HERBERT FERBER
107
Meyers is floating a speculative balloon when he states that
Mark and Mel's marriage was based on his gratitude for her finan–
cial support early in his career- a totally mistaken and amateurish
psychological diagnosis. During my lengthy and intimate relation–
ship with both of them in New York, and in my home in Vermont
where they would spend a week at a time over a period of years,
Mark said to me on more than one occasion, "I love her. I love the
way she walks ..." etc. The marriage eventually failed - as do many
others. But Meyers's statement that he "was not surprised" leads one
to believe that he knew something more than gossip .
Meyers's facts on other matters are equally questionable. For
example, his statement that McKinney and Stamos first discovered
Mark's body is minor but revealing.
It
was Mark's assistant who first
arrived that morning. He speaks of Kate's "greed," as though it were
she and not I - as executor of Mel Rothko's estate and as Kate's
guardian - who brought the suit "against her father's three closest
friends and an art gallery ." As a minor, she could not have initiated
the action. The decision was made for ethical and legal reasons, after
many months of trying to find some justification for the behavior of
her father's friends. Only after it had become clear both to me and
my lawyers that there was no acceptable explanation, and after
many vain attempts were made to come to an out-of-court settle–
ment, did I feel obliged to proceed against the executors and Marl–
borough. The three executors of Mark's estate, in conjunction with
the gallery, were, as Judge Midonick said later, "wasting" that estate
and consequently the children's property. Had I not acted to protect
Kate's rightful inheritance and by implication that of her younger
brother, I would have been guilty of negligence. Kate took over the
direction of the suit two years later when she reached her majority.
For clarification, it is also necessary to look at pertinent, earlier
events which Meyers seems not to know. When Mark died, Mel
learned from Reis, who had written Mark's will, that she and her
children had been virtually disinherited. This presented a dilemma.
The will left all of the eight hundred paintings located in Mark's
studio and in a warehouse, and large sums in cash, to a foundation
his executors were to administer; the house, its furnishings, and
forty-eight paintings were left to Mel. Her dilemma stemmed from
wanting both to respect Mark's wishes and to protect her children's
interests. She learned that a husband could not deprive his wife of
more than two-thirds, and his children, if minors; of more than one–
half, of his property. She also had been told by Mark, as had Robert
