Sir Ken Dodd’s £27.7 million fortune will be donated to charities close to his heart.
The iconic entertainer passed away in March 2018 aged 90, and his estate was left to his longtime partner Anne Jones.
However, the Liverpool Echo has revealed that Ken’s wife – who he was with for 40 years and married just two days before his death – will carry out his wish of using the money to benefit many local charities.
Read more: Comedy legend Sir Ken Dodd dies aged 90
Lady Anne said: “Ken loved to make people laugh – it was his life, not just a job.
“He had no desire for the trappings of wealth and it was his wish that the majority of his estate will go to charities close to his heart, many of them local.
“As his wife, beneficiary of his estate, and also knowing the contents of the will he made some years ago, I will be able to honour his wishes.”
As well as the Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation – which the comedian founded several years before his death – the funds will also benefit the likes of St John The Evangelist’s church hall, which is just yards from his lifelong home.
Anne added that while it’s “not a listed building it is in a conservation area and we need to work very closely with the appropriate authorities”.
She said it would be “lovely” if “when all the work has been done, it could bear Ken’s name”.
The Diddy Men creator was born the son of a coal merchant in 1927 in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash.
Ken began a career as a comedian in 1954, working in music halls, and achieved national fame and popularity by the 60s.
Read more: Sir Ken Dodd avoided the taxman and ensured his wife got ENTIRE £27.5 million fortune
His recording of Tears, was the UK’s third-best-selling single back then, rivalling The Beatles, and he made it into the Guinness Book of Records for telling 1,500 jokes in three and a half hours.
The comic was a regular face on television throughout the 70s and 80s and became an OBE in 1982.
He received his knighthood in the New Year Honours in 2017.
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