Johnson V. Johnson
by Barbara Goldsmith
Knopf (e-book)
Family members of deceased tycoons squabbling about payouts should find this especially interesting - a fight for the estate of Seward Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. The 87-year-old, who died in 1983, left almost all his US$500 million to his third wife, Basia, the family's former maid. After his death his children alleged that their father, who married Basia when he was 76 and she 34, was senile when he executed his last will and under her undue influence. Barbara Goldsmith points out in Johnson V. Johnson, completed in 1987, that the trial was then the longest, most sensational and most expensive (legal fees exceeded US$24 million) in US history. With access to all sides, Goldsmith was 'the' person to write the book, although she almost squanders that privilege with, at times, lazy journalism, including verbatim Q&As with, among others, one of Johnson's children, Mary Lea Johnson, who had an incestuous relationship with her father. The story is compelling, the telling less so, but readers will persevere to find out who got what.
