Weirdest Wills

Audrey Jean Knauer
In Louisville, Ky., a devoted fan of Charles Bronson (pictured), wrote a will a year before her 1997 death at the age of 55, leaving her $300,000 estate to the Death Wish actor. The will, handwritten on a list of emergency phone numbers, also stipulated that absolutely nothing be left to her mother Helen. Knauer's sister contested the will, stating that a will Knauer had written 20 years prior, in which she left everything to relatives, was more authentic. Despite the lawsuit, the money went to the action hero, whose spokesperson told the New York Post that he would donate it to charity.

George Bernard Shaw

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the only winner of both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar, left a large part of his wealth to be used towards funding the creation of a new alphabet. While the sum was reduced to a mere £8600, Shaw's wish for a phonetic alphabet that would avoid the confusions of English spelling was carried out, and an edition of his famous play Androcles and the Lion was published using the 55-letter Shavian Alphabet.

Jeremy Bentham
Born in 1748, Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist and social reformer. An early exponent of utilitarianism and the benefits of public education, Bentham's ideas and writings were seminal in the establishment in 1826 of London University, today University College London, the first English university to admit students without regard to race, sex or religion. Upon Bentham's death in June 1832, his body was preserved as requested in his will. Bentham wished to be embalmed, dressed, and placed in his chair "in the attitude in which I am sitting when engaged in thought." The body remains on display in a glass case at the University College London. Because Bentham's head was damaged during preservation, it is stored separately, and the body was fitted with a wax replica. For the college's 100th and 150th anniversaries, Bentham's remains were brought to sit at the meeting of the College Council. He was listed as "present but not voting."





T.M. Zink
Iowa attorney T.M. Zink, who died in 1930, had such a strong disdain for women that he wished to use his savings to establish a library that would allow no works by female authors or artists, and would prohibit female patrons. In his will, Zink stipulated that his $35,000 be placed in a trust for 75 years, and the accumulated sum be used to build the Zink Womanless Library, where every entrance would bear a sign with the words "No Women Allowed." Zink's daughter, who was left $5 in the same will, challenged it successfully, and the female-free learning zone was never built.




Frederic Baur
Before his death in May 2008, Frederic Baur, the man who came up with the distinctive Pringles can, told his children that he wished to be buried in his invention. At first Baur's children were slightly skeptical of his wish, but when Baur passed away, they honored his request by purchasing a can of Pringles Original at a local pharmacy for part of his cremated remains, which were duly interred.



Mark Gruenwald
One of the chief architects of modern superhero comics, Mark Gruenwald was executive editor of Marvel Comics, overseeing such classics as Captain America and Iron Man. His proudest achievement, however, was his authorship of the 12-issue miniseries Squadron Supreme, in which a team of superheroes from an alternate universe attempt to use their powers to run a perfect world. When Gruenwald died of a heart attack in 1996, he was cremated and his ashes were preserved in accordance with his will: Gruenwald was literally immortalized in his work -- his ashes were blended with the inks used to print a 4,000-copy print run of the collected miniseries.