The estranged daughter of late British jazz pianist Sir George Shearing is planning to fight for a piece of her father's estate after she was left out of his will.
The blind musician passed away on 14 February (11) at the age of 91, after suffering from congestive heart failure.
A memorial service is set to be held at St. Thomas Church in New York on Wednesday (23Mar11), but his daughter Wendy Peterson will not be among the mourners.
Peterson, the pianist's daughter from his first marriage, was estranged from her dad for over a decade - and she blames his second wife, Ellie, for driving a wedge between her father and his family.
She tells the New York Post's Page Six column, "My dad and I have always had a great relationship. When he and my mum divorced (in the early 1970s), and then he met Ellie, she alienated him from me, my kids, all of his friends that he had when he and mum were together. I haven't spoken to him in 12 years."
Peterson, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, claims her decision not to attend Wednesday's ceremony is partly due to the strained relationship with her stepmother - but it's also because she can't afford the trip to the Big Apple.
But she's hoping her financial situation will change once she challenges her dad's will, in which he declared she will receive "nothing for reasons not stated but (which) she knows of".