Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners! This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. We’re back to “estate planning of the rich and famous” where we chat about celebrities and their estate planning (or lack thereof!). Today’s episode is on Frank Gifford. Some may know and remember Frank from his profession football days playing on the Giants while others may know and remember him as Katie Lee Gifford’s husband. Regardless, today’s episode is on him, what happened follow his death estate-wise, and as we always do on these types of episodes, we’re going to start with going into Frank a little more personally and professionally first, then shift into what transpired with his estate following his death.
According to his Wikipedia page, Frank, well Francis formally, hails from Santa Monica, California. After Frank’s death, his wife, Kathie, shared that he grew up in a very poor home and Frank and his family, before Frank even attended high school, lived in 29 places due to his father unable to find work during the Great Depression. Super sad. After high school, Frank went to the University of Southern California (USC) not having any type of athletic scholarship and actually, according to his Wikipedia, he didn’t have an athletic scholarship because of his super low grade point average (GPA) in high school. Fast forward some time, Frank ended up on the USC team and was named an All-American … and graduated from USC in 1952.
That lead Frank to heading to the National Football League – where, for time sake let’s fast forward to things, he spent his entire career with the New York Giant. According to Wikipedia, he was quite the decorated player – he appeared in eight Pro Bowls, appeared in 5 NFL Championship games (which was before they started calling it the Super Bowl), he won the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 1956, and that same year – they won the Championship game against the Bears. A few years later, in 1960, Frank was tackled by a player on the Eagles, which, according to Wikipedia, they say it is “widely considered the hardest defensive hit, or one of the hardest, in the history of the NFL and is often referred to simply as The Hit.” He retired a few years later in 1964. In 1977, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
After his playing days, he shifted into broadcasting and had a long run with doing that. As well-known as he is from his playing days, he’s equally as well-known for his broadcasting days. Like, in 1977, Frank won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality. Oh and … Something I wanted to mention … because it’s kind of a funny connection to my lats name … In 1995, Frank was given the Pete ROZELLE Radio-Television Award. When I read that on Wikipedia, I laughed because I occasionally get asked if I am related to Pete Rozelle – and I think my Dad told me at one time that my Grandpa claims we’re related in some way…I mean, I’m not sure if that’s a dream or a joke or reality, but nonetheless, I don’t consider myself to be related to him!
Finally, in regards to him more personally speaking, Frank’s first marriage, a lady named Maxine, was his college sweetheart. Together, they had three children – Jeff, Kyle, and Victoria. Frank and Maxine divorced, and Frank remarried – but it too ended up in a divorce. Frank ended up meeting and later-marrying, Kathie, and together, they had two children – Cody and Cassidy. Frank and Kathie remained married until Frank’s death in 2015. His death came as a bit of a shock – Frank died on August 9, 2015 from natural causes. It was later reported by the family, in November 2015, that Frank had CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). The family shared, “After losing our beloved husband and father, we as a family made the difficult decision to have his brain studied in hopes of contributing to the advancement of medical research concerning the link between football and traumatic brain injury... We decided to disclose our loved one's condition to honor Frank's legacy of promoting player safety dating back to his involvement in the formation of the NFL Players Association in the 1950s." Wow. That’s incredible – and I’m certain was a difficult decision.
So, shifting to what happened after Frank passed away …
According to Page Six, which is of course in the source links for this episode, Frank passed away with an estate of around $10 Million Dollars and with a Last Will and Testament as an estate plan. You know what that means, if you’re a faithful Legal Tea Listener, and that’s the Will is public record. So, many news outlets found the Will online through the Connecticut, where he was living at the time of his death, probate records and reported on the Will’s contents. Let’s dive into it, shall we?
From the Will, his wife, Kathie, was listed as the Executor. As Executor, Kathie was tasked with distributing Frank’s estate according to his Will and his Will left his assets like this:
- First, Jeffery and Victoria, children from his first marriage, received $500,000 each – and they appear to have been given their inheritance “outright” which means, they got their share with no strings attached.
