Prince left a fortune and no will. Aretha Franklin left three handwritten ones, one of them under a sofa cushion. What happened to the estates of famous people who did not plan for death.
The Tamil composer and singer, known as Thenisai Thendral, scored more than 400 films over three decades, brought Gaana music into the mainstream and wrote enduring hits for Rajinikanth and Vijay. He died in Chennai.
The Real World Seattle: Bad Blood roommate and Challenge competitor turned matchmaker died more than a year after a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, her friend Tiara Ramos announced.
The Detroit-born Air Force veteran played Captain Dallas in Alien, Viper in Top Gun and won an Emmy as the small-town sheriff of Picket Fences. He died in Seattle of natural causes.
The Victoria-born sprinter and defensive back won a record 13 gold medals at the Texas state track meet, an NCAA relay title and the 1998 Big 12 championship with the Aggies. He died after a heart attack.
With Dave Prater, Sam Moore made Hold On, I'm Comin' and Soul Man for Stax in the 1960s and earned the nickname Double Dynamite. He outlived his partner by 37 years.
The winningest coach in LSU men's basketball history won 448 games in 25 seasons, reached two Final Fours and brought Shaquille O'Neal to Baton Rouge. He died days after being named for a Wooden coaching award.
April 2026 took a singer who recorded around 12,000 songs, the DJ behind Planet Rock, the highest scorer in Olympic basketball history and a 20-year-old Ghanaian footballer shot on his team bus.
Two US presidents died on the 50th Fourth of July. C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died hours before JFK was shot. The famous deaths that shared a single day.
A Shevchenko Prize laureate who played more than 100 stage roles, from Bohdan Khmelnytsky to King Lear, he ran one of Ukraine's oldest drama theatres for over three decades. He died in Lviv after a long illness.
The Offaly-born musician and producer helped found Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts, and spent more than half a century reshaping the sound of Irish traditional music. He died in Dublin after treatment for cancer.
Brenton Wood had three hits in 1967, including Gimme Little Sign, a top ten record in both America and Britain. Half a century later he was still touring for a devoted Southern California audience.
March 2026 took Walker, Texas Ranger, Buffy's Xander, Superman's Miss Teschmacher, Back to the Future's Mr Strickland and the man who led the Woodstock crowd in the Fish Cheer.
