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Comedian Jay Leno is seeking to become guardian of his wife Mavis Leno’s affairs because she has dementia.
Leno filed court papers Friday asking a family court judge to grant him guardianship so he can structure a living trust and other estate plans to ensure his 77-year-old wife has “managed sufficient assets to cover her care.” in case he dies before her, according to a copy of the petition filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
“Unfortunately, Mavis has been progressively losing capacity and orientation in space and time for several years,” the petition said. “Jay is fully capable of continuing to support Mavis’ physical and financial needs, as he has done throughout her marriage.”
The filing said her “current condition renders her incapable of executing the estate plan.” Court documents said she was being treated for “dementia and mood disorder.”
The couple has been married for 43 years.
Leno, through a spokesman, declined to comment Saturday.
Jay Leno on the set of the game show “You Bet Your Life” in Pacoima in 2021.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
It was unclear when Mavis Leno was first diagnosed with the disease, but a medical report from November, submitted as part of the court process, said she suffered from problems with memory, ability to concentrate and use of reason.
The documents said a conservatorship was needed to allow Jay Leno to execute estate plans, “which will cover Mavis and Mavis’ brother (who is) his only living heir other than Jay.” Leno, who is 73, and Mavis Leno do not have children. They live in Beverly Hills.
“Jay Leno has always managed the couple’s finances throughout the 43 years of their marriage, and will continue to do so until his passing,” the petition said.
TMZ first reported the request for guardianship.
When he was the popular host of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” which aired on NBC for about 20 years, Jay Leno mentioned Mavis frequently and fondly.
Throughout their marriage, Mavis Leno independently pursued her own progressive causes, including fighting a California ballot measure against affirmative action in the mid-1990s.
She was a member of the board of directors of the Feminist Majority Foundation and chair of its Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls to ensure that “the women and girls of Afghanistan are not forgotten,” according to the group’s website. The foundation’s campaign on behalf of Afghan women was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Shortly after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Mavis and Jay Leno donated $100,000 as seed money for the Feminist Majority Foundation’s global women’s rights program.
Jay Leno at NBCUniversal’s Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015.
(Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press)
“She is someone with a strong sense of purpose, compassion and curiosity,” author Sue Smalley wrote about a decade ago in the Los Angeles Times after interviewing Mavis Leno and her famous husband. “She arrives first, on time (and) she doesn’t need hair or makeup.”
The couple met at the famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles in 1976.
“I always had the idea that I would never get married,” she said. people magazine in a 1987 interview. “But with Jay, I began to realize that it was the first time I was with someone and I had this perfect, calm feeling of having arrived at my destination.”
Furthermore, he described his meeting with Leno in an interview with The Times.
“It was in January. …I thought, ‘Holy shit! That comedian is beautiful! Mavis Leno recalled in a 2014 interview that her friends had encouraged her to “hang out at the Comedy Store and the Improv; “You will meet people who can give you work.” “
“The first time I went they sat us in the front row in the center. That means you are so far of the comic. And there was Jay,” she said.
Later that night, he went to the bathroom, which was near an area where comedians hung out between their sets.
“When I came out of the bathroom, he said, ‘Are you that girl across the street?’ ”Mavis Leno recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, that was me.’ “
Staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.