- Second, his other child from his first marriage, Kyle, was unfortunately seriously injured in a car accident, so Frank left him $1,000,000 and did so in-Trust for him to be managed by Kathie. So, Katie holds the purse strings for Kyle’s inheritance – like, what comes out of the Trust.
- Next, Frank gave $300,000 to the family’s former nanny, Christine, but he put a stipulation on it that said that any loans that were made to Christine, which are still unpaid, are deducted from that $300,000 or paid back to the Estate. That sounds like to me that he or they had loaned Christine some money – which is fine and dandy, but he wouldn’t put that kind of provision in there if there were … no loans, you know?
- Really, the rest of Frank’s assets and estate went to Kathie, including the home lived in where he died in Connecticut as well as another house that he had in Key Largo. All of that went to Kathie. Now, something to know too, is that Frank and Kathie’s children, Cody and Cassidy, didn’t get anything from him/Dad when Frank died, but at Kathie’s passing, they are set to receive the remaining estate and fortune – so they’ll be just fine, I’m sure!
Now, many of the reports I read regarding Frank’s estate kept talking about how Frank’s first three children, Jeffrey, Victoria, and Kyle, were not as “favored” as much as Frank’s late wife and their shared children, Cody and Cassidy. Many of the articles mentioned that the three original children got a combined $2,000,000 compared to Kathie (and sort of Cody and Cassidy) represent the remaining $8,000,000-ish. You know, we could sit here and speculate all day, but I didn’t see any reports that the first three children kicked up a fuss or tried to fight anything, so while the reports and articles make it seem like a big deal, it wasn’t a big enough deal for the original three to try and contest anything – or maybe they just decided it wasn’t worth it and to just move on. Who knows. Though, I’m happy to report I didn’t see anything about any family fighting – which, I hate to say it, but blended families like this are sometimes a bit more “ripe” to fight.
But they didn’t – and that’s awesome. I think it’s actually a great takeaway from Frank’s episode. Whether we want to admit it or not, blended families pose some unique considerations when embarking on an estate planning process. Actually, I should back out – blended families, it is IMPORTANT to get a plan in place. Trying to say “they’ll figure it out when I’m died” is likely going to be a recipe for disaster … there’s often a lot of emotions, opinions, etc. (and sometimes they go unsaid for a long time). So, yeah, if you’re part of a blended family, please oh please let this episode serve as an encouragement to get your plan done. Then, when you embark on the plan, know there are a lot of options and ability to take care of everyone in a methodical and intentional way to hopefully promote family harmony after you pass away – and if they do not kumbaya, at least having a good plan will hopefully not pour gas on the fire.
You know something that I was surprised no one talked about – is there was mention that he had a property in Connecticut and Florida. Often, when you have properties in multiple states like that, it’s typically advantageous to utilize trust planning, so the estate does not have to go through the Connecticut probate process AND the Floria probate process. Many “every day” people who have properties in more than one state elect to do trust planning to eliminate having to do probate in more than one state. Maybe that happened with Frank and he just had enough money that it didn’t really matter to have those extra legal fees – but I wanted to mention that as part of this podcast because that’s a big concern for a lot of my clients that have properties in multiple states. Having to go through probate not one…but in two states (or more if there are properties in more than two states) … nearly always pushes people into trust planning to avoid that. Figured I should mention that!
Alrighty, let’s wrap this episode up and shift to a sneak peak at next week. Next week we’re back to a “cautionary tale” episode where we talk about real-life clients, real-life cases that I, or my office, have worked on -or- maybe they are just generally good things to know/be aware of so you don’t slip up and turn into a cautionary tale one day. Next week, we are going to talk about how the holidays are approaching … and what do many of us do around the holidays? We get together with family, loved ones, and friends – and some of those we will see and visit, we may not have seen them in a bit. And you may notice that Mom, Dad, Aunt, Grandma, whoever … has declined since you last saw them. And now, you’re concerned. So, I wanted to do the episode next week to share some tools, resources, and tips/tricks for how to deal with this – how to deal with noticing your family member or loved one’s declining health So tune in for that next week, but until then, Legal Tea Listeners…take care and be well!
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