Famous People's Whose Wealth (or Lack of) Surprised You

Cafe Society
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I generally assume that famous people are a lot wealthier than most of the people I know, but sometimes it’s really odd when I learn that “Hell, I made more money than s/he did last year!” or, the opposite, “Shit! I knew s/he was rich, but I didn’t know s/he was that rich!”

Who are some celebrities whose financial condition surprised you one way or the other? I’ll start with some of mine:

Famous Po Folks

Rosa Parks- I was surprised to learn that she was actually on the verge of being evicted from her apartment last year for being more than $4,000 delinquent in the rent. While I knew she wasn’t super rich, I would have assumed that she made enough from lectures through the years (most people of her stature earn several thousand dollars for a personal appearance and she made many each year) that she was financially secure. Also I would have assumed that some of the Oprahs or Cosbys or other very wealthy black or white liberal celebrities would have provided for her (what’s $4500 to a celebrity whose enterprises earn more than that in an hour?). Maybe that’s why she sued the rappers.
William Shatner- while he’s very rich now, there was a period in the 1970s (between the TV show and the Trek movies) when he was so broke he was living on friend’s sofas and even spent some nights in his truck. I’m not sure of the details that brought this about, but I’m guessing multiple alimony/child support payments, typecasting as an actor, poor management and lack of residuals had something to do with it.

Peter Lawford- formerly one of Hollywood and Vegas’s top paid entertainers who swung with Frank and Dino and Sammy and married into the Kennedys (coordinating their trysts with his next door neighbor Marilyn), he died so broke that his last few gigs were making appearances (fully clothed- not as a participant) in hard core porn to give some filament thin legitimacy and advertising sex toys in hard core magazines. There was some scandal for years over the cost of his cremation never being paid because his widow was too indigent.

Burt Reynolds- I have relatives in Florida who were majorly screwed by him for bills owed for building fences around his place and for prescription medication. He may since have recovered, but for a while he was literally bouncing $30 checks to restaurants. (I still don’t understand how you earn $45 million in five years and wind up owing more than that.)

Tonya Harding- I read that a couple of years ago her total income from all sources (including Celebrity Boxing) was $18,000 and she and her live-in agent were facing eviction from the apartment they shared. (This begs the question “If you’re only making $18,000, why the hell do you need a live-in agent?”)

Lorenzo Lamas- I don’t know that he’s destitute, but his most recent ex-wife claims he tried to talk her into being a call-girl to bring some money into the house and he’s one of the

Hollywood is Calling celebs alongside Kato Kaelin and Todd Bridges (which I don’t think is someplace you want to be if you’re even able to get an infomercial)
The Very Rich

Burl Ives- his widow lives in a beautiful California estate and he bequeathed more than $3 million to various charities in addition to what he left her

Tony Randall- while it didn’t surprise me he was wealthy, court records from NY probate rated his estate at over $10 million. He gave millions of his own money to regional and repertory theater projects (especially the financially damned one he started where he met his second wife). That’s pretty impressive for somebody who was always a second banana and was a non-Top 5 TV show star in an era when stars on Top 5 shows made less in a year than stars on Top 5 shows make for an episode today.

Gore Vidal- while a bestselling novelist he’s never sold in numbers akin to Stephen King or Anne Rice, yet his villa in Italy (recently used for filming in The Life Aquatic recently sold for $15 million. (He didn’t sell it due to financial need but because he’s now in a wheelchair at most times and the villa is built on numerous levels, plus the death of his domestic partner of 50 years and his own health problems prompted his return to his California home).

Krystine Haje- this one’s a fluke sorta, but the redhead from Head of the Class pic invested in small software companies while she was an 80s TV star and due to a couple of really lucky strikes is now worth tens of millions.

Of course the Mike Nesmith/Liquid Paper thing is well known but I discount that since it’s from inheritance rather than financial genius on his part (though he did recently win a huge settlement from PBS [which seems to have screwed him in some video dealing]).
Any celebrity financial trivia you find interesting and would like to share?

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Wayne Newton is evidently feeelthy rich. I mean, he’s been around for forever and his Vegas thing is very popular - but he’s rolling in it, I hear. I caught the last ten minutes or so of his Vegas ranch on MTV Cribs or something like that, and he made all of those silly rappers look like Little Leaguers.

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When I heard John Travolta had his own 707, my reaction was “What? Where? When?”

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Another poorhouse one: Nell Carter died with assets of $90,000 and debts of over $1 million. I’m hoping she left behind some life insurance as she was the (adoptive) mother of two young boys.

Randy Quaid recently declared bankruptcy (about two years ago) with assets of $50,000 and debts of several million.

