He earned $4 million before he turned 10.
At 21, he asked for his money.
His mother said: "No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything."
Jackie Coogan was Hollywood's first child star.
At 6, he cried in front of Charlie Chaplin's camera.
In the video below, he tells how Chaplin made those tears real.
The movie made him famous.
The money made his parents rich.
By law, every dollar a child earned belonged to his parents.
His mother and stepfather spent it.
He sued.
There was only $250,000 left.
He got $126,000.
The case shocked America.
In 1939, California passed a new law. 15% of a child actor's pay must be locked away until they grow up.
It's still called the Coogan Law.
Jackie later played Uncle Fester in The Addams Family.
How many child stars got robbed like this before anyone noticed?
J. Paul Getty was the richest man in the world. Kidnappers wanted $17 million for his 16-year-old grandson. He said no until they mailed the boy's ear.
In the video below, you see the real Getty and the story behind it.
Rome, July 1973. John Paul Getty III is taken off the street at 3 AM.
His grandfather refuses to pay. He said he had 14 other grandchildren, and paying once would make every one of them a target.
In November, a newspaper receives an envelope. Inside: a lock of red hair and a human ear.
The price drops to about $3 million.
Getty reportedly paid $2.2 million. The most he could deduct from his taxes.
The rest he lent to his own son. At 4% interest.
The case for Getty: kidnapping was a business in 1970s Italy. Pay once, and every rich family becomes a target.
Keep this part. To some people, money is not a tool. It is the point.
Was he protecting his family, or protecting his fortune?
Comedy Central offered Dave Chappelle $50 million to keep making his show. He walked off the set and flew to South Africa.
In the video below, he explains why. It started with his father's advice:
"Name your price in the beginning. If it ever gets more expensive than the price you named, get out of there."
Chappelle's Show was the biggest thing on TV. In 2004 the network gave him the deal. In 2005 he left in the middle of making season 3.
Tabloids said he was on drugs. That he'd gone crazy.
He said the price had gotten too high. Not in dollars. In what the show was doing to him.
Comedy Central aired the unfinished sketches anyway, without him.
"You don't know about where art and corporate interests meet yet," he tells a room of students. "Just prepare to have your heart broken."
Was walking away from $50 million the smartest thing he ever did, or the most expensive?
In 2000 Netflix offered to sell itself to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster laughed them out of the room.
In the video below, Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph tells what happened in that meeting.
"My partner Reed screwed up his courage, and he said: 50 million dollars."
Netflix was 2 years old. It would make about $3 million that year and had lost $50 million.
Blockbuster made $6 billion a year. 60,000 employees. 9,000 stores.
Do the math. $50 million was less than 1% of one year of Blockbuster's revenue.
They flew home to California in silence.
"I remember sitting there thinking: now we're going to have to kick their ass."
In 2010 Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Today there is 1 store left, in Bend, Oregon.
Netflix is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Was Blockbuster blind, or was a money-losing DVD-by-mail company really worth $50 million in 2000?
Aretha Franklin died in 2018 at 76. Her family said she left no will. Then 3 turned up in her house. One was in a notebook under the couch cushions.
Her niece found them months after she died.
2 were dated 2010, locked in a cabinet. 1 was dated 2014, 4 handwritten pages, full of cross-outs. She signed it with a smiley face inside the "A."
The wills did not agree.
The 2010 version said her sons had to earn a business certificate or degree before they got anything. The 2014 version dropped that rule. It also gave her house to her youngest son, Kecalf, and her grandchildren.
So the sons split.
2 of them wanted the couch.
1 wanted the cabinet.
The 4th lives in assisted living and stayed out of it.
Meanwhile the IRS filed a claim for more than $6 million.
It took 4 years. In July 2023 a Michigan jury needed less than an hour. The couch won.
In the video below, watch her sing at the Kennedy Center 3 years before she died. Barack Obama wipes away a tear.
The woman who sang "Respect" left her family a smiley face and a court fight.
Who was right: the son who trusted the cabinet, or the sons who trusted the couch?
Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her dog. 2 of her grandchildren got nothing.
They called her the Queen of Mean.
She died in 2007 at 87. Her will left the fortune to a white Maltese named Trouble.
Then it got strange.
The dog got death threats. Kidnappers came after it. Staff flew it under a fake name, "Bob." It lived in Florida with guards around the clock.
Keep this part.
In 2008, a judge cut the dog's money from $12 million to $2 million. The cut-out grandchildren walked away with millions.
Watch the clip, then decide.
A woman who trusted her dog more than her family, or a family that only showed up for the money?
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Mike Tyson earned more than $300 million in the ring. In 2003 he filed for bankruptcy owing $23 million.
He once said it himself:
"I'm an extremist. I either have a lot of money or I have none."
Now he runs his house the opposite way.
"Everybody has to work. No one gets nothing free from me."
Not his wife. Not his kids. They have to earn their inheritance.
He knows exactly why.
"I lost all my money and everything. Then I went on drugs."
"Now I'm starting over with nothing. But I'm starting with experience."
The man who had everything won't hand his kids anything.
Tough love, or is he punishing them for his own mistakes?
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Warren Buffett paid $433 million for a shoe company. He called it the worst deal he ever made.
He didn't pay in cash. He paid in Berkshire stock.
25,203 Class A shares. 1.6% of his company.
Dexter Shoe soon went to zero. The shares he gave away never stopped growing.
Today they're worth about $19 billion.
"To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I've made."
1 of his 7 worst decisions. The full list is below.
Warren Buffett bought a dying textile company because its boss shorted him 1/8 of a dollar a share.
He later put the cost of that grudge at $200 billion.
"The dumbest stock I ever bought was Berkshire Hathaway."
In the video below, he tells the whole story himself.
It's 1 of his 7 worst decisions. The full list, in his own words, is below.