It's a common story among actors: A young person makes his or her way to Hollywood, accepts a menial, low-paying job, and hopes the money will soon come pouring in after landing that first big role. But there are a good number of actors who were rich long before being on TV, in the movies, or on stage. Or, at least, their families were rich. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a prime example as her father, Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, was a billionaire businessman. And Paul Giamatti's late father, Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, was a Major League Baseball commissioner, as well as the president of Yale University.
But Laurence Fishburne is one of those actors who came from meager beginnings. Despite the financial challenges that he faced, the actor was still able to focus on his art, move from school plays to off-Broadway productions, and land a major television soap opera gig. "When I started, I was doing 'One Life to Live' here in New York. I was 10, 11 years old, a single-parent household," Fishburne explained. "I didn't have the nicest clothes... and I wound up on a TV show," he recalled to Vulture in 2020.
Before he began accruing significant paychecks, Fishburne didn't have much disposable income. When the price of his favorite comics jumped from 10 to 12 cents, he could no longer afford to buy them. The devoted comic book reader used the old five-finger discount (meaning he stole them). "That's how serious I was about it," Fishburne told Collider.
(Source: nickiswift)