A couple of years before she died, Amanda “Miss Kitty” Blake sold her story of destitution and living only on her friends charity and her credit cards to the tabloids (she had starred on Gunsmoke for 20 years but lost her money through poor investments, poorer marriage and medical bills [she was HIV+ due to a bisexual husband]). However, when she died there was a court battle over her $400,000 estate. While not lavish, I would certainly not consider $400,000 destitution; I’m not sure what the full story was.

Truman Capote, who wrote very little in his final years and hadn’t had a major bestseller in quite some while and who was known for being extravagant, generous and hopping planes at the last minute and who was too coked up and drunk for much of the 70s to see to his own affairs, still managed to leave a multimillion dollar estate.

Victor Borge, who was playing high school auditoriums in small cities rather than major venues a few years before he died (for which I’m thankful because that’s how I was able to see him in Montgomery, AL) clearly didn’t need the money as he left a fortune to charities (including $250,000 to the Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam) as well as providing for his family. By all accounts he was a super nice individual so I’m glad he died well off.

Paulette Goddard’s estate was enormous- her jewelry fetched in the low 8 figures and she willed more than $20 million just to NYU.

Gloria Swanson, while not poor by any means, was certainly nowhere near the league of Norma Desmond (or of “herself” on The Beverly Hillbillies), clocking in at around $1 million. Considering that she earned more than that tax free in one year in the 1920s and could easily have been in league with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Gene Autry (all billionaires or very close due to real estate investments) it’s not that much.

Fred MacMurray was one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood with a nine figure fortune at his death. He was also neurotically stingy; one of his ‘My Three Sons’ mentioned the buffet backstage at which doughnuts were available for a dime on the honor system- Fred would take break off half a doughnut and deposit a nickel in the cup.

Desi Arnaz, while well to do by most people’s standards, wasn’t anywhere near as wealthy as I’d have thought- he had assets of less than $1 million which, considering his role in the pioneering of syndication rights and the hits he produced for Desilu (he cleared something like $6 million when he sold out to Lucy) wasn’t a lot. He basically frittered most of it away on women, gambling, high living and later had high medical bills for himself and his wife. (Off subject, but I’ve never heard either of his children speak of him in less than glowing terms as a father or in more than lukewarm terms about their mother [they’ll basically concede she was a comic genius]; apparently, though a major philanderer he was apparently “the good parent”.)

Dick York (the first Darrin) died penniless, but it actually wasn’t because of having to quite Bewitched due to his back or even due to medical bills; he actually had a very nice nest egg and Liz Montgomery and her husband gave him a comfortable severance package, but he was a terrible business manager who wouldn’t let experts handle it for him. Within a few years of leaving the show he’d lost everything on bad real estate investments and taxes. (His co-star David White lost his only son in the Pan Am Lockerbie crash; since the son had no wife and children I’m assuming that White’s estate would have received the millions paid by the Libyan government, but by then he was dead as well.)

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Wayne Rogers - Trapper John abandoned acting and became a financial planner to the stars or something. Apparently, he’s worth huge amounts of money.

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Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back, Kotter apparently did very well in the stock market and retired from acting in the mid-80’s.

As for Burt Reynolds, he may be doing better now, but in the late 70’s-early 80’s, he had major league drug and alcohol problems, plus a small army of “buddies” who just sponged off of him. That’s a combination that will dry up even the biggest fortunes.

As for Tonya Harding, I think “live-in agent” is just a euphemism for “guy trying to screw her two ways at once.”

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Ringo Starr’s apparently broke again because I saw him in an infomercial last night. Kind of like turning on the TV and finding Jesus beginning for money, I thought.

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In the late '90s, David Bowie was reputedly worth something like $900 million. This made him either the wealthiest musician in the world or very close to it. Plenty of bigger names with more hits don’t have anywhere near that much, but Bowie apparently was much, much smarter than most when it came to both investment schemes and making money off his own back catalogue.

Last I heard he’d lost a lot in the dot com crash and I don’t know what his financial situation is like now, but I’m sure he’s not hurting for cash.

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Sting is also worth something like $300 million. Elton John otoh is supposedly a walking financial disaster waiting to happen (at one point he consolidated $40 million worth of credit card debts).

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Bowie has also gotten in on the ground floor of artists selling stock in themselves. He gets a lump of cash from investors now, and they get a fixed percentage of his earnings for a number of years.

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According to IMDB.com:

**Randolph Scott ** was worth several hundred million, due to shrewd investments, at the time of his death.

Gene Autry (the “singing cowboy”), at the time of his retirement from the movies in the early '60’s, already owned hotels, radio stations, other real estate, and the California Angels baseball team.

