Ex-wife and widow of Lord of the Rings voice coach Andrew Jack fight over £100,000 life insurance – Daily Mail
The ex-wife and widow of a Lord of the Rings voice coach have become locked in an ‘unfortunate Mexican standoff’ over his £100,000 life insurance payout – with each claiming he no longer loved the other.
Top British dialect coach and actor Andrew Jack created the Middle-earth accents for the movies and taught them to the cast of the trilogy, including Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.
During a stellar career, he also worked on four Star Wars films, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and dozens of other blockbusters.
When he died, aged 76, from Covid-19 in March 2020, he was married to Australian voice coach Gabrielle Rogers. But he had only recently divorced his British ex, Paula Jack.
Now the two women are fighting over who gets his £100,000 insurance payout, with his ex, Ms Jack, claiming his marriage to Ms Rogers was on the rocks by the time he died.
In her claim to the High Court, Ms Jack says this is why the voice coach never made his new wife the beneficiary under the policy and that he wanted her to receive the cash.
But Ms Rogers – laying claim to the money – has rebutted the claim as ‘an unjust and unfair smear on their relationship’ and that they were ‘very much in love’ right up until his death.
Last week, in an attempt to draw a line under the bitter dispute, a judge at the High Court in London appointed two independent trustees to decide who receives the six-figure payout.
But he said it could still end in a drawn-out court fight if either party disagrees with what the new trustees decide.
Top British dialect coach and actor Andrew Jack (pictured here with Gabrielle Rogers) created the Middle-earth accents for the movies and taught them to the cast of the trilogy, including Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood
He was married to Ms Rogers (left), but had only finalised his divorce from his British ex-wife Paula Jack (right) less than two years earlier. Now the two women who loved him are fighting in court, each claiming they are due his £100,000 life insurance payout
Top Brit dialect coach and actor Andrew Jack created the Middle-earth accents for the Lord of the Rings films and taught them to the cast of the trilogy (pictured with Christopher Lee, who played Saruman)
Mr Jack, the son of an actor and a horticulturist, worked on over 80 movies as a dialect coach in a career spanning 30 years and also appeared as an actor in box office hits, including the latest Star Wars trilogy.
As supervising dialect coach for The Lord of the Rings, he taught Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler and the other stars how to speak Elvish and created the black tongue spoken by the villains in the films.
He was known for helping non-British actors to be more intelligible to a British audience.
He was married to Australian fellow voice coach Gabrielle Rogers, but had only completed his divorce from 74-year-old Paula Jack in May 2018, though the former couple had been separated since 2012.
Ms Jack, of Bryn, Bishops Castle, Shropshire, was the trustee and ‘default beneficiary’ of her ex-husband’s £100,000 life insurance windfall, the policy having been drawn up in 2011 when they were still together.
Andrew Jack, who appeared in Star Wars and was the premier dialect coach who worked on The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy, died of COVID-19 complications aged 76 last year
However, his widow Ms Rogers qualifies as a ‘potential beneficiary’ under the policy because she was his spouse at death, with the trustee of the policy being in charge of deciding who gets the payout.
The court heard that Mr Jack’s financial advisors had at one point contacted his life insurance company stating he planned to swap his new wife in as default beneficiary in place of his ex but that the move had never been carried through.
Ms Rogers launched her claim against Ms Jack in a bid to depose her as trustee, but Ms Jack told Judge Marc Glover she was willing to voluntarily step aside from that role.
But still claiming she should be paid the £100,000, she told the judge: ‘Our separation was not acrimonious.
‘Andrew was very keen that we remain married. He said plenty of people live in separate houses but they don’t get divorced.
‘I do really believe my former husband wanted me to have this money.’
Of the fact that the beneficaries on the policy were not changed, she added: ‘He was very fond of his own way and if doing nothing was the way to get it, then so be it.’
He taught Robert Downey Jr. how to speak like Charlie Chaplin in a performance that earned the movie star an Oscar nomination
Jack worked with a broad spectrum of actors like Scarlett Johansson in The Girl With The Pearl Earring (pictured) and Hugh Jackman in Kate And Leopold
But John Franklin, for Ms Rogers, told the judge that he had left Ms Jack nothing in his last will, which was drawn up just six months before he died.
‘There is very clear evidence in the will that he didn’t intend his ex-wife to benefit in any way from his death,’ the barrister said, describing their split as an ‘acrimonious breakup.’
‘My client feels there has been an unjustified and unfair smear upon her relationship with the deceased, made in Ms Jack’s witness statement,’ he went on.
‘Right up until he became ill, he was very much in love with his wife and continued to be so.’
The barrister said that, less than a month before he died – when he was already ill with Covid – Mr Jack had sent his wife an email stating: ‘I love you dearest woman – I am with you.’
He had also sent her another ‘very intimate’ message, which the barrister told the judge: ‘I wont read out.’
The claims about their marriage being on the rocks prior to Mr Jack’s death had been ‘an unwarranted slur upon Ms Rogers’ happy marriage with him,’ the barrister said, insisting it would be ‘perverse’ for the £100,000 to be paid to his ex-wife rather than his widow and two grown-up children from his first marriage, who are also ‘potential beneficiaries.’
The two women both put up two names of new prospective trustees before Judge Glover, claiming they should take over the distribution of the insurance policy.
Ms Rogers proposed herself and Mr Jack’s adult son Rupert to take over, whereas Ms Jack put forward family friend James Peyton and a ‘distant cousin’ of Mr Jack’s from Ireland.
Describing the case as ‘an unfortunate Mexican stand-off’ between the two women, the judge said the reason why Mr Jack had not changed the insurance policy to include his new wife rather than his ex-wife would be ‘forever shrouded in mystery’.
Jack was enlisted as a dialect coach in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which he is pictured acting in with Harrison Ford) and went on to work on its sequel subtitled The Last Jedi
Andrew Jack appeared in one of the Star Wars films alongside Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher
His partner Gabrielle wrote on Instagram at the time of his death that ‘he slipped away peacefully knowing that his children, step children, grandchildren, brother, friends, and I were all “with” him’
He went on to pick one of the trustees proposed by each woman to take over the job of deciding who gets the money – Mr Peyton and Mr Jack’s son Rupert.
The two trustees will now decide who out of the two wives and Mr Jack’s two children gets the money, or whether it should be shared.
But the case could still end up back in court if anyone involved is still unhappy, the judge warned.
‘If there is an issue over the trustees’ distribution, you can reignite this claim,’ he told Ms Rogers’ barrister.
When Mr Jack died, Ms Rogers announced it by writing on Twitter: ‘We lost a man today. Andrew Jack was diagnosed with Coronavirus two days ago.
‘He was in no pain, and he slipped away peacefully knowing that his children, step children, grandchildren, brother friend and I were all were all ‘with’ him.’
Before his marriage to Paula Jack, which commenced in 2000, Mr Jack was previously married to Felicity Filmore from 1974 to 1987 and had two children with her, Katherine & Rupert.
Ms Rogers and Mr Jack were married in 2019 and remained together until his death in 2020.
