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Jerry Orbach's two families don't get along
Categories: Money & Work, Relatives, Celeb Parenting, Behaving Badly
Loving someone doesn't mean you have to love the people they love. My father had five kids and his love for each and every one of them was unconditional and unlimited. I, on the other hand, can barely stand to talk to myself, let alone the other four. And so, I completely understand Chris Orbach's desire to have nothing to do with his late father's second wife.And yet... there's the matter of the ten million dollars, of which Chris sees none until his stepmother, Elaine Cancilla-Orbach, dies. Chris sent his stepmother a letter claiming that she manipulated the elder Orbach into cutting his son out of his will. It's not about the money, though, claims Chris. "People think [the letter] was a money grab," he wrote on the First Wives World website. "For the trillionth time -- it wasn't. I do just fine as a voiceover artist."
Chris Orbach also chastised his father's donation of his eyes to the Eye Bank Association of America. Cancilla-Orbach, defends that decision, however. "Jerry always said he was so proud that, at age 69, he didn't need glasses," Cancilla-Orbach said. "He said, 'If I can give anything back, I want to give my eyes. I can't give my liver because I drank too much, and I can't give my lungs because I smoked too much. But I can give my eyes.' So, on his deathbed, when they asked if he was an organ donor, I said, 'Take his eyes.'"
I don't know... Maybe Chris Orbach has a point. After all, he is, I'm sure, making hundreds of dollars a month as a voice-over artist so he really doesn't need the money. And this isn't Jerry Orbach's first wife; it's his second wife who swooped in at the last moment, only having to spend two and a half decades with him to inherit his money. Really, if this is just about not having to visit Elaine Cancilla-Orbach on Mother's Day, drop it and don't. It's really that simple.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ame s 8-15-2008 @ 11:15AM
This situation sounds very familiar.
My late-husband's stepmother alienated all of his father's children. Only one of them has had any contact with the stepmother since the father's death 5 years ago, and it is suspected that she only does so because stepmother financially contributed to this sister's son's beach wedding.
Late father-in-law left his estate in a living trust, to be used by the stepmother as she sees fit. Last year she saw fit to buy her own daughter a house. If there is anything left in the trust when she dies, it is to go to father-in-laws children, his step-children (step mother-in-law's children, and my two children. I doubt there will be anything left.
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Sandyone 8-15-2008 @ 2:59PM
Ha! My husband's will has always stated that any future husbands of mine get NONE of his money. It all goes to our kids.
If he should change it an cut one of our kids out of his will, it will be pretty obvious that that kid isn't *supposed* to get anything.
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Tian Christof 8-16-2008 @ 10:29AM
As a friend of Chris', I'd like to correct a few errors in your piece
1. Chris makes thousands a WEEK as a voiceover artist, not "hundreds a month". When he says he doesn't need the money, trust me, he doesn't.
2 The sole purpose of that private letter was to tell Elaine all the reasons why he didn't ever want to see or speak to her anymore. These reasons included slighting the family at the hostpital, the funeral, the memorial, etc.
3. Chris has nothing against the practice of eye donation -- he was just very traumatized because he was never told of this plan, such that, while he was crying by his father's body, he was told he had to leave the room for the organ harvester -- THAT was the first he heard of it, and during that very sad time it was just a further shock, because it cut short the last time he would ever spend with his father.
But it's amazing how far away from the truth the Post "spiced the story up." The person who leaked the letter to the Post was a friend of someone Chris thought he could trust. So some very private family stuff has been made public AND distorted. It's sad.
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