Edward Alby was one of the greatest American playwrights of his generation. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times over a career that spanned nearly sixty years. His most famous play was Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? The play opened on Broadway in nineteen sixty two. It continues to be revived and was adapted into the films starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I actually felt for him, and the
match scene practical too. For a while. Daddy really thought that George had the stuff to take over when he was time, and we both thought that When i'll Be died last year, he left a will with an unusual provision that is somewhat controversial. According to The New York Times, the will contains a provision that any unfinished manuscripts be destroyed. Joining us is Leor Strahlovists, a professor at the University
of Chicago Law School. Le Or. There's even a term for an artist requesting the destruction of unfinished work in a will dead hand control. How unusual is it, Well, it's not the typical artist who wants to do this, but certainly over the course of literary history and um the history of visual artists, we've seen this come up
time and time again. I think the first known historical example is actually Virgil's a Need, and obviously um uh, you know, we have this recent example of Edward Alby, but um Brett Western the photographer had similar motivations and similar expressed wishes. And maybe the most famous case prior to this one is Franz Kasca directing his executor Max
Broad to burn unread all of his unfinished works. And those unfinished works included not only his diaries, which were subsequently published, but also The Trial and the Castle, which are considered to be COSCA's two greatest novel novels. Certainly, are you you mentioned that that kaskas some of Oscar's works were published. Is it unusual for executors to disregard
the instructions in a will to destroy unfinished work. It's not terribly unusual, and I think one reason why is there's not really a lot of um court guidance on this issue. So this does come up from time to time. It comes up with famous artists, but there's really not a lot of appellate cases published opinions where courts are either telling executors that they cannot or that they can
destroy works of this kind. You'll find dicta in the occasional case where a court will suggest that where the public's interest in seeing a work of art is significant enough, then the will can be disregarded. But dicta is about the closest. Is about the closest you'll get. You generally don't have these cases litigated. And one reason you don't have these cases litigated is there's not usually any party that wants to show up in court and argue on
behalf of destruction. So the artist might have preferred that the works be burned or are thrown out, but usually the airs see the value of publication and not a whole lot of value in giving voice to the words that showed up in the last Will and testament. And so my instinct is from looking at the cases and really the absence of cases, that a lot of the time what happens is these things get written into wills, and then the airs maybe decide um that that they'd
like to see destruction not happen. The executor doesn't particularly want to set something that might have significant market value on fire, and everyone sort of goes away goes away happy. You just might have an artist spinning in his or her grave. The provision and all these will says, if at the time of my death, I shall lead any incomplete manuscripts, I hereby direct my executors to destroy such
incomplete manuscripts. His final known play, Laying an Egg, was scheduled for production twice and withdrawn twice by all they who said it wasn't ready. Might the executors decide that it is not an incomplete manuscript. I think they've got a lot of room to do so under the will, And in fact, I think the way the will was drafted there's actually some ambiguity based into it. So you read that first clause, which um is as you describe it.
It says, if it's incomplete, then the direcutors executors are to destroy it. But then there's actually a final sentence in that third clause, the destructive provision, and that sentence says, the determination by my executors, in their best fiduciary judgment as to the material directed to be destroyed in this article third shall be final, conclusive, and binding upon all parties having any interest in my estate. And the way
I read the will. That last sentence is actually in some tension with the first sentence, the one you read, which directs the executors to destroy anything that's incomplete. So what did Albie mean or what did the lawyers who drafted this on his behalf mean by that last sentence? Did they mean that the executors have complete discretion to
decide whether something is complete or not that's possible. Did it mean that the executors have the ability to decide that even though something is incomplete, it's got enough artistic merit to warrant publication production as a play. Well, to me, that's that's not a That's not a strained reading of
the final sentence and the will either. In other words, I think this will's ambiguous, and where that will's ambiguous, it's going to give even more discretion to the executor, because I think the courts, while they might be willing to tolerate the destruction of valuable property um they sat on an instruction and a will, they're not going to do so when the only grounds for destruction is ambiguous language. And to me, this language is drafted comes pretty darn
close to being ambiguous. Lear I'm interested in sort of what you think is the right outcome to this this case. I mean, is there in your mind any reason, putting aside that ambiguity, that Edward all Be as an artist, shouldn't be able to say whether or not he wants his incompleted works ever to see the light of day.
So I think, if you I'm not going to fight the hypothetical, Let's suppose that this will were drafted in an unambiguous way, and that everyone thought that Edward i'll be, being of sound mind and sound body, wanted anything that he hadn't finished to be burned uh and and not published.
In that case, I'd argue pretty strongly that the right thing for the executor to do, the right thing for the courts to do in the event that there was litigation between the executive and UM and the airs, which is the foundation in this case, I think, would be to go ahead and follow Edward Alb's wishes. And part of the reason for that is that I think what
makes an artist great is selectivity. Um, you know, a good musician, a good painter, a good playwright, They're gonna have lots and lots of ideas and they are gonna, you know, stick most of those ideas in a filing cabinet somewhere, or leave them on a hard drive, and they'll never see the light of day. And usually that's to the economic benefit and the artistic benefit of the artist. Of course, there's some artists out there who are just producing canvas after canvas or play after play, and some
of it's good, some of it's bad. But in my view, the artists that we really remember, the one who stands the history of time, they tend to publish only a small fraction of the raw creation that they come up with. And usually, uh, members of the public appreciate the fact that, well, if i'll Be put his name on it and decided that it was good enough for us to see, then you know, by golly, we should we should buy the tickets to go. We could talk about this for so long.
Thank you, Leors for Hilovitz, professor at the University of Chicago Law School,