Colleen Moore, a flapper starlet during the early 1920’s, invested wisely in stocks (presumably before the Crash in '29), married two stockbrokers, wrote a book advising women on how to invest, and funded the construction of a magnificent $500k dollhouse which is still on display in a Chicago museum.

Dana Andrews, though a successful leading man in the '40’s and elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in '63, lived modestly and said he made more money from real estate than he ever did from movies.

Buster Keaton went from owning his own production company and being a huge silent-film star in the '20’s, to being divorced, alcoholic, reduced to supporting roles, and finally checking into a mental hospital by the early-mid '30’s. He slowly rebounded, though, in the '40’s and '50’s, and continued to benefit from renewed public appreciation of his work after that (and presumably some measure of financial stability).

**Bela Lugosi ** helped form actors’ labor unions in Hungary and in the U.S. (becoming Member #28 of the Screen Actor’s Guild), was married five times (once for only three days!), was addicted to heroin for donkey’s years, and was probably never paid more than $10,000 for any one picture (and that peak was for one pic in 1935). His nadir was undoubtedly his Ed Wood period; he was paid $1000 for appearing in the transvestite opus “Glen or Glenda”. When he died, Lugosi’s widow was so destitute, Frank Sinatra paid for the funeral.

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A surprise member of the super-rich club is Jim “Gomer Pyle” Nabors. His money came from an incredibly shrewd deal that included part ownership of Gomer Pyle USMC (a rerun staple for more than 30 years now) and investment in Hawaiian real estate. His main house in Hawaii includes a huge crystal chandelier that once hung in Napoleon’s bedchamber.

Buddy Ebsen was very well to do in part due to investments in, of all things, coins (he owned one of the great coin collections of all times- as an old man he sold off about $8 million worth to finance his divorce of his wife of 40+ years). Irene Ryan, while not superrich, was frugal and had no children and left her entire estate to an acting scholarship fund that now generates over $1 million per year.

Max “Jethro” Baer, otoh, was almost broke soon after the series ended due to a divorce, typecasting and playboy ways and was homeless (as in “living with friends” rather than shopping cart variety). He cashed out his insurance and retirement, tapped money from every friend he had and put the entire collection (about $100,000) into an ultralow budget movie, Macon County Line. The film grossed more than $30 million, most of which went to Baer, who retired from acting to dabble in business endeavors (he’s been trying to build a Beverly Hillbillies theme casino for years) and much younger porn-star girlfriends (there have been several).

In spite of a huge settlement from Roseanne, Tom Arnold (according to a recent interview) is almost broke due to extravagant living, an IRS problem and his own subsequent expensive divorce. Couldn’t happen to a sleazier guy.

Viggo Mortenson announced post LOTR trilogy that he was nearly broke.

I’ve read conflicting accounts of Merv Griffin, some putting him in league with Aaron Spelling and others maintaining he is held up by a mountain of debt. I thought it was very ironic that Donald Trump, who is held aloft as the pinnacle of success and wealth and brilliance, was having to file for bankruptcy for his casinoes even as his show would have you believe he was Bill Gates and only 12 years ago he had a negative worth of $200 million (the inspiration I think for Charlie Croker in A Man in Full).

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Gene Barry is reputed to be quite wealthy via investments

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Heather Locklear is very wealthy. Apparently back in the early 80’s when she was doing TJ Hooker and Dynasty she invested her income well. By the time she left these shows she was set for life. I once read an interview with her where she said by 1990 she had enough money to retire for life and everything since then was just extra. And she wasn’t really a big star until after 1990.

While not wealthy, Audrey Meadows was another star who made at least one great fiancial decision. Most stars have professional agents negotiate their contracts. Meadows asked her two brothers, who were lawyers but had no experience in show business, to negotiate for her when she was working on her contract for The Honeymooners. There apparently was some minor issue being discussed and the brothers agreed to give in to the studio on the issue if they agreed to give Meadows perpetual royalties from the show’s broadcasts. The studio lawyers were quietly amused by the suggestion as it showed the brothers’ inexperience. Back then televsion broadcasts were usually never reshown and the handful of exceptions were only show once. It would be like a modern basketball player asking for royalties every time one of his games was rebroadcast - it was a pointless request. So they gladly agreed. The result of course is that unlike her co-stars, including Jackie Gleason, Meadows received a check every month for all the times an episode of The Honeymooners appears on the air.

One more surprise (for me anyway) was Herbert Hoover. Not that I thought he was poor but I was surprised at how wealthy he was. Franklin Roosevelt was perceived as a wealthy man, but when they ran against each other in 1932, Hoover had four times as much personal wealth as Roosevelt did.

