Oleg Cassini’s widow Marianne Nestor has been removed as the executor of his estate, bringing hope to the fashion designer’s daughter that she might be able to collect her $1 million inheritance before she dies of cancer.
Tina Cassini, the daughter of movie star Gene Tierney and herself a mother of four, hasn’t received a single penny since her father, who dressed Jackie Kennedy and Grace Kelly, died in 2006, leaving an estate worth about $60 million.
On Friday, the Surrogate Court judge in Nassau County, where Cassini had a magnificent estate in Oyster Bay, put a public administrator in charge of Oleg’s estate.
“It’s a clear-cut case. Oleg left the money to his daughter, and this woman simply refuses to pay,” an anguished friend of Tina’s told me.
No one knew Cassini was married to Nestor until he died and she produced a marriage certificate showing they wed in England in 1971.
Oleg never mentioned her in his autobiography, and he introduced her to me, and to many others, as his secretary/assistant.
When Maureen Orth wrote about the case for Vanity Fair in 2010, Nestor sued Orth and the magazine for libel. That suit was dismissed, but Tina’s case drags on.
Tina is destitute and living in France. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009.
Last month, Nestor and her sister Peggy, who runs the Cassini licensing and perfume businesses, flew to Paris to depose Tina for two grueling days.
“The whole thing is such a sin. There’s an innate cruelty in it,” said one Long Island lawyer who looked into the case. “This woman [Nestor] is running out the clock, waiting for Tina to die.”