LOS ANGELES -- Alfred Bloomingdale, the millionaire businessman and friend of President Reagan, willed all his wealth to his widow and a family trust and left nothing to a model who says he promised to support her for life.
The five-page will filed in Superior Court Tuesday does not specify the size of the estate, but Bloomingdale was believed to have amassed a fortune worth $50 million or more from his business ventures, including the Diner's Club and real estate dealings.
His widow, Betsy, a prominent socialite and a close friend of Nancy Reagan, was bequeathed all her husband's personal effects plus his interest in the family home in exclusive Holmby Hills. She was also named executor of the will.
The rest of the estate was left to a family trust that was established the same day the will was dated, July 25, 1982 -- just 17 days after Vicki Morgan, a 29-year-old former actress and model, filed a $5 million 'palimony' suit against the ailing Bloomingdale.
An attorney for Miss Morgan, who later amended the suit to seek another $5 million from Mrs. Bloomingdale on grounds she broke up her husband's relationship with 'the other woman,' insisted Monday the death would not change the suit except that the estate would be substituted as the defendant.
Bloomingdale, 66, died of cancer last Friday at St. John's Hospital in suburban Santa Monica. He was buried following a small private funeral in Westwood on Saturday, and his death was not disclosed until Monday.
The will was not filed for probate, as is the common practice, but was entered into the court record as part of a petition asking that Mrs. Bloomingdale be named special administrator to defend the estate in the lawsuit.
Mrs. Bloomingdale and attorney James Carroll III were named in the will as trustees of the family trust. Details of the trust were not disclosed. Besides his widow, Bloomingdale is survived by two sons, a daughter and four grandchildren, the youngest born just three days before his death.
Miss Morgan's suit claimed she had served for the past 12 years as Bloomingdale's 'traveling companion, confidante and business partner' and said she had provided therapy to help him 'overcome his Marquis de Sade complex.'
The action said she was given written and oral promises that Bloomingdale would support her for life.
Bloomingdale, born in New York in 1916 as an heir to the department store fortune, was a show business producer and agent and a co-founder of the Diner's Club credit card company.
