London — A London judge has ruled a mistress of the late Anthony Shaffer cannot claim a share of his multimillion-dollar estate, backing the playwright's wives and daughters.
Shaffer, whose award-winning thriller Sleuth was made into a film starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, died in London on Nov. 6, 2001, aged 75.
A judge at the High Court in London agreed with Shaffer's widow, actress Diane Cilento, his ex-wife Carolyn and her daughters Claudia, 40, and Cressida, 37, that the writer had been domiciled in Queensland, Australia, where his bequests cannot be challenged by those not mentioned in the will.
Shaffer's mistress, Jo Capece Minutolo, argued Shaffer was living in England when he died, and she could therefore claim a share of his estate under British law, even thought Shaffer's 1999 will did not mention her.
Judge Kim Lewison said he did not doubt that Liverpool-born Shaffer formed "an intimate and loving relationship" with Minutolo, whom he met when she sought advice about a screenplay she was working on.
But he dismissed Minutolo's argument that the importance of his relationship with his mistress had caused him to regard London as his permanent home.
"I do not doubt that relationships with women were important to Anthony, but I do not consider they were geographically fixed," the judge said.
The judge said Shaffer had considered his home to be at Karnak, the estate in tropical Queensland where he and Cilento had built their matrimonial "dream home" and established a theater, the Karnak Playhouse.
After his marriage to Cilento at Karnak in June 1985, the playwright transferred his financial management company from California to Australia and regularly voted in Australian elections, the judge said.
In his will, Shaffer called for his estate to be divided between his wives, daughters and his brothers, Peter and Brian.
Peter, his twin brother and fellow playwright who wrote Equus and Amadeus, was the executor of the will.
