Known for: The Last Picture Show and Young Frankenstein
Net worth: $21 million
This actress/comedian is best known for her hilarious role as Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore show. Her Phyllis character was so popular Leachman went on to do her very own spin-off sitcom called Phyllis. She also appeared in the Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein and continued to work with Brooks for many years.
On television, she was known as Beverly in the wildly popular 1980s show The Facts of Life. In the film, she portrayed Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). Leachman set a record winning eight Primetime Emmy Awards. She also won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Phyllis. Her performance in The Last Picture Show earned an Oscar. Her last role was performed in the 2018 movie I Can Only Imagine, a Christian-themed movie based on the pop-sensation song of the same title. She was born in Des Moines, Iowa on April 30, 1926. She grew up in Des Moines and lived there until she attended Illinois State to study drama, and then graduated from Northwestern University. She started her film career soon after, but not before participating in Miss America in 1946.
Pam Grier
Known for: Jackie Brown and Coffy
Net worth: $10 million
Pam Grier was the queen of the early 1970s Blaxploitation movies. Women in Cages and The Big Dollhouse featured her lively character roles, making her the first African American to play an action hero. In Coffy , Grier plays a vigilante taking out justice on a coke dealer for addicting her sister. Black Mama, White Mama is another Blaxploitation film of Grier’s. Like a 1970s version of Orange Is the New Black , this movie takes place at a women’s prison on a fictional tropical island. Though Blaxploitation sounds bad, it had elements of black power and women’s power. The film style went out with the 1970s.
Miami Vice was a crazy-popular hit TV series that ran during the heart of the Eighties, from 1985 to 1989. Pam Grier became a regular on the show. It’s difficult to explain its mass appeal like it would be difficult to explain the mass appeal of PewDiePie in 30 years. Miami Vice featured Don Johnson, a hunk of a private detective with slicked-back hair in a slick white-white suit wearing designer shades and a Rolex watch—totally ’80s—and, at his fingertips, an ever-ready, even more slick, gleaming chrome handgun. Also in the 1980s, Grier played the evil Dust Witch in Ray Bradbury’s story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, a 1983 Disney production. In the 1990s, she was Jackie Brown. Quentin Tarantino’s crime-thriller was created as a direct nod to Blaxploitation films. Award nominations and an NAACP Image Award revived her career. Factoid: Pam Grier was the first black woman to appear on the cover of Ms. Magazine, 1975.
Drew Barrymore
Known for: E.T.
Net worth: $125 million
Drew Barrymore was born into Hollywood stardom. Almost every member of her family has showbiz creds. Her godfather, for example, is none other than Steven Speilberg. He’s also director E.T. , but no one could have predicted the rebellious ’80s teen icon she would become. She was so damn cool that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love asked her to be the godmother of their baby daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. And she’s still wildly popular, agelessly appealing to each new generation.
Despite being born to Hollywood royalty, no one could have predicted she would star in the highest-grossing film of the 1980s. Fame doesn’t come without its problems. Childhood actors are doubly cursed. For Drew Barrymore, superstardom landed her in drug and alcohol rehab by age 13. She was nine the first time she got drunk, at Rob Lowe’s birthday party, incidentally. Shortly thereafter, she was a regular at the club scene. (The hedonistic Eighties were kind of a crazy decade). She’s lucky she survived to adulthood. The fact that she’s been one of the most prolific and continuously working stars in the business, is another blessing. Drew has a philanthropic heart and has supported a wide variety of charitable organizations. Fighting hunger is one. After being named Ambassador Against Hunger for the U.N. World Food Programme, Barrymore donated $1 million to the cause.
Geneviève Bujold
Known for: Anne of a Thousand Days
Net worth: $2 million
At 71 Geneviève Bujold said, “I am incapable of doing things I don’t want to do. I live modestly, so that I’m never forced to do a job to pay a mortgage, and I don’t own anything.” Her point being, “All the external decorations are less important than giving yourself the gift of time.”
Canadian-born Bujold spent her childhood in Montreal’s Hochelaga Convent. It was a stifling experience. She finally got kicked out after getting caught reading an unapproved novel. She became a stage actress and then a French film actress. When she played Anne Boleyn in Anne of the Thousand Days in 1969, her performance was so spectacular she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. It was her American film debut. She went on to do other American movies like Earthquake, Coma and Dead Ringers.
Anthony Michael Hall
Known for: Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club
Net worth: $8 million
“Brat Pack” go-to geek Anthony Michael Hall starred in most of John Hughes’ blockbusters, beginning with National Lampoon’s Vacation playing one of Chevy Chase’s kids. Hughes kept him in mind for Sixteen Candles , The Breakfast Club and Weird Science . But Hall, who has a slight resemblance to future tech-geek Mark Zuckerberg, turned down roles Hughes wrote for him in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink . (Enough with the typecast!)
Of the “Brat Pack” experience, Hall said, “I had the time of my life.” However, as with many of our iconic child actors from the Eighties, Hall took a two-year break to deal with a drinking problem. He returned to screen with Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands playing a villain. Six Degrees of Separation was another box office hit. One of Hall’s charitable efforts includes assisting at-risk youth by offering literacy programs. His initiative offers an opportunity to learn literacy in films, music, lyrics, scriptwriting, and novels.