The ex-wife and widow of a Lord of the Rings voice coach have become locked in an ‘unfortunate Mexican standoff’ over his £100,000 life insurance payout – with each claiming he no longer loved the other.
Top British dialect coach and actor Andrew Jack created the Middle-earth accents for the movies and taught them to the cast of the trilogy, including Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.
During a stellar career, he also worked on four Star Wars films, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and dozens of other blockbusters.
When he died, aged 76, from Covid-19 in March 2020, he was married to Australian voice coach Gabrielle Rogers. But he had only recently divorced his British ex, Paula Jack.
Now the two women are fighting over who gets his £100,000 insurance payout, with his ex, Ms Jack, claiming his marriage to Ms Rogers was on the rocks by the time he died.
In her claim to the High Court, Ms Jack says this is why the voice coach never made his new wife the beneficiary under the policy and that he wanted her to receive the cash.
But Ms Rogers – laying claim to the money – has rebutted the claim as ‘an unjust and unfair smear on their relationship’ and that they were ‘very much in love’ right up until his death.
Last week, in an attempt to draw a line under the bitter dispute, a judge at the High Court in London appointed two independent trustees to decide who receives the six-figure payout.
But he said it could still end in a drawn-out court fight if either party disagrees with what the new trustees decide. (DailyMail)
