# Extremely rich people who went broke **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841 "2010-10-12T00:01:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/41 "2010-10-12T18:44:32Z")
Navin Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/42 "2010-10-12T18:59:41Z")
> [@DataZak](#): > > > [@astro](#): > > > > [25 Rich Athletes Who Went Broke](http://www.businesspundit.com/25-rich-athletes-who-went-broke/) > > _Spinks eventually worked for Mike Ditka as a Restaurant greeter. The company fired him. Most recently, he is stable and working at a gym again, only this time it is the YMCA, and he is the janitor._ > > Damn, that’s just heartbreaking. Every once in a while he’d come into the bar I worked at. He’d be with some jerk who’d walk around and goad everyone to “buy the champ a drink” and of course he’d want one too. Often he could barely stand and some other drunk jerk would try to fight him just to say he took on the champ. Heartbreaking doesn’t begin to describe it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/43 "2010-10-12T19:04:53Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > > [@Zsofia](#): > > > > Donald Trump isn’t dead yet, but it’s a toss-up what part of his cycle he’ll die in. > > Yeah, he fluctuates, depending on how many banks will lend him how much money. > > It was not that long ago, when I personally had a couple hundred million MORE dollars than Trump was worth. These days, what determines if you’re rich or if you’re broke isn’t assets vs. liabilities; it’s cash flow vs. debts come due. In principle, you can owe millions and yet live like a king until the day you die, if you can only structure your debt properly. ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/44 "2010-10-12T19:55:10Z")
John Sutter owned vast landholdings in Northern California – I’ve read his stake reached from San Francisco to Sacramento – and had hundreds of people working for him when gold was discovered on his land. The gold rush destroyed him. He wasn’t quite penniless when he died; I believe he received some sort of pension or stipend in his old age. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/45 "2010-10-12T21:11:30Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > > > Professional football player [Michael Ray Richardson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micheal_Ray_Richardson) was once in our office and had me call him a cab. This is a man who use to take limos. > > Sorry for the nit pick, but Michael Ray was a basketball player, not a football player. A pretty good one too. Sorry for the double nitpick, but you both misspelled his name. Or rather he misspelled it and you mis-misspelled it. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/46 "2010-10-12T21:21:20Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > Navin Johnson. He never went broke- he still had a thermos and a story. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/47 "2010-10-12T22:06:45Z")
[Antoine Walker](http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/walkean02.html) made 108 million (before taxes) in the NBA and is now broke. From the Wiki: > [@](#): > > On May 18, 2010, Walker filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Florida (Miami) as case number 10-23558 with total assets of $4.3 million and debts of $12.7 million. The filing listed four pieces of real estate including a $2.3 million Miami home that is underwater with a mortgage of $3.6 million, and three other properties in Chicago, one listed for $1.4 million. Nazr Mohammed paid half the fee of Walker’s bankruptcy attorney. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/48 "2010-10-12T22:13:12Z")
That guy, don’t you remember? You called him Al. It was Al all the time. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/49 "2010-10-12T22:57:08Z")
Jimmy the Greek. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/50 "2010-10-12T23:58:01Z")
July Garland and Oscar Wilde, although I’m not sure how _extremely_ rich they ever were. Certainly not Jimmy the Greek extremely rich. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/51 "2010-10-13T00:42:18Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > > [@zamboniracer](#): > > > > Sorry for the nit pick, but Michael Ray was a basketball player, not a football player. A pretty good one too. > > Sorry for the double nitpick, but you both misspelled his name. Or rather he misspelled it and you mis-misspelled it. No, that was another of Richardson’s problems, namely, not being able to spell his own first name correctly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/52 "2010-10-13T00:49:28Z")
As a prediction for athletes with trouble to come, it would not be at all surprising to see Jamarcus Russell show up on this list, though according to Wiki he’s apparently making some current moves that show slight flashes of sanity, and apparently the NFL has not completely written him off in spite of the very intensity with which he burned his bridge. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/53 "2010-10-13T01:02:00Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > That guy, don’t you remember? You called him Al. It was Al all the time. Really? I thought it was Barzini all along. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/54 "2010-10-13T05:26:54Z")
I remembered another author for this category: Dr. Benjamin Spock. _Dr. Spock’s Baby & Child Care_ and his other books sold more than 50 million of copies making him easily on the short list of highest earning authors of the 20th century. He died almost penniless and deeply in debt. ## His fortunes began to decline in 1976 when he was 73 and divorced his wife of 47 years. In addition to the fact that everything they had was community property she was a major contributor and editor to his works and he was leaving her for a woman 40 years his junior, thus she received the lions share of assets and the book. Next he had a tax debt that took years to sort out, and he continued to live very well and be overly generous, and then he lived into his 90s and had major medical problems that cost more than his income. His around the clock home healthcare cost $16,000 per month (this was from his obituary) while his income was less than half that and his wife refused to put him in a nursing home which would have been much cheaper, instead appealing- in the newspapers- to wealthy benefactors to please help support him in his final days. (I’m assuming that like Sammy Davis, Jr., the dust eventually settled and left her in better circumstances, but I don’t know this.) Groucho Marx was well-to-do when he died but not stinking rich by any means, just a “moderate millionaire”. He was one of the highest paid entertainers in the world in his prime but like Mark Twain he wanted to have Bob Hope/Oprah/Paul McCartney money instead of “really really good money”. He lost a fortune in the Depression and then more fortunes in later bad business deals then two divorces in ten years wiped him out; he remained with _You Bet Your Life_ strictly because he needed the money. In the infamous sordid legal battles twixt his family and Erin Fleming that filled his last days and continued well after his death one of their allegations was that she embezzled from him and forced him to work, but it was revealed that had she not forced him to work he would have been far less comfortable in his final years as his fat personal appearance checks and guest star fees largely replenished his fortune that had been depleted by multiple alimony payments and financial mismanagement. (That was an odd relationship that it’s still hard to determine whether it was May-December love or Elderabuse as there were elements of both.) John Wayne is another star who was well to do but nowhere near as rich as you might think. His big fortune killers came from divorces and from bankrolling some of his own works, most famously _The Alamo_ which lost him millions. ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/55 "2010-10-13T09:00:11Z")
