In Tom Clancy's Divorce Case, Wife Seeks Custody Of Jack Ryan

Wanda Clancy appears resigned to the idea of losing Tom Clancy, the best-selling author and her husband since 1969.

Letting go of the name Tom Clancy is another issue. And who gets custody of his literary alter ego, Jack Ryan?

Like any pair of divorcing multimillionaires, the Clancys must divide real estate, stocks, savings accounts, investments and consumer goods, including the Sherman tank that Wanda Clancy gave her husband several years ago.

But, if Wanda Clancy's lawyers prevail, a judge must determine if there's a value to Clancy's name, which sells not only the Jack Ryan novels that made him a rich man, but volumes of military nonfiction books, his "Op-Center" series, young-adult books and computer games.

These fruits of Tom Clancy's imagination have become the potential spoils in a complicated case, in which family law collides with intellectual-property law. The outcome is anyone's guess.

Jack's custody, not child custody

Thorny issues such as child custody, support, visitation - even the cost of the children's first weddings - have been agreed to, with little apparent wrangling.

It's the custody of Jack Ryan that's tricky.

So tricky that Wanda Clancy's attorneys have requested two full months for the case on the Calvert County, Md., court docket, pushing it ahead to April 5, 1999. Tom Clancy's attorneys have countered by asking that the economic issues be separate and that the divorce be granted immediately. That would free Clancy to marry Alexandra Llewellyn, 31, who is wealthy in her own right. The two met after the Clancys' separation in November 1996.

Neither side is commenting. But the court papers provide some insight. In fact, it's not unlike reading a Clancy novel - a compelling narrative loaded with technical jargon.

The legal issues

The hardcover "techno-thrillers" are only one piece of the Clancy entertainment empire. In the divorce papers, Wanda Clancy has estimated the total value of the contracts for intellectual properties at more than $100 million. (This does not include the couple's limited partnership in the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.)

Counter Tom Clancy's lawyers: "He admits that there is substantial marital property . . . denies that Mrs. Clancy contributed to its creation. . . . He admits that the value of existing books and other properties derives from work efforts expended during the marriage, but says that the value of future books and other properties depends on his future efforts and those of others."

Legal experts point out the case's myriad complexities. First, it involves intellectual-property law, which turns on copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. All Tom Clancy's Putnam's novels to date have been copyrighted to Jack Ryan Limited Partnership or to Jack Ryan Enterprises, in which Wanda Clancy holds an equal share. His new books, however, are assigned to corporations in which she has no interest.

Then there is Maryland family law, entitling spouses to "equitable distribution" of assets. But Wanda Clancy appears to be trying to lay claim to money that will be earned after the divorce, which is highly unusual.

"It's fascinating," says Max Stul Oppenheimer, an intellectual-property professor at the University of Maryland Law School. "I can't think of a single case where all these issues have been raised like this before. . . . It's hard to say this without sounding different than I want to: It's a little like a zoo. It's not so strange to find one animal, but to find them all in one place!" Wanda Clancy has never claimed the role of Tom Clancy's muse. But it is noted in the divorce papers that she supported him by working as a nurse in the early years of the marriage and rearing the couple's four children.

Tom Clancy has counterclaimed that she was never supportive of his writing.

As a best-selling author earning $19 million per book, Tom Clancy belongs to a small group of multimillionaire fiction writers. Few novelists could contemplate the purchase of the Minnesota Vikings football team, as he did recently.

The case of a literal ghostwriter

If there is a precedent of valuing an author's name, it can be found not among divorcing authors, but with a dead one.

In 1993, a federal tax court in Virginia ruled that the trade-marked name of author V.C. Andrews had a value of $703,500. The ruling arose from a dispute between the Internal Revenue Service and Andrews' heirs.

It is - fittingly, given Andrews' fiction - an unusual story. A Virginia woman, Andrews had written seven best-selling novels. She died in 1986. Her publisher, Simon and Schuster's Pocket Books, apparently didn't see why death should halt such a successful career.

So a ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, was hired to continue producing the modern Gothic tales for which Andrews had become famous. He said he used a computer to analyze her style, but eventually moved beyond using her characters.

The IRS decided that if Andrews' name was selling the books, it was one of the estate's taxable assets. It said the name alone was worth $1.2 million and asked for back taxes of almost $650,000; the heirs countered by saying the name had no value at the time of her death. The court's assessment split the difference.

Then there is the decidedly nonliterary case of Lorna Wendt, who divorced Gary Wendt, chairman of GE Capital. A traditional split would have given her $20 million, but she said her role as corporate wife also entitled her to a share in once-untouchable assets such as stock options. She won, but the case is under appeal.