Column: Friend of Evelyn Einstein Hopes to "Set the Record Straight"

To the Editor:

On June 18, 2011, the Albany Patch ran an article under the headline “” A number of people and writers to Patch felt that the article painted me in a false light, that I was a sleazy personal injury lawyer who somehow manipulated myself into being Evelyn Einstein’s sole beneficiary under her last will.

I would like to clear the air about myself and my relationship with Evelyn. I became a lawyer in 1979 and went to work for the legendary San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli. My job was to assist him in revising his three-volume work Modern Trials. I helped Mr. Belli revise the work into a five-volume set called Modern Trials Second Edition.

In 1986, I was the coauthor with Mr. Belli of the bestselling consumer’s book, Everybody’s Guide to the Law. Mr. Belli died in 1996 and I prepared a second edition of the book in 2003, which was published by Quill (an imprint of HarperCollins). Although I have been a member of the California State Bar since 1979, most of my work has been writing books, chapters, articles and appellate briefs. I have always held myself to the highest ethical standards.

I met Evelyn Einstein in the early 2000s. I was writing an article on the stigma attached to persons with mental illnesses. I had read an article that one of Albert Einstein’s two children suffered from schizophrenia. This intrigued me, that arguably the brightest scientist ever to have lived could have a son with such a devastating mental disorder.

I wanted to learn more about the son, Eduard, and did some research and found Evelyn in Albany. I wrote her a letter with a copy of Everybody’s Guide to the Law to let her know I was not some crackpot trying to ingratiate himself into the Einstein clan. Evelyn and I soon talked on the telephone and I went up to Albany to see her (I lived in Los Angeles County at the time). Evelyn and I hit it off immediately, as though we had known each other all of our lives.

Thus began a 10-year relationship with Evelyn which consisted of two- to three-hour telephone conversations every Wednesday and Saturday. Having worked with Melvin Belli, I had been exposed to celebrities from all fields. On one of my trips to San Francisco, I stayed at Mr. Belli’s house for four days in the company of the great writer Alex Haley.

Anyway, Evelyn and I had a long-distance relationship with occasional trips on my part up to Albany. I loved Evelyn as much as it is possible for one human being to love another and know she felt the same way about me, as we occasionally talked about our relationship. We also talked about a variety of things, including her medical condition, her friends, science, what it was like growing up Einstein, etc.

I loved Evelyn because she was a bright woman with a keen (some would say wicked) sense of humor. We were each other’s best therapists. To insinuate in any manner that my relationship with Evelyn was something other than best friends is misleading, if not downright defamatory. I was as surprised as anyone when I received the call from Kennan Salinero that Ev had passed away and they had found a short handwritten will giving all of her estate to me.

It is a shame that some people want to read into the situation things that simply aren’t true or are misleading. I would gladly trade my inheritance to have a few more years with Evelyn. I thought that, despite her numerous medical problems, she still had 10 more good years of life in her. 

Thank you for allowing me to set the record straight.

Yours truly,
Allen P. Wilkinson
Laguna Woods, CA