An Illinois man left his estate to two actors he never met in life, leaving them with an estimated half a million dollars each.
Ray Fulk of Lincoln, IL, died last July at the age of 71. He lived by himself on a 160-acre property that he had inherited from his father. He had no family, nor children, reports ABC News .
“He was a loner, and a lot of neighbors didn’t know who he was,” said Donald Behle, the estate attorney who helped prepare Fulk’s will in 1998. Behle never say Fulk again after that.
Though a loner, Fulk did admire two actors: Kevin Brophy and Peter Barton, whom he never met. He liked them so much that he left his estate for the two actors to split.
The big question is, of course, “why?”
“He just said they were friends of his,” said Behle, who knew the two men were actors, but not whether Fulk had ever met them.
According to the State Journal-Register of Springfield, IL, Fulk was simply a fan of their television shows.
Barton is best know for the role of Dr. Scott Grainger in the soap opera The Young and the Restless , which he held from 1987 to 1993. Brophy is known for the 1977 show Lucan , from which Fulk had a poster hanging in his house.
Behle is overseeing Fulk’s estate, which is appraised at $1,054,000. Fulk also had roughly $230,000 in cash and CDs. Sale of his estate is “imminent,” according to Behle.
After Fulk’s death, both Brophy and Barton were notified of the bequest. The two actors are actually friends, who starred together in the film Hell Night in 1981.
While they couldn’t be reached for comment, Behle said that he was visited by Barton who was curious to see if the inheritance notice was real. “His reaction was disbelief,” Behle said. “What would yours be?”
Once the estate is sold, both actors will receive checks for nearly half a million dollars in the mail. “It’s been one of the oddest things I have ever had to deal with in 30 plus years of practicing law,” said Behle.
What do you think? Any man who leaves his estate to two actors he never met seems like a pretty eccentric guy to me.