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Case file s1876 · Hollywood and TV · 2024
2024
Norman Jewison: A portrait of Norman Jewison taken by Gail Harvey. (48198901241) (cropped)
Norman Jewison. Canadian Film Centre from Toronto, Canada. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
20 January 2024
Place
Los Angeles, California · United States
Field
film director · Film and television on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (California); Canadian common law (Ontario) · Common law
Historical event
Lawsuits in California and Ontario over the will of the director of In the Heat of the Night and Moonstruck
Religion
Norman Jewison: Protestant and Anglican (recorded as Canadian Protestants on Wikipedia)

Norman Jewison's three children sued after he changed his will two months before his death in 2024; the claims were settled by mediation and never tested in court

Norman Jewison died aged 97. CBC News reported in 2025, from lawsuits it obtained, that his estate was estimated at $30 million. The suits allege that his second wife, Lynne St. David Jewison, whom he married in 2010, progressively isolated and controlled him. They allege that a will signed in late 2023 left his three children, Kevin, Michael and Jennifer, nothing, replaced the executors with one, former Ontario premier Ernie Eves, and sent assets to his wife and a charity†. The Ontario suit was filed three days after his death, according to CBC, to void the will. Lawyers for Lynne Jewison and for Eves deny the allegations. The allegations in the California and Ontario cases were never tested in court. They were resolved through mediations, and an Ontario Superior Court judge approved a settlement in January 2025. Terms are not public in the sources reviewed. A Jewison foundation named for him and his second wife is registered as a Canadian charity. All claims above are allegations from filings.

What the law took from it

A will rewritten late in life invites an undue-influence suit, and settlement keeps both the claims and the terms out of the record.

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Norman Jewison's three children sued after he changed his will two months before his death in 2024; the claims were settled by mediation and never tested in court,” story s1876, https://www.celebrity.estate/norman-jewison-2024, updated 30 October 2026.

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