Joan Rivers leaves chunk of fortune to favourite charities

Tragic comedienne JOAN RIVERS has left a chunk of her estimated £93.75 million fortune to her favourite charities, benefiting guide dogs, cystic fibrosis sufferers and the hungry.

The comic died in September (14) after undergoing a routine throat operation in New York and her will was filed in Manhattan Surrogate's Court on Tuesday (09Dec14).

In the documents, Rivers named her daughter Melissa as estate executor and gifted her all of her tangible property, but instructed that the bulk of the funds go to beneficiaries through a blind trust.

Joan's only grandchild, Melissa Rivers' son Edgar Cooper Endicott, will receive an unspecified amount, as will the late star's niece Caroline Waxler and nephew, Andrew Waxler.

She also bequeathed money for her closest staff members, including assistants Jocelyn Pickett and Sabrina Lott Miller and publicist Scott Currie, according to the New York Post.

Other funds were donated to organisations including the New York-based Jewish Guild for the Blind in Manhattan, the Jewish Home and Hospital Foundation and food pantry God's Love We Deliver, where the veteran was a board member.

She also left money for America's The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

The court papers also reference Melissa Rivers' plans to file a medical malpractice suit against Yorkville Endoscopy bosses over the surgery, which resulted in the comedy icon's death. A New York medical examiner determined Rivers died of hypoxic arrest, when oxygen to her brain was cut off during the procedure.

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