Um, John Nance Garner invented what? Would you please clarify?
Oh, now I see. It was Henry A. Wallace, and he came up with a chicken breed that became predominant at the time (post-VP).
Another very shrewd person was Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five. I believe that he bought the rights to many of the videotaped performances of 60’s bands on British television, particularly “Ready, Steady, Go”. Due to nostalgia for these performances I’m led to believe he made more money from this than the band ever did. Can any English Dopers confirm this?
Total hijack here… (but not one that takes us out of ‘Cafe Society’ as it happens,) when I was reading this, I was reminded of the Krikkit ‘Informational Illusion’ sequence in “Life, the universe and everything” where Adams was trying to convey the idea that Krikkit folk music was like Uber-Beatles… everything that he thought was great about the Beatles, only several hundred thousand times moreso. 
And the way he conveyed that, partly, was that as Arthur listens to each verse and chorus, he imagines Paul McCartney gradually buying more and more english counties outright, (if he had actually written the songs in question.) 
First purchasing Essex, then Kent and Sussex, putting in an offer for Hampshire, getting Winchester and gazing with interest towards the Test Valley. 
I find that very hard to believe about Elton John, now that he has the composer’s rights (“grand rights”) to both AIDA and especially The Lion King. The amount of money paid to composers of hit shows is staggering, and when you factor the overseas and touring companies, it’s downright obscene. He has to be making a pretty penny from all of that.
Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA are making more off of Mammia Mia! than they did when they were in ABBA. All they did to earn it was say “Yes, you can use our songs”
How many people are on the “poorer” list due to cocaine?
As a slight hijack, that story reminded me about the shrewdest contract in the history of sports negotiated by the owners of The Spirits of St. Louis
Fred MacMurray was reputed to be one of the richest men in Hollywood even before “My Three Sons”, despite his never having broken out of the B-movie world, as a result of shrewd real-estate investments.
Flo Ballard of the Supremes died on welfare in a crack house.
While it’s true that McCartney has been a shrewd investor, he also had the royalties from ‘Wings’, which were huge. It was the most successful act of the 1970’s, selling millions and millions of albums.
And unlike the Beatles, where McCartney split the royalties 50/50 with Lennon, almost 100% of the royalties for Wings went straight to him.
And of course, McCartney has had 25 more years of touring and active investing of his money on his side.
While true, I seem to recall a People Magazine cover from about 1984 that already named McCartney as the first ‘billionaire musician’. So it’s not like the last 20 years had much to do with that part.
Flip Wilson was comfortable from the money he made from his variety series. He was able to live al eisurely life, pay for his divorces and kids, and just have a good time, despite not having much in the way of work in the intervening years.
However, he also retained full ownership of his variety show. A year or two before he died, TVLand paid him several million bucks for the rights of airing his old variety series.
One that coulda been: Rod (and Carol) Serling. Serling cashed out his one-half interest in “Twilight Zone” for a little over $600K. Not a bad nest egg for the mid '60s. However, CBS in the meantime has made untold millions from licencing and syndication. Rod would live only another 10 years, but Carol would be VERY wealthy now, instead of just well-off.
Yes, you are right, it was Hank Wallace who invented the chicken. (And corn, by the way.) For some reason I have Nance Gardner on my brain this week. Sorry.
It just goes to show that Chris Rock was right about the difference between wealthy and rich. Shaquille O’Neal is rich, but the white man who signs his checks is wealthy. You can’t get rid of wealth, but rich is something you can lose after one bad summer and a coke habit.
Hey don’t apologize…because then I’ll have to.
Johnny Cash- his estate has been valued at between $200-$400 million
Man in (the) black, indeed.
*Dolly Parton- quite possibly the wealthiest woman in music *
There really is gold in them thar hills.
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
No wonder he was so jaded about silver and gold (to me, it means so much more in my pockets).
I’ll have to dig up a cite but I remember reading a few years ago that he spends his money extremely frivolously - something like 50,000 a month in flower purchases alone (I can’t remember the figure, but it was some obscene amount of money. For flowers.)
I put these together because when I read your paragraph on Gore Vidal, my mental question was how much of it was inherited. Vidal comes from a very wealthy background. His given name is Gore as in Al Gore, as in a very wealthy southern family. He is somehow related to Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepfather, a nephew I believe, and there was a lot of money in that family as well. So while I don’t doubt that he handled his money well, I suspect that his wealth gave him leisure to write, rather than his writing leading to wealth.
That was easier to find than I expected.
Ok, so that’s only (heh) $30,000 a month on flowers.
Didn’t Fess Parker put the money he earned from the Davey Crockett series into California real estate?
Ka-ching!
Regards,
Shodan
No, it’s different than that. A rich person is someone who’s got so much income that he can live comfortably without losing it or having to worry about making more. A welathy person is someone who manages that money (or hires someone to manage it for him) in such a way that he lives comfortably but does not lose the bulk of his money. Rich people can lose it all. Wealthy people can too, but only due to extremely bad economic times or malfeasance on the part of the person(s) managing their wealth for them.
Hmm. I can’t find any of the titles, but this is from a biography of him written in the 90s. I do know for a fact that he did print ads in adult porn mags for a device called the Accujack (it’s basically a masturbation aid- a fake vagina that folds to the size of a wallet).
His Brentwood home alone would have been worth almost that much, plus he earned more than that for My Three Sons. (He had the most lucrative TV contract of the 60s- interest in the show and he only shot for about three months per year- notice on the reruns that there are terrible continuity errors because much of the show is Dad talking to the boys in one frame while they respond in another- these were filmed at different times so Fred could go to one of his fish camps.) He was a megamillionaire.
