Known for: The Color Purple and Sister Act
Net worth: $45 million
Whoopi Goldberg is known for a lot of things, but did you know she built her career performing small parts on Broadway and laying bricks in a funeral home? We all know Whoopi’s ’80s stand-up acts were phenomenally funny. And we know that she worked the improv circuit for some time before she hit the big screen with blockbuster movies like Sister Act and Ghost .
In The Color Purple, she proved her dramatic forte with an Oscar nomination. She continued to prove her genius. She’s now an EGOT club member. Hosting the popular talk show, The View earned her a Daytime Emmy Award and a lot of love. She produced Thoroughly Modern Millie, winning a Tony Award. And she won an Academy Award for Ghost. But with all these awards and accolades on her side, did you know it was her original, one-woman Broadway production, “The Spook Show,” that launched her movie career? The show became so popular, it made it all the way to HBO. The network taped her performance and called it, Whoopi Goldberg. It premiered on HBO in1985.
Diane Keaton
Known for: The Godfather and Reds
Net worth: $50 million
Diane Keaton is quirky, she’s funny, she’s truly adorable. Her breakout film was one of the most significant cinematic events of the Seventies and Eighties, The Godfather . She played Kay Corleone in all three of The Godfather trilogies. She was discovered by her work with Woody Allen. She co-starred with the storied director in Play it Again, Sam (1972). After The Godfather , Keaton continued to star in Woody Allen films like Sleeper, Love and Death , and Annie Hall , the latter winning the Best Actress Academy Award.
As a lover of old architecture, she is active with the Los Angeles Conservatory which refurbishes and saves historic buildings. She also enjoys writing and is a regular contributor at The Huffington Post . She also got into real estate development in the Los Angeles area, purchasing and renovating old mansions. Madonna scored one of her Beverly Hills remodels.
Bruce Dern
Known for: The Great Gatsby and The Cowboys
Net worth: $20 million
Bruce Dern hasn’t slowed down. He starred in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ; plus, The Mustang , The Peanut Butter Falcon , and The Artist’s Wife . The latter three all 2019 releases! As one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood, Dern’s filmography, starring in over a hundred films spanning six decades, is a trailing list. He’s popular as the villain, having cemented that image as the bad guy in 1960s westerns like Cowboys , in which he notoriously shot John Wayne in the back. When told Americans would hate him for that, he famously quipped, “Yeah, but they’ll love me in Berkeley.”
Dern trained as a stage actor at The Actor’s Studio under Elia Kazan. He debuted in Kazan’s Wild River and became a talented television actor on shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He won a Best Actor Award at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Nebraska as well as being nominated for an Oscar. In Coming Home, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He received acclaim for The Championship Season also.
Diane Ladd
Known for: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Net worth: $20 million
Diane Ladd’s claim to fame is starring in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore . Her fabulous portrayal of a small-town American girl named Flo earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. It was so well-loved, a wildly popular 1970s TV series called Alice soon followed.
Ladd’s supporting role in Roman Polanski’s classic neo-noir mystery Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway premiered the same year as Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore . It was the most highly acclaimed film of 1974 and the biggest commercial success. In the 1990s, Ladd was honored with an Oscar nomination for two films, David Lynch’s road film Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose .
Piper Laurie
Known for: Carrie
Net worth: $10 million
Piper Laurie lost her virginity to Ronald Reagan. President Reagan’s original career as an actor is well known, but it was only more recently in her memoir, Learning to Live Out Loud when Piper Laurie revealed the relationship details. On the set of Louisa starring Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Julie Adams, and James Best, he seduced young Piper. In the movie, he played her father. One word: “awkward.” He insisted she calls him “Ronnie.”
The three-time Oscar nominee took a 15-year hiatus during the Civil Rights movement to protest the Vietnam War, feeling it was important to prioritize her efforts. Coming back to star in the terrifying horror movie Carrie, Laurie earned another Oscar nomination. She starred in The Hustler with Paul Newman and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She also starred in Children of a Lesser God. On TV, she played George Clooney’s mom on ER. We can see her in Will & Grace, Cold Case, and Law & Order.