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Super rich “old school” country stars:

Johnny Cash- his estate has been valued at between $200-$400 million

Roy Orbison (not exactly country, but…) estate valued at over $20 million (not bad considering all the times he was on the county fair circuit)

Dolly Parton- quite possibly the wealthiest woman in music (and one with incredible business sense even without an education- shortly after she left Porter Waggoner she wrote a song with Elvis in mind- he loved the song and really wanted to sing it, but his manager Col. Tom Parker would only allow it if Dolly would sign over half the publishing rights- as much as she loved Elvis and as much as she needed the money even half the rights from a big hit would bring quickly (she was destitute due to a huge lawsuit with Porter), she refused- the song was I Will Always Love You which earned her millions each time she had a hit with it (three times) and much more than that when Whitney Houston sang it). I’ve never read an estimate of her wealth that was less than $100 million.

Roy Acuff- controlled a real estate empire in Nashville

Roy Clark- as an owner of Hee-Haw as well as a very successful songwriter he’s rolling in it

Minnie Pearl- Nashville tourists used to be shown her home, which is next to the Governor’s Mansion and was delineated as “the nice one”. Also got rich from post WW2 real estate.
The Not as Rich as you’d think they are/were category:

Patsy Cline- she never earned enough in her lifetime to hire her own band and always had to play with the house band instead. Her husband and children, however, have earned gazillions as Shania Twain was the first female country performer to sell more albums in life than Patsy did after death.

Loretta Lynn- she has a lot of assets and is certainly far from broke as most people would understand the term, but she is very cash poor due to some flopped farming investments, waning interest in her career and, more than anything else probably, being overly generous with her tribe of adult children, grandchildren and great grandchildren (her oldest grandchildren were born when she was in her early thirties). The new Jack White produced album may help, but in spite of poor health she was touring constantly because of a cash flow problem.

Tammy Wynette- went broke several times, though she lived better “bankrupt” than most do with an upper middle class job.

Dottie West- lost everything through bad investments, the IRS and divorce.
Judy Garland was always broke, which is well known, but there’s a mystery as to why. Liza Minnelli (who spent years paying off her mother’s debts even though no law compelled her to do so) says she has no idea where the woman’s money went: even towards the end her income was fairly impressive and, in spite of her reputation, she wasn’t a lavish spender. It’s believed it was embezzled; Liza stated once she believes Sid Luft was responsible, causing a temporary rift twixt her and Lorna (until such time as Lorna needed money, probably). Two centuries before Liza there was a similar mystery with the money of Wolfgang Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave even though his income was way above average for the time; some biographers believe he had a gambling addiction.

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Lamia writes:

> In the late '90s, David Bowie was reputedly worth something like $900 million.
> This made him either the wealthiest musician in the world or very close to it.

Paul McCartney is usually estimated to be worth somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion. I believe that McCartney’s fortune is worth something like ten times the amount of John Lennon’s estate, so this is another example where good investment has meant quite a difference in the latter worth of two people whose initial earnings from their music was the same.

Sampiro writes:

> [Speaking of Loretta Lynn] . . . her oldest grandchildren were born when she
> was in her early thirties . . .

She was 29, in fact.

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This sounds fishy to me, and no such porn titles show up in his filmography in the Internet Movie Database, which is famous for sniffing out obscure credits.

Worth more than $100 million dollars? Reports of his estate have been greatly exaggerated — its value was closer to $5 million.

Not tax free. The federal income tax was reinstated in 1913, and the top income tax rate in the 1920s was 25 percent.

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Sounds like Lucy had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Guess she shoulda stood by her man.

I probably should have refraind from making such puerile, predictable one-liners, but it’s 5:30 in the morning and I can’t help myself. Sorry to subject you all to these. :smack: :smiley:

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Bowie, after lengthy legal battles with a dodgy manager, owns all his song rights, and was able to issue bonds based on his back catalogue: in exchange for a huge wad of cash, he effectively leased his publishing - investors get all the royalties for a specified period, and after that the rights and royalties revert back to him. Senor Bowie, he no stupid.

McCartney was shrewd enough to buy the song rights of others: he owns Buddy Holly’s catalogue, among others.

One which surprised me was Tracey Ullman: because the ur-Simpsons originally appeared on her show in the late 80’s, she still retains a share of the rights, and is apparently worth about $50,000,000 now, mostly based on that.

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Perhaps the most interesting and informative thread on the Dope in a long while.

(Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer who made his money in South America. John Nance Gardner, one of FDR’s veeps made a fortune when he invented the chicken.)