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US superstar Liza Minnelli has sold her late father Vincente Minnelli's Beverly Hills mansion for 3.5 million dollars with her elderly stepmother still inside it, a newspaper reported.
Oscar-winning director Minnelli, who died in 1986, left the house to his daughter with the stipulation that his widow, the now 98-year-old Lee Minnelli, be allowed to live in it for the rest of her life.
Under the terms of the sale reported by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Lee Minnelli will stay on in the 522 square-meter (5,800 square-foot) home and the new owners will hold off on plans to renovate it.
"She still lives there," real estate agent Sheila Rose told the Los Angeles Times. "Liza inherited the house with Lee, now 98, in it."
Lee Minnelli sued Liza in 2002 claiming abuse of the elderly and breach of contract after the Oscar-winning "Cabaret" actress put the house on the market.
But in May the same year Lee Minnelli dropped her suit, in which she alleged the singer had abused her by selling her home, cutting off the electricity and sacking her staff, saying "I can't sue Liza."
The house, built in 1925 and home to Liza Minnelli when she was a young woman, has been in escrow ever since "because of issues concerning the living arrangements," Rose told the Times.
The unnamed buyers will "eventually move in and refurbish the house for themselves," Rose said.
Minnelli's representatives could not immediately be reached Monday to confirm the story.
Liza is famed for her role as Sally Bowles in 1972's "Cabaret," which won her the best actress Oscar, while her father won his Academy Award for directing 1958's "Gigi," starring Leslie Caron.
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AFP 201926 GMT 02 06
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