Tennessee Williams left his $10 million estate to Sewanee and his brother $25,000; the brother sued for undue influence and settled for $100,000

Tennessee Williams signed his will in September 1980 and changed it slightly that December. It was filed in March 1983 with an estate of about $10 million. Most went to the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, in a memorial fund named for his grandfather, the Rev. Walter E. Dakin. His sister Rose, who had a lobotomy at 24 and lived at Stony Lodge Sanitarium in Ossining, New York, was to be supported for life, with Southeast Bank of Miami in charge of her finances. His brother Dakin, a lawyer in Collinsville, Illinois, was left $25,000, payable after Rose's death. Dakin said he had been left "without a nickel." The brothers had been estranged since 1969, when Dakin had Tennessee committed for alcohol and drug treatment. Dakin sued, claiming undue influence and incompetence. The estate's lawyers found three earlier wills, 10 to 12 years old, that each left him $25,000. In April 1984 the estate paid him $100,000, including the original $25,000, which Sewanee's counsel called a "nuisance value settlement." Lady Maria St. Just was one of two trustees. The bequest reached Sewanee in 1996 after Rose's death^†, and in 2025 the university began co-managing the copyrights with International Literary Properties.