I’m sure I’m forgetting a stack of others but one that springs to mind is [Evalyn Walsh McLean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Walsh_McLean), former owner of the Hope Diamond. At one time rich enough,thanks to her inherited mining fortune and her husband’s newspaper business, to be able to put the famed diamond around the neck of the family dog and let it run around for laughs. Er, that is the dog ran about not the diamond. There was nothing left of the fortune when she died. I read somewhere a tale of the people who bought her home eagerly searching the floorboards in case a spare nugget of gold had been tossed aside, relic from more wealthy and careless times. They were disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/56 "2010-10-13T09:56:37Z")
1920s child actress “Baby Peggy” Montgomery (who will be 92 later this month) made a lot of money but lost in, through high spending and bad advice. > **[Peggy Montgomery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Montgomery)** > > Peggy Montgomery (1904–1989) was an American actress of the silent era. She frequently played female leads in western films. > > This article about a United States film actor born in the 1900s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. The wiki article doesn’t mention it but her maternal grandmother had divorced her husband and married his brother. Her father Jack mostly couldn’t stand step-dad and left home at a young age to be a cowboy, his childhood dream since meeting Buffalo Bill Cody. Later, when his daughter just happened to become a film star (he was in California as a cowboy, part time extra, his wife took Peggy with a friend to get her check and a director saw her and cast her opposite Brownie, the Wonder Dog, who died shortly thereafter). Jack decided to mend fences and bring in step-dad, a banker, to run the finances. Step dad embezzled the money, left his wife for another woman and moved to-where else- Texas to better keep his ill gotten gains. It may not be quite the same but some Roman emperors such as Caligula and Nero bankrupted the state, or came close to it. Always a bad idea in ancient Rome to give power to some wet behind the ears youth. Not quite sure how rich she was but Emma Lady Hamilton (Horatio Nelson’s mistress) ended up in debtor’s prison. England decided to honor Nelson’s brother instead of the woman he wanted them to. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/57 "2010-10-13T14:02:33Z")
Things to avoid if you want to keep your millions: [ul] [li]gambling[/li][li]mansions with high upkeep[/li][li]alcohol and drugs[/li][li]ex-wives[/li][li]crooked/incompetent business managers[/li][li]shorting the IRS[/li][li]investing in ventures you aren’t an expert in[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/58 "2010-10-13T14:34:10Z")
I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned [Jack Whittaker](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36338-2005Jan25.html), the West Virginia man who won the world’s biggest solo lottery prize in 2002 and was in financial ruin barely three years later. His story has it all. Walking around with big wads of cash, which, as you’d expect, prompted an attempted robbery. Heavy gambling leading to massive losses that he couldn’t pay. Relatives going on drugs and ending up dead. Multiple lawsuits. Strippers and strip clubs. Reading the story will make you glad that you never received a three-hundred-million-dollar windfall. ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/59 "2010-10-13T14:56:29Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned [Jack Whittaker](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36338-2005Jan25.html), the West Virginia man who won the world’s biggest solo lottery prize in 2002 and was in financial ruin barely three years later. His story has it all. Walking around with big wads of cash, which, as you’d expect, prompted an attempted robbery. Heavy gambling leading to massive losses that he couldn’t pay. Relatives going on drugs and ending up dead. Multiple lawsuits. Strippers and strip clubs. Reading the story will make you glad that you never received a three-hundred-million-dollar windfall. This story reminded me of [Viv Nicholson](http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2003/jul/06/features.magazine67), the 1960s Football Pools winner who famously announced she was going to ‘spend, spend, spend’. Which she did, falling rapidly into financial difficulties and things spiralling out of control, as this little snipprt from the wikipedia article illustrates: > [@](#): > > After relocating to Malta, she was rapidly deported back to Britain amid a storm of tabloid publicity after assaulting a policeman, and was admitted to a mental home to escape from her third husband, who brutally abused her during the four days they lived together (the marriage lasted only thirteen weeks). > > After opening a short-lived boutique she ended up penniless, and by 1976 claimed that she could not even afford to bury her fourth husband, who had died (and with whom she had broken up three years earlier.) Still, on the upside, she DID get to feature on the cover of a single by The Smiths. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841/60 "2010-10-13T15:19:19Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > John Wayne is another star who was well to do but nowhere near as rich as you might think. His big fortune killers came from divorces and from bankrolling some of his own works, most famously _The Alamo_ which lost him millions. Ex-wives played a part as well. I used to fancy myself something of a John Wayne expert, but I had no idea how less-than-solid his financial situation was until about ten years ago. He kept up a very grueling workrate over his entire career (up until the last five years or so of his life) despite having major surgery for cancer that cost him a lung and four ribs. I always thought this was just part of his work ethic and desire to make movies, since I’d read a blurb that he’d made a fortune in Arizona/New Mexico real estate. Come to find out he kept up his schedule (including starring in some real clinkers) because he really needed the money. I’m not sure he really belongs in this thread, since we’re talking about a man who kept rooms in several hotels around the country and practically lived on his massive yacht, but he was never comfortable enough to kick back and retire until his health made it impossible to do anything else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-rich-people-who-went-broke/556841.md?page=4)