Actor William Hurt became worried that his house was bugged when he learned his former live-in lover was suing him and ordered his housekeeper to shred financial records, the former employee testified.
"He told me I had to take the financial records and quietly destroy them," Dianna Schiebel said Monday on the fifth day of a trial to determine whether Hurt, 39, had a common-law marriage with dancer Sandra Jennings, the 32-year-old mother of Hurt's son.Jennings is suing Hurt for divorce, claiming that a common-law marriage exists between them, based on four weeks the couple spent in Beaufort, S.C., where he was filming "The Big Chill." She says the marriage began Dec. 9, 1982, when the actor learned he was divorced from actress Mary Beth Hurt. He and Jennings left the state Jan. 10, 1983.
Hurt and Jennings were together about three years, spending most of the time in New York, which does not permit common-law marriages.
Schiebel said she met Hurt in May 1987 when he hired her housekeeping firm. She said he often called Jennings and their son, Alexander Devon Hurt, now 6, "my family."
Schiebel said she put the financial records through Hurt's personal shredder after she was asked to destroy them.
Schiebel said Hurt told her he was afraid he could lose everything.