20 Hollywood Legends Who Died Nearly Broke

Bela Lugosi was born in Hungary and made his name playing Count Dracula in a 1931 film but had to endure decades of being relegated to B-movies afterward. Later in his seventies, he got hooked on painkillers because of sciatica and willingly checked himself into a state hospital for help, which wiped out his savings. Lugosi died in a rented Hollywood apartment aged 73 of a heart attack. Probate listed just $2,900 total, split between cash and personal belongings.

Errol Flynn, whose romantic adventure films “Captain Blood” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” had made him Warner Brothers’ biggest star, had lavish tastes. After he won an acquittal on statutory rape charges at trial, he began buying yachts and ranches and paying off alimony and legal bills. When Flynn died suddenly of a heart attack at age 50, back-tax claims against him topped $1 million. The value of his estate was estimated at about $1 million, but liens against it were greater, which made the estate insolvent. The resulting litigation kept the estate in court for several years.

The first black person to receive an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” She appeared in hundreds of movies and had her own radio series, “The Beulah Show,” but due to studio system discrimination, she was paid much less than her co-stars, who were white. McDaniel died of breast cancer at 59. Her estate’s value was less than $10,000, which was far less than the taxes owed, and creditors sold her personal effects at auction. The value of her Oscar plaque was recorded as $0.

Jean Harlow, MGM’s top box-office star in such movies as “Red Dust” and “Dinner at Eight,” made up to $5,000 a week at the height of her career in the 1930s. But her mother and stepfather managed her money and invested it in unsuccessful businesses. When she died of kidney failure at age 26, the value of her estate was assessed at anywhere from $10,000 to $24,500. After her debts were paid and funeral expenses deducted, her mother ended up with almost nothing.

Tom Mix was the greatest Western star of silent film, with nearly 300 films under his belt. He could make $17,500 a week for Fox and blow it just as quickly on a Beverly Hills ranch and a traveling circus. But his investment in speculative real estate and stocks cost him much of his fortune in the crash. When his car overturned in Arizona, a suitcase hit his neck and killed him on the spot at 60. Mix had made more than $6 million over his lifetime, but left less than $100,000 behind.

After silent films had been taken over by talkies, Marie Prevost, a former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty who became one of the top comedic stars of the late 1920s, found herself contract-less and plagued by both weight issues and booze. She passed away alone in her Hollywood apartment in January 1937 at age 40 and wasn’t found for two days. According to the police and probate reports, she left behind only $300 cash. Her death prompted Joan Crawford and other Hollywood figures to enlarge the fund to help indigent performers.

Abbott and Costello, the No. 1 comedy team of the ’40s who were known for the “Who’s on First?” bit, also made use of many of the IRS’s longstanding deductions to reduce their income taxes over several decades. Retroactive audits in the mid-’50s disallowed a large share of these deductions for Costello. He was forced to sell off real estate, film rights, and other property to pay the resulting tax bills. Costello died of a heart attack in 1959 at age 52, and while he left behind a much smaller estate than he had earned during his career, it wasn’t empty.

Oscar-nominated actor John Garfield, the dark, handsome leading man of such noir films as “Body and Soul” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” was named in House Un-American Activities Committee hearings during the height of the Red Scare. Refusing to name names, he was subsequently blacklisted by the major movie studios, effectively ending his lucrative career, while his mounting legal bills ate away at his resources. Garfield, already suffering from severe heart disease, died in 1952 at age 39, leaving an estate of less than $100,000, further depleted by the debts from litigation and unproduced pictures.

Carl Switzer starred as “Alfalfa” in Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” comedy shorts and received a flat weekly salary without any ownership rights in future revenue streams. When those shorts were later rerun on TV, he did not collect any compensation. As an adult, he acted in minor roles, tended bar, and worked as a bear-hunting guide. He was shot to death at age 31 in the course of a dispute over a cash prize for finding a missing hunting dog. He left behind no significant estate.

Normand made good money as a leading silent-era comedian, director, and writer, working alongside Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, for instance, but that money did not last. Mabel Normand was named in public rumors about the unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor, although she was never charged or proven involved, and she still had her films barred from theaters because of it. Then, after battling recurring tuberculosis and spending heavily on medical care, legal defense, and sanatorium stays, she died of the disease at 37, leaving behind a debt-strained estate.

