"I want Bill Kane's child and I deserve Bill Kane's child," says Hecht, 37, an unemployed aspiring gemologist who is appealing a probate judge's December ruling ordering the sperm destroyed. "It's about...my right to have a child of the man I choose when the man has given me the full right to do so. My baby is going to know that its mother and father loved one another. We fought for it to be here."
All sides agree that this potentially precedent-setting case raises important questions of constitutional law, procreative choice and the pursuit of happiness. But there are other, more emotional issues at stake—not to mention practical concerns. Kane, a brilliant but deliberately enigmatic Princeton graduate, left behind an $800,000 estate whose disposition is already in dispute, and could be further clouded by the birth of another heir. And he left a legacy of anger among members of his family, who accuse Hecht of failing, for financial reasons, to stop Kane from killing himself.
"He was delusional.... At the end he was living a virtual fantasy," says Sandra McMahan Irwin, 46, Kane's ex-wife, who is now a Pasadena lawyer. On behalf of her children—William Everett Kane Jr., 21, and Katharine, 19—Irwin is contesting the will Kane wrote a month before his death. That document left 7½ acres of land in Monterey to the children, $30,000 to a first cousin and the rest of the estate to Hecht.
Kane had always been known as a teller of extraordinary tales. Some people believed his accounts of participating in international intrigue; others did not. In the weeks before he killed himself—by taking an overdose of sleeping pills and placing a plastic bag over his head—in a penthouse suite at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Kane spoke of dark forces he felt were out to destroy him. He also claimed to have helped direct the Desert Storm air war from his Malibu home.
Kane's ex-wife and children are bitter over his suicide, which they contend resulted from Hecht's thinking of her bank balance instead of his welfare. "She let him commit suicide because she was holding $800,000 to $900,000 in assets," Irwin charges. "We're very annoyed that she let my father slip through her hands without giving anyone the chance to slop the suicide," says Everett, a senior at Princeton, where the elder Kane was Phi Beta Kappa. "She'd be a terrible mother, and neither Katie or I are thrilled about having her related to our family anymore."
Hecht counters by saying that, as always, she did the best she could for the mercurial high-flier she had first met in 1985 when she was working as a San Francisco—based headhunter, recruiting real estate executives. "I changed my life for him," says Hecht, a Scarsdale, N.Y., native, who moved down to Los Angeles to live with Kane. "He was the first man I found who was worth changing my life for. He was brilliant and he was gorgeous."
He had also recently ended his relationship with Barbara Kelly, his real estate and romantic partner for the previous 12 years. When Kelly's lawsuits over the dissolution of the partnership and further litigation with insurance companies drained Kane's assets. Hecht says she volunteered to go back to work or to move to less expensive quarters than their $9,000-a-month hilltop home.
Kane first mentioned suicide in September 1991, according to Hecht. She was bathing when he told her, "Honey, I don't think I want to be here anymore." She persuaded him to see the couple's friend Carl Faber, a psychologist. Hecht calls those last weeks before Kane made his solo trip to Las Vegas on Oct. 24, 1991, ostensibly to gamble, a "dark tunnel. I walked with him as far as I could."
Despite her efforts at persuasion, Hecht says, "[The choice to commit suicide] was very sane, and I felt that he deserved the respect to make the choice.... I had no right to impose on him what I wanted." In a farewell letter to his children, Kane wrote, "Betrayal has made me tired. All I have to look forward to is a life of mediocre survival and that is not my chosen way of living. I have finally picked up enough enemies to do me in."
Last September a settlement was nearly reached. The Kane children were prepared to give Hecht the sperm in return for $35,000 and her agreement that any resulting child would lose its right to make claims on the estate. But then former partner Kelly stepped forward as a major creditor of Kane's assets and scuttled the agreement. Irwin has since filed suit against Hecht for wrongful death and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Hecht's appeal of the order to destroy Kane's sperm will be heard later this year, and all parties vow they will pursue the case up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
In the meantime, Hecht consoles herself with the note Kane left her: "There's little left to say other than I love you. I hope you have our child. I also hope that you find love again.
"I will miss you forever, Bill"
PAM LAMBERT
STANLEY YOUNG in Los Angeles
- Contributors:
- Stanley Young.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
