Known for: Married… with Children
Net worth: $20 million
Remember Kelly Bundy? Christina Applegate played one of the funniest teenage girls (ever), on one of the funniest TV shows (ever). OMG. No comedienne flips the “dumb blond” stereotype like Applegate. Alas, the sitcom Married… with Children ended after running for eleven glorious seasons. But why did it have to end? Maybe adolescence doesn’t last long enough.
Applegate guest-starred in 21 Jump Street and hosted SNL . She starred in Wild Bill , Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!, Jane Austen’s Mafia! and Bad Moms . She’s won many accolades for her performance in Samantha Who? , and she won a Primetime Emmy for her role on Friends . Applegate is a breast cancer survivor. She supports breast cancer charities like Stand Up to Cancer , a fundraising TV show. She founded Right Action for Women to help with pre-cancer screening. She also helps out World Animal Protection and Adopts a Classroom.
Gena Rowlands
Known for: A Woman Under the Influence
Net worth: $10 million
Gena Rowlands made her stage debut in 1952 touring with The Seven Year Itch . Moving on up, she starred with Paul Stewart in the TV series Top Secret which ran for a year in the mid-1950s. She found her film debut in The High Cost of Loving (1958).
After various TV parts including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour , she nabbed a role as a socialite on ABC’s Primetime soap opera, Peyton Place . The bulk of her work happened alongside her husband, actor and director John Cassavetes. They created ten films together, from A Child is Waiting in 1963 to Tempest in 1982. Notably, Rowlands’ performance in their film A Woman Under the Influence is one of the greatest performances of all time. Her later career includes a Woody Allen movie called Another Woman and role-playing the former first lady in The Betty Ford Story .
Ellen Burstyn
Known for: The Exorcist
Net worth: $20 million
Ellen Burstyn got her to break as a dancer on The Jackie Gleason Show during the mid-1950s. Soon after, parts on various Broadway shows began falling her way leading to amazing opportunities in film. She landed the lead in The Last Picture Show (1971 and her performance brought showbiz attention plus Oscar and Golden Globe award nominations. After starring with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens , she came across the big one: The Exorcist . Quite possibly the scariest movie of all time, the supernatural horror flick earned Burstyn further accolades and a slew of new roles.
For her role in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore directed by Martin Scorsese, Burstyn won the Best Actress Oscar. Three years later, in 1978, she received the Best Actress nomination for Same Time, Next Year, and in 1980 and in 2000 she received it for Resurrection and Requiem of a Dream, respectively. Politically, she was active in the 1970s with the movement to free Rubin “Hurricane” Carter from jail. The convicted boxer is the subject of the Bob Dylan song, “Hurricane.”
Ralph Macchio
Known for: The Karate Kid and The Outsiders
Net worth: $3 million
Starting out young as a commercial kid, Ralph Macchio advertised for Bubble Yum and Dr. Pepper. Landing a role on the popular 1980s show Eight is Enough made him an actor. After playing “Johnny” in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders , he was catapulted to fame with the rest of the “Brat Pack.” It lifted him to his most popular role-playing Daniel LaRusso in the super-lucrative Karate Kid franchise. His touching portrayal alongside sensei Mr. Miyagi, leaning to “wax on” and “wax off” holds a heaping load of nostalgia.
The movie, in turn, morphed into the popular Cobra Kai TV series. He was also memorable in My Cousin Vinny with Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei. Macchio got into producing and directing. He stars in Cobra Kai and appears on television shows like How I Met Your Mother and Dancing with the Stars.
Brad Pitt
Known for: Thelma and Louise and Fight Club
Net worth: $240 million
Producer and actor, Brad Pitt has one of the world’s most recognized faces. It’s a pretty one, too. We first recognized it, and the rest of him, in Thelma and Louise as a hitchhiking charmer who Geena Davis’ “Thelma” falls for. The one-nighter proved instructive! In A River Runs Through It , Robert Redford’s 1992 blockbuster, Pitt proved his knack for serious acting, becoming the turning point in his career. Big roles began coming his way. He starred in Kalifornia next. Another significant turning point occurred after starring in the cult-favorite, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles .
Prior to the onset of success, the Gen X favorite got bit parts in big movies like No Way Out, Less Than Zero and No Man’s Land. He bailed on a journalism degree at the University of Missouri just two units shy of a degree in order to move to L.A. to become an actor. He wouldn’t need the advertising degree. But he did have to work as a mover and an El Pollo Loco chicken mascot before becoming one of the wealthiest men in the business. After 20 years in Hollywood, