocrats: the elder son gets the lot eventually, the younger get a pittance. Wonder how much the trophies are worth and if they can sell them. The mistress apparently owns her 1.5 mil lodgings and who knows what else she has been gifted over the years.
Yeah I wouldn’t say the mistress has nothing – she has a 1.5 million pound flat in London. She did ok.
Isn’t inheritance tax sky high in the UK except for when it is passed down to the living spouse. I wonder if there is an agreement in place already for the teenagers as a work around.
similarly commented just below. It could well be that it is.
I would think so too, he was in his 80s, I would assume he distributed assets out prior to avoid issues.
The whole wife + mistress thing is weird, but in the previous article it sounds like everyone in the situation is ok with it? As long as everyone consents, none of my business. That kind of life and relationship is not for me though.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt: it could be that he knew the will would become public, and that he arranged things privately beforehand to avoid taxes (e.g. by buying his second family’s house, setting up trusts for their education, etc.). That is a possibility.
Yes,nthat sounds very possible. If he left £1.5m to his wife and oldest son and bought a £1.5m house for his girlfriend and set up educational funds for his minor sons then that’s reasonably fair.
I feel for the sons, and not a whit for the mistress. If she can legally hit up the estate for child support, go for it (and for all we know, they already may have trusts) but otherwise this is what you get with married men. It sounds like the apartment was in her name in any case, so he was probably hiding assets from his wife for years before his death. He may have been a sir, but he was obviously no gentleman.
I don’t actually like this take. His second family was public knowledge so obviously his wife knew and decided their arrangements worked for her because they didn’t divorce.
Open marriages are a thing and as long as everyone knows what is happening and buys in, it isn’t for others to judge, IMO.
Not making waves and a fuss is not the same as being ok with it. Strikes me as more of a golden cage with a narcisisist the wife felt she couldn’t leave
It was hardly an open marriage. She tolerated his cheating once she found out about it. It started as a classic affair and I have no sympathy for a woman putting up with that.
Wills mean very little nowadays in terms of money inheritance. If he set up trusts for them before his death, gave gifts before his death, etc. it’s the same thing. The media also reports all the time about how the Duke of Westiminister inherited everything from his father and his sisters got nothing – his father left his sisters trusts with stocks and property and money, etc. worth enough that they never need to work again. Given the estate only totaled 1,500,000 it seems something like that is going on here.
His net worth was estimated to be around 20 million. Yet only 1.5 million was entered into probate. My guess is that his wife, girlfriend, and every child were beneficiaries to irrevocable trusts, either a family trust for each of his partners and his descendants, or individual trusts. Maybe not. But with over ten million missing…it was likely held in irrevocable trusts.
People don’t like paying estate taxes and do everything they can to avoid them. Any financial advisor or trusts and estates attorney would have advised him of this.
I read his last night and laughed out loud – many years ago I worked with Anne Gambon, she was a Maths teacher and a raging alcoholic! She used to be so drunk at work that the principal had to take away her car keys on a number of occasions and ask colleagues to take her home.We used to wonder in the staff room what life with Michael was like four her to be in that state. I honestly thought that she’d passed away by now, it seems that since the days that I knew her, she got some help and sobered up.
She probably deserves every penny, as who knows what she really had to put up with.
Thank you for sharing this fascinating personal experience! I’m sure her life got a lot better once her husband started living elsewhere.
Are we living in an age of messy families’ secrets being revealed or what ? I feel like these stories are coming out from everywhere lately.
Wills have always been a matter of public record.
I meant to say that the stories seem to be coming from everywhere lately. You have the British royal family being ever so messy and the Cyrus family stuff for example. Everything is coming to the light at the same time.
He probably set up his mistress and sons before he died.
I’m so surprised his estate was only 1.5 million pounds! That doesn’t strike me as much for a very successful actor.
So many things about this story do not add up….
1. i.e. a home worth 5 Million which presumably passes via a joint tenancy to his wife (anyway) but cash/ liquid assets of circa 1.5 Million, especially after all those Harry Potter films?
2. No gifts within the will for his second family and minor children? Especially given his advanced age and the fact that he was still married to his wife.
As stated above this all looks like advanced Estate Planning to protect family secrets, which is why the UK trash press are all over it.
Going to guess he maybe had more than two families and may have been providing for them all in secret and tied up those loose ends via trust funds for all his children and ex partners.
That’s just what’s in the will. We aren’t privy to conversations they had while he was alive but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gifted a lot of his money while he was alive to avoid paying estate taxes.
What’s shocking is how little his estate is.
Never cared for him since he said he never read Harry Potter to prepare for Dumbledore. Peter O’Toole would have slain as Dumbledore.
I’m sorry but is anyone else just dying laughing at the “..and a trophy” part? Talk about a consolation prize.
Kaiser asked about Prince Philip’s estate. I firmly believe the firm bribed him on an annual basis not to divorce QE2 and that is why his will is secret for 100 years or whatever it is.
That doesn’t mean the mistress and offspring are destitute or were not provided for. There may be an arrangement like KCIII made with his mistress—house, money, $ gifts. It just means there is less public embarrassment.
Inheritance tax is 40% above a threshold of £325k (it increases to £500k for certain cases involving home inheritance). The goal is to minimize the value of your estate subject to taxes. I’m not a millionaire but even I am taking advantage of all mechanism available to me to transfer my assets while I’m alive to minimize tax implications after my death.
So the reported numbers are only the publicly available information of what he has left behind; he has likely set up trusts or given away a significant amount during his lifetime. Since no one directly involved is making a fuss, I’m pretty sure they’ve been taken care of.
Ackchyually what usually separates the uber wealthy from the trailer park set is knowledge of how trust funds and estates work.
Side piece and her kids are just fine.
Mistress shouldn’t get a dime – she knew what she was doing. I’m sure she was taken care of separately…not that she deserves a cent.
Kids deserve it tho
My question is how was he only worth 1.5 million pounds?! I deleted the long financial breakdown I wrote, but that’s straight up middle class levels of wealth. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but you’d think someone with his career and literally being married to an aristocrat meant he was more financially robust!
That all said, perhaps the simply spent it all by having two families!
I expect he made private provision for his second family. Btw, his widow should be referred to as Lady Gambon, NOT Lady Anne, or Lady Anne Gambon. Unless a woman has the rank of Lady in her own right, for example the late Princess of Wales, who was Lady Diana, as the daughter of an Earl, a woman married to a knight of the realm is simply Lady (insert surname of husband).
This post is an excellent exercise in showing how “facts” can be misrepresented.
Many of us, myself included, read that the wife and first kids got 1.5 mil and the mistress and her kids got nothing. Once reading the comments, it seems pretty clear that we know NOTHING about who got what beyond just that ONE portion of his money in the will.
I am not even saying that the original reporting was trying to misrepresent it. But a certain story was told many of us believed it, and then others provided more insight and showed us that it probably isn’t as bad as it looked.