W.C. Fields paid his son's mother $20,000 to deny he was the father, and his will's orphan college lost to the wife he never divorced

W.C. Fields married Harriet "Hattie" Hughes in 1900. Their son, William Claude Fields Jr., was born in 1904. The couple separated by 1907 and never divorced, and Fields paid her an allowance until he died. In 1916 he began a relationship with Bessie Poole, a Ziegfeld Follies performer. Their son, William Rexford Fields Morris, was born in 1917 and placed in foster care. In 1927 Fields paid Poole $20,000 for a sworn statement that read: "W. C. Fields is NOT the father of my child." He paid for the boy's support until age 19 anyway. Poole died in 1928. Fields died on Christmas Day 1946. His will ordered cremation and left part of the estate to found a "W. C. Fields College for Orphan White Boys and Girls, where no religion of any sort is to be preached." Hattie and Claude objected to the cremation on religious grounds, and it did not take place until 2 June 1949. In July 1949 a judge ruled that the estranged widow was entitled to half of the $771,000 estate. In December 1949 the court struck out the college. His secretary and executor, Magda Michael, kept fighting, and in December 1950 the bequest came back as a $25,000 gift to a college in Los Angeles County for orphans. Hattie received most of the estate. Smaller payments went to Carlotta Monti, his siblings and Poole's son. The estate closed on 16 January 1963. William Rexford Fields Morris died in 2014^†.