3 Groups Wanted $260,000 Bequest : Rival Museums Settle Fight Over Movie Buff’s Estate

Albert Rosenfelder died a year ago and left his $260,000 estate to a Hollywood movie museum.

The problem was, he forgot to say which one.

The lonely, aging bachelor meant the bequest as a final tribute to the industry he loved, but instead it became the center of a dispute among three rival film museums. Representatives of all three laid claim to the money, saying that they were sure Rosenfelder would have wanted it to go to them.

As a probate trial was about to begin in Pasadena Superior Court last month, however, lawyers for the museums reached agreement on how to divide the estate.

The biggest winner in the settlement is Hollywood Heritage, the preservationist group that operates Hollywood Studio Museum. It will get 90% of the estate, which derives most of its value from Rosenfelder’s savings and three Hollywood bungalows.

Cousins Get 6%

Three cousins who live in the Midwest will divide 6% of the estate and the remaining 4% will go to a group that plans to open the American Film and Television Museum. The proposed Hollywood Exposition and Museum, a pet project of state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), will get nothing.

“I think Al Rosenfelder must be smiling,” Hollywood Heritage founder Marian Gibbons said after learning of the settlement.

Gibbons said she is sure Rosenfelder, 78 when he died, wanted the money to go to Hollywood Heritage. He worked as a volunteer for the group and often checked on restoration of the De Mille Barn, where the first feature-length film was shot in 1913. The barn, near the Hollywood Bowl, opened in December as the home of Hollywood Studio Museum.

Gibbons said Rosenfelder told her he wanted his collection of nearly 200 portraits of Academy Award winners to be displayed at the barn. And a fellow movie-memorabilia collector said Rosenfelder told her he wanted his estate to go to Hollywood Heritage.

Lawyers for the competing museums said their cases were weakened because those museums didn’t exist in May, 1982, when Rosenfelder wrote his one-page will. They agreed that most of the estate should go to Hollywood Heritage because of its strong ties to Rosenfelder.

“The settlement allocation was based on what the parties thought . . . the ultimate result would be,” said Peter D. Gordon, a lawyer for American Film and Television Museum.

Community leaders have long advocated opening a film museum in Hollywood, but securing financial backing has proved difficult.

Gibbons said the bequest will help operate Hollywood Studio Museum and perhaps pay for new exhibits and landscaping, and to rebuild a porch that once surrounded the building.

Gordon said the American Film and Television Museum’s $10,000 share of the estate will be used as seed money for the museum, which does not have a home.

City Withdraws Claim

The City of Los Angeles last month withdrew its claim on behalf of Roberti’s Hollywood Exposition and Museum project. City officials agreed that the estate appeared to be intended for Hollywood Heritage. They also said the museum would have difficulty winning in court because it was not even on the drawing board when Rosenfelder wrote his will.

The settlement also calls for Hollywood Heritage and the American Film and Television Museum to divide Rosenfelder’s 184 paintings of Academy Award winners, as well as sheet music, photos, statues and other memorabilia.

The museums agreed to periodically combine the collection so that it can be shown as a whole.

Jeanne Shepard, Rosenfelder’s friend and tenant for 35 years, said he would want the collection kept in one place.

“It is meaningless without that continuity,” Shepard said. “It would break his heart,” Shepard said of the portraits, “because it was his particular project to build a complete set of the Academy Award winners” for best actor and best actress.

“He was not a wealthy man. I think he went without things so he could buy the pictures.”

Rosenfelder ran a Cleveland hobby shop and dance studio, which he sold after World War II. He then moved to Los Angeles.

Friends said he talked continually about the movies. Some days, he watched a triple feature during the day, then went to a studio preview at night.