John Gilbert, the heartthrob of silent films, was MGM’s premier leading man in the 1920s, starring with Greta Garbo in “Flesh and the Devil.” He signed a contract worth $1.5 million. His career withered after talkies came along, and he clashed with studio chief Louis B. Mayer. Alcohol and his luxurious home in Bel Air burned through the rest of his fortune. He died of a heart attack at 38, and his estate was appraised at $407,000. Back taxes and outstanding bills depleted much of the funds, reducing his heirs’ final inheritance.

Florence Lawrence was billed as “The Biograph Girl,” the first time a studio ever publicly attached any identifying name to a screen actor. By the height of her career, she made a nice salary and even had an estate in New Jersey. A fire on a studio lot later left her severely burned while saving a costar; the surgeries, the medical bills, and the subsequent failed cosmetic investments consumed all her wealth. In her later years, she worked as an uncredited MGM extra for $75/week. She died at 52, with nothing in her estate.

Tess Gardella, an Italian-American vaudeville and film actress who played the role of “Aunt Jemima,” including in the 1936 film version of “Show Boat,” was awarded $115,000 from General Foods for broadcasting her Aunt Jemima character on the air without permission. However, after spending years on legal fees and with vaudeville on the wane, she soon had no money left and filed for bankruptcy, listing debts exceeding $25,000 but no liquid assets. At age 54, she passed away with an estate with zero net value.

Kay Laurell was a Florenz Ziegfeld Follies performer who transitioned into feature films. Her movies included “Lonely Heart.” By the end of the 1910s, she was making big money, but spent her earnings freely on expensive trips abroad and luxurious costumes. In January 1927, at the age of 36, she died unexpectedly in London as a result of complications from childbirth. The value of her estate, which was admitted to probate in New York City, totaled less than $5,000, most of which went toward administering her estate overseas and paying off her numerous creditors.

Florence La Badie, who played the lead in the blockbuster silent serial “The Million Dollar Mystery,” produced by Thanhouser Studio, was one of the most recognized actresses on screen in America during the 1910s. A mechanical brake failure caused her car to overturn near Glen Cove, N.Y., and she died of an infection several weeks later, aged 29. She left an estate that was appraised at less than $10,000, a good illustration of how little the actors in the nickelodeon era were earning before the blockbuster deals of the next decade began to emerge.

Major silent leading lady Alma Rubens (who starred opposite Douglas Fairbanks and as Julie in the first “Show Boat”) made over $3,000 a week at the height of her career. But she became addicted to morphine and was publicly arrested and sent to a state hospital, along with expensive treatments at private facilities. Both her career and her money disappeared. She died of pneumonia at 33 while trying to make a comeback on stage. A Los Angeles probate judge said Rubens’ estate had no net value.

Barbara La Marr, a silent-era actress and screenwriter who starred in “The Prisoner of Zenda,” was dubbed “The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful” and commanded top studio salaries. But excessive spending, several marriages, and severe crash diets took their toll on her body. She came down with tuberculosis and kidney disease. She died in 1926, at 29. The probate showed no net distributable assets. That isn’t the same as being broke, just that there was nothing left to distribute. Friend and film executive Paul Bern covered her funeral costs.

Paramount star Wallace Reid, known as the Screen’s Perfect Lover, was badly injured in a train accident while on his way to a movie set. Doctors on the Paramount lot gave him morphine so he could continue working, and soon he was addicted. After tens of thousands of dollars spent in private sanitariums, Reid died at 31 in a Hollywood sanitarium. His estate, valued at between $30,000 and $50,000, was used up paying off medical bills. His widow went on to make an anti-drug movie.

Olive Borden, “The Joy Girl” and Fox Film Corporation’s top female star in the late 1920s, was making $1,500 per week until she refused the studio’s sound-era salary reductions and broke her contract. Bad real estate investments, profligate spending, and alcoholism wiped out her savings. She eventually found work at a Skid Row mission in Los Angeles where she stayed for room and board. She died there from stomach problems and pneumonia at age 41, leaving behind a suitcase of movie stills as her sole worldly goods.

Dean was in just three movies, “East of Eden,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” and “Giant,” when he died in a car crash near Cholame, Calif., in 1955, at 24, before most of his films hit theaters. His bank accounts, sports car, and other personal effects were appraised in probate at about $100,000. Because he had no will, his estate went to his estranged father under state law. It was years later that a family trust began making money off Dean’s likeness.

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