In the list of issues that tear families apart, religion, money and unwelcome marriage figure near the top. Lord Marks, the multi-married, multi-millionaire, once a pillar of the Jewish community, more recently a convert to the Greek Orthodox church, managed to combine all three in one huge, hurtful schism, the repercussions of which will resound for years.
Lord Marks of Broughton, 78, scion of the Marks & Spencer dynasty with a fortune estimated at £30 million sterling died recently. His funeral was held in the grand Byzantine surroundings of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Sophia in Bayswater, just a couple of miles from the family firm's London headquarters. But none of his family was present, aside from Marina, his glamorous 44-year-old Greek wife of just four years.
Those who were there put a brave face on the no-shows, claiming the unimpressive congregation of 70 mourners made the atmosphere more intimate. An English and Byzantine choir sang Marks's favourite hymns, including some used in the funeral of the Princess of Wales. A friend broke into a spontaneous mouth organ recital.
Marks had lived quietly and unostentatiously. He shunned publicity and barely did a day's work in his life. His energy was devoted to triple passions - art, poetry and women - which he pursued with equal fervour. And that's where the trouble began.
The fifth Lady Marks cannot have been surprised when his blood relations, including his three children, failed to appear. They had also snubbed the couple's wedding. And little more than two years after the nuptials, his son Simon launched an extraordinary legal action demanding Marina return "gifts, money and property" given to her by his father, claiming she exerted "undue influence" over him. Lord Marks, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, was made a ward of the Court of Protection as Simon alleged his father had no idea how much of his wealth he had handed over to his young wife.
Only a few months later, however, the case was dropped and Simon, a book editor, issued an abject apology to his stepmother withdrawing "any and all allegations impugning the integrity or character of Lady Marks".
Simon, and his sisters Naomi and Sarah, are now arranging their own memorial service for their father, to be held next month at the West London Synagogue. It will be an invitation-only affair, and Lady M will not be holding her breath for hers to drop through the letterbox, even though she would like to attend. "She was expecting the family to go to the funeral service", said her lawyer, John Millar. "And of course she would be pleased to accept an invitation to be at the memorial service."
They are said to blame her for the conversion of Marks, a leading member of one of Britain's best-known Jewish families, to Greek Orthodoxy. She disputes the claim. "He made up his own mind," says Millar, before the couple married, and she was as surprised about his decision as everybody else.
It is an everyday story of story in a mega-wealthy family - rich old man marries younger, usually extremely attractive, trophy wife. She spends a little of his cash and his offspring get the scent of a fortune hunter. He dies and, as often as not, open warfare breaks out over the inheritance.
From 87-year-old US billionaire J. Howard Marshall, who married bosomy model Anna Nicole Smith, to Aristotle and Jackie Onassis and Lord "Gordy" White and his model squeeze Victoria Tucker, the story has been played out time and again.
But the tale of Lord Marks and his Lady Marina differs just a little. For Marks, despite his wealth, was not a powerful man whose status brought instant social cachet.
And open warfare about who gets his money is unlikely. For after Simon's initial legal bid to part Lady Marina from his father's money, the legal agreement reached was to settle all disputes "past, present and future". And both sides had to sign a pledge not to make defamatory statements about each other.
Nevertheless, the hostility will continue. The couple's children are not on speaking terms and their "friends" are not restrained from hurling insults.
Michael Marks was born rich, the only son of Simon Marks, who almost single-handedly turned the penny bazaars founded by his father into a vast retail empire. Michael, who went to St Paul's school and Cambridge, was a great disappointment to him. Marks & Spencer's official archivist Paul Bookbinder described him as "a highly intelligent young man whose artistic and bohemian interests lay - to Simon's regret - outside the Marks & Spencer world".
Bookbinder said he had a "love-hate relationship with his father". One occasion which horrified his father, said Bookbinder, was a family dinner party at which the family was asked to give its verdict on a Marks & Spencer cake, which was served as dessert. While the rest of the assembled family examined the pastry in great detail Michael loudly declared: "Look, I'm sorry, I just can't get interested in Devon Splits". In later life he described himself as "a fugitive from a chain store".
Briefly, after the second World War, Michael joined the family firm, but shopkeeping was not his idea of fun, and he barely worked again for the rest of his life. Luckily for M & S, his high-powered cousin Marcus Sieff, under the tutelage of Michael's father, rose through the ranks to become chairman of the board, a post he held for 12 years until 1984.
Michael turned his attentions to poetry and painting and married life - which he sampled five times in 45 years.
He inherited his father's title in 1964, specialised in painting chickens, and in 1994 held his first and only gallery exhibition. It made £8,000, which he told gallery owner Ritsa Kyriacou was the first money he had earned in his own right in his life.
At one time he would regularly pop into the canteen at M & S's Baker Street, London, headquarters for a subsidised lunch and after eating would take to a table top to recite his poems to staff. He regarded himself as creative and literary, although he only had one book published, in 1975, a work of "imaginative prose" called The Prince of the Golden Apple. He was, said a spokesman for Marks & Spencer, "a little eccentric". He was also, however, very successful with women, especially beautiful ones.
His first marriage, to Rothschild heiress Ann Pinto, produced his three children, but lasted only eight years. His second wife was Helene Fischer, but that marriage lasted just two years. Then in 1976 came a nine-year marriage to Japanese Toshiko Shimura. His fourth trip to the altar was with Liying Chang, from China.
Each marriage ended with a substantial settlement. Ann Pinto got £100,000 - a sizeable sum in 1957; the third and fourth wives reputedly received £1 million each. Lady Marina, however, will be getting much more.
Lord Marks met divorced mother-of-two Marina Collins, nee Sakalis, the daughter of an Athens lawyer, at a party in 1991. He soon became enamoured and she took him in hand.
The man once described as "a tramp" suddenly smartened up his image. The couple wed in a London register office, but the marriage was blessed in the chapel at the House of Lords and celebrated with a grand reception for 200 at Claridges. They moved out of his apartment and into a £750,000 St John's Wood home, owned in her name.
She encouraged him to buy a Greek villa and swapped her battered Porsche for a new silver Mercedes. Marks's three children were not amused, and Simon junior's legal bid to exclude his stepmother from his father's affairs swiftly followed. Family friends have made numerous allegations about Marina's influence. One major point of contention was who should run Lord Marks's private charitable trust, which dispenses vast tranches of cash to arts and environmental causes.
Simon's associates assert that his stepmother, who is now chair of the trust and intends to keep the job, has prevented him from becoming involved in dispensing the family wealth.
Nonsense, says her lawyer, pointing out that Lord Marks set up the trust in 1966 and he never wanted his son to be involved or would have invited him to join the trustees before he ever met Marina. Lady Marina, obviously, will carry out her late husband's wishes.
There are also allegations that she has cut out donations to pro-Israeli causes. More nonsense, says the solicitor: "Until he met my client, Lord Marks never supported causes in Israel." Indeed, he adds, it was her influence and background - her father was founder of a Greek-Israeli charity - that made Lord Marks start sending cash to Jewish causes.
Recently, in line with the legal agreement reached with his stepmother two years ago, the new Baron Marks of Broughton was saying nothing and speaking to no one - especially not his stepmother.