Strings Attached:
Isaac Stern's Kids Say There Were Cut Out of His Estate

December 13, 2004
By Charles Gasparino
Newsweek

Michael Stern, one of three grown children of the late violinist Isaac Stern, knew something was amiss after a call from a violist he knew in the Philadelphia Orchestra. His friend told him to check out a Web site that was auctioning off several rare instruments. "It's your dad's stuff," he said. Michael, the music director of the Kansas City Symphony, couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That's not possible," he said.

But it was. And for Michael; his brother, David; and their sister, Shira, it was one clue that led them to believe there was something very wrong with the handling of their father's estate after he died at 81 in 2001. They dug deeper, and say they discovered the executor was paying himself more than $300,000 in fees and transferring as-sets to Stern's third wife. The children are suing the former executor, William Moorhead, for $2.25 million. They claim that his friendship with the third wife, Linda Reynolds Stern, led him to cut the children out of their father's estate—money, as well as violins, memorabilia and family photos—and not pay off a debt their father owed to a family friend. The children's lawyer, Mark D. Schwartz, said in a court transcript that Moorhead was "manipulated by Ms. Stern and her greed.'' Michael says that he and his siblings are not in it for the money. He says, "We won't let our father's name be dishonored." (Moorhead declined to comment on any aspect of this story.)

Because the case was filed in probate court in New Milford, Conn., near a Stern home, it has remained out of the public eye until now. The court documents open a window into the troubled affairs of a man known largely for his musical achievements. His children spoke for the first time publicly about the case to NEWSWEEK.

Isaac Stern was married three times, but spent most of his life with his second wife, Vera, the mother of the three children. He divorced her to marry Linda Reynolds, a former employee of the Washington, D.C., Opera, when he was 77 and, according to Stern's children, she said she was 47 (Linda Stern did not return repeated calls for comments; her lawyer declined to comment).

Stern's children believed his assets were worth about $12 million. But Moorhead, they say, told them he left far less, and not enough to cover debts. One reason for the discrepancy, the children say: Moorhead allowed a transfer of certain assets, including a $3.5 million apartment on Central Park West in New York, to Linda. Moorhead claims in court documents that Isaac decided "to put the apartment in Linda's name'' shortly before he died. Shira recently said in court that her father had promised the children the apartment. She also said that when her father signed it over to his wife, he was ill and barely lucid. "He would talk about an impending invasion of men from Mars,'' Shira said in transcripts.

The children also take issue with the way they believe Moorhead managed many items left by their father. Among them: signed photos, paintings, violin bows, violins, rare letters and Judaica. "If there was an item that Linda Stern wanted, she'd call it—Bill Moorhead would call it—'a personal effect,' not inventory it, and it was gone,'' says Schwartz.

In response to the charges, sources close to the case say, Moorhead insists he had a fiduciary obligation to get top value for Stern's belongings, that he earned his fee because of negotiations that spared the estate money, and that he never found hard evidence that Stern wasn't competent to turn his apartment over to his wife. In the end, Linda Stern sold the apartment and gave half the proceeds to the estate. What the children still want, however, is a full accounting of their father's life's work. Says Shira: "He was a public figure, and it gave him power to do really great things. But we had to share him with a lot of people. Things that would have meant a lot to us, we don't have.''