Worth: $2.5 billion
Feuding parties: 22 cousins, two ex-wives, a gas station owner, executives who worked for Hughes, among others
Nice Try, Melvin
Despite the best efforts of more than 200 lawyers, no will could be found after billionaire Howard Hughes died in 1976. But there was a handwritten document found on the desk of a Mormon Church official, which left $156 million to Melvin Dummar, a gas station owner whose account of giving Hughes a ride when he was stranded in the desert was used as the basis for the 1980 movie Melvin and Howard. A jury decided in 1978 that Hughes did not write the so-called “Mormon will.” With no other valid will to be found, the court awarded Hughes’s estate to his surviving relatives.
1. Nina Wang
Value of estate: $10.7 billion
Amount Contested: $10.7 billion
Feuding parties: Wang’s secret lover and her charitable trust
Isn’t Love Enough?