HedgeMind

Finance Researcher

Investors / Lectures / Interviews

Lessons from those who built fortunes

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@0x_Vexly And she never asked about his money in the first place. She told Oprah she didn’t ask how many millions he had because she had her own.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

Debbie Reynolds' husband gambled away all her money and left her his $10 million debt. The star of Singin' in the Rain ended up sleeping in her car.

In the video below, she describes the day a country club doorman wouldn't let her use the payphone in front of her children.

In 1960 she married shoe millionaire Harry Karl. By the time they divorced, she was broke.

"Somehow in our marriage he lost all of his money gambling and all of my money gambling," she told Oprah in 2011. "He owed $10 million. So then I got to pay that off."

When nobody would tell her where the money went, she flew to Spain to ask his closest friend. He told her about the gambling. Then about the women.

She left Karl in 1972. He rented a Rolls Royce and a penthouse. She let him keep his $50,000 membership at the Hillcrest country club.

Then her old rental car broke down outside Hillcrest, the club she had gone to for 13 years. The doorman said she wasn't allowed in. She asked if her daughter Carrie could use the phone. The answer was still no.

Her first husband, Eddie Fisher, had left her for Elizabeth Taylor. She said Karl was worse: "It wasn't Elizabeth and Eddie."

Was Harry Karl a con man, or a gambler who lost his own fortune along with hers?

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

Gary Coleman was paid $70,000 an episode as a teenager. In his 30s, he worked as a security guard. The people who had managed his money were his own parents.

In the video below, Coleman says that even after the lawsuit, he still doesn't know where $18 million went.

He was the star of Diff'rent Strokes. In the first season he got $1,500 an episode.

His parents were his personal managers and, ABC News reported, took the biggest cut, 20%. California law said 25% of his income had to be set aside for his future. ABC reported that even that disappeared.

"I kept getting told, don't spend so much," Coleman said. "Everybody wanted a piece of me."

In 1989, at 21, he cut them off and sued his parents and his former business adviser. That same year, his mother asked a court to take control of his finances, saying he couldn't handle his own affairs.

His father said he was not a bookkeeper: "All we did was sign documents and gave our approval."

In 1993 a judge ruled that his parents and the adviser had skimmed some of his earnings and awarded him nearly $1.3 million. Six years later Coleman filed for bankruptcy.

Did his parents rob him, or were they ordinary people in over their heads with money they never understood?

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@levifizg And the government took her salary to cover what he owed in taxes. Her words: “Everything’s gone and you’re emptied out.”

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@elonmusk China’s future premier Li Keqiang told a US ambassador in 2007 that GDP was “man-made.” He tracked electricity use, rail freight and bank loans instead.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@lucreqq Her son asked her the same thing afterwards: why did you let him keep it? Her answer was “Because I’m too nice.”

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@DeAxel_ Eventually. It took her about 10 years to dig out, by her own count. Decades later she auctioned her Hollywood costume collection. Marilyn Monroe’s white subway dress alone sold for $4.6 million.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@levifizg Except they weren’t just signing. As his managers they took the biggest cut, 20%, and in 1993 a judge ruled they had skimmed some of his earnings.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

Gary Coleman was paid $70,000 an episode as a teenager. In his 30s, he worked as a security guard. The people who had managed his money were his own parents.

In the video below, Coleman says that even after the lawsuit, he still doesn't know where $18 million went.

He was the star of Diff'rent Strokes. In the first season he got $1,500 an episode.

His parents were his personal managers and, ABC News reported, took the biggest cut, 20%. California law said 25% of his income had to be set aside for his future. ABC reported that even that disappeared.

"I kept getting told, don't spend so much," Coleman said. "Everybody wanted a piece of me."

In 1989, at 21, he cut them off and sued his parents and his former business adviser. That same year, his mother asked a court to take control of his finances, saying he couldn't handle his own affairs.

His father said he was not a bookkeeper: "All we did was sign documents and gave our approval."

In 1993 a judge ruled that his parents and the adviser had skimmed some of his earnings and awarded him nearly $1.3 million. Six years later Coleman filed for bankruptcy.

Did his parents rob him, or were they ordinary people in over their heads with money they never understood?

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@BonnieScotland_ It started early. At 10 he had his own company, Gary Coleman Productions, and his parents wrote themselves into the contract as its paid employees.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@Gordylocke It never healed either. His parents told NBC’s Today in 2010 that the last time they saw him was around 2000, in their driveway. They said “I love you,” he said “I love you too,” and drove off.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@highrisk2291 And it didn’t stop at the money. The same year he sued, his mother went to court to take control of his finances, saying he couldn’t handle his own affairs.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@whoismrzero Coogan is the reason California wrote that law. He earned around $3 million as a kid, sued his mother and stepfather in 1938 and got back $126,000. The Coogan law passed the next year. Forty years later it still didn’t save Coleman’s money.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@lucreqq A judge saw it the same way. In 1993 he ruled that Coleman’s parents and his adviser had skimmed some of his earnings. Coleman got back about $1.3 million of the $18 million.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@disassemblylion @NancyShumar George Best put it best: "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." Rooney had about 50 years to run the same plan.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

Mickey Rooney made more than 300 films and died with $18,000. At 90, he took his own stepson to court over a locked fridge and an empty wallet.

In the video below, Rooney testifies before the US Senate about what happened.

For years his stepson, Chris Aber, had helped run his life and his finances. Rooney's side said more than $400,000 was missing and that he had no money for a Valentine's gift for his wife.

Rooney told the senators: "My money was taken, misused." When he asked about it: "I was told that I couldn't have any information of my own."

Aber denied everything. In 2013, he and his wife agreed to a $2.8 million judgment in Rooney's elder abuse lawsuit.

But the money had been draining long before. Rooney married eight times, and by 1962 he had earned $12 million and filed for bankruptcy.

Was Rooney robbed by his own family, or had his fortune been slipping away for decades?

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@srbguy47 He wasn't there as an actor. He testified at a Senate hearing on elder abuse because he was a victim himself, and he wanted federal laws to protect millions of older people in the same spot.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@soph_v79 Good catch on residuals. His biggest MGM hits came before 1960, and the 1960 SAG deal paid residuals only on films made after that year. In the Senate he asked for federal laws to protect elderly people from financial abuse, and told other seniors not to stay silent.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@Diam0ndG0ddess Expensive hobbies indeed. Eight weddings alone is a budget line. As for Jan, the $2.8 million judgment named only Chris and his wife.

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@NancyShumar That lines up with the record. He filed for bankruptcy in 1962 after earning $12 million, so your dad was probably near the back of a long line. Did he ever say what Rooney was like in person?

[HedgeMind @hedgemindx]

@f_palatucc97823 Eight. The first was Ava Gardner in 1942. The eighth, to Jan Chamberlin in 1978, lasted until he died in 2014.