Lynn Redgrave in court to face her ex husband and the lover who had

LYNN REDGRAVE was forced to face her former husband, who fathered a child with her personal assistant, in a new legal battle. The 58- year-old actress also had to look across a Los Angeles court at her former PA Nicolette Hannah, 37, who secretly had John Clark's child during a seven-year affair.

Clark, 69, confessed during a Thanksgiving dinner in 1998 that he was the father of Zachary, now 10.

Miss Redgrave, who had allowed her assistant to live with her family at their 1.7 million California home, filed for divorce, ending their 33-year marriage.

Yesterday the three were brought together again in a new legal dispute.

Ms Hannah, who married the actress's son, Ben, is now called Hernandez after divorcing him and marrying Clark's plumber.

She claims that a 240,000 cottage in Los Angeles, where she lived on and off while working for the couple, belongs to her after Clark gave it as a gift in exchange for seeing his son more frequently.

Clark and Miss Redgrave dispute her claim.

They say it should be sold as part of their divorce settlement, as the judge who presided over their messy divorce ruled.

On the first day of a trial at Santa Monica court, details of Clark's affair were heard again as evidence of who owns the house was heard.

He said he signed over the deeds of the modest cottage in July 1998 to keep his lover and son close, but she signed it back to him when he was to be hit by a large tax bill.

Clark said: "I said I was going to put it in her name. She (Redgrave) was agreeable." He added Mrs Hernandez eventually agreed to sign back the house to get around a tax bill, but he did not sign it back to her after she tried to restrict access to Zachary.

Miss Redgrave's lawyer, Emily Shappell Edelman, said Clark had no right to sign over anything without her permission. "She (Mrs Hernandez) is trying to obtain a free property that she has no right to," Ms Edelman said.

James Eliaser, representing Mrs Nicolette Hannah: claims John Clark gave her the cottage to keep his child Zachary close by Hernandez, told the court the deed to the cottage stated that it was a gift.

Clark, who achieved fame as the child star of the radio programme Just William and was later Miss Redgrave's manager, was evicted from his former marital home in August.

When Nicolette married Miss Redgrave's son the actress lavished affection on her and Zachary - assuming, she said, that the boy's real father was a "s**t who never paid any attention to him".

When the marriage of Ben and Nicolette broke up, Clark started pursuing the PA again so keenly that she took out a restraining order against him.

It was only a matter of time before Miss Redgrave was forced to learn the truth about her husband.

In an interview this year, she said, with understatement: "I lost my sense of humour for a long time. Lost it completely, so much so that I made a mental note of the day I first made a joke about something."

She said she had not seen Zachary for some time. "It's very sad," she said.

The marriage of Miss Redgrave, sister to Vanessa and an aunt of Joely and Natasha Richardson and Jemma Redgrave, was coming to an end just as her career was enjoying a revival.

THE actress, nominated for an Oscar for the 1967 film Georgy Girl, wrote Shakespeare For My Father, a reflection on her troubled relationship with her late father, Sir Michael Redgrave, and the effect his bisexual liaisons had on the family.

Her stage success led to a role opposite Geoffrey Rush in the film Shine and playing the housekeeper in Gods And Monsters, with Sir Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, for which she won the Golden Globe award as best supporting actress. She was also nominated for an Oscar for the role.

Copyright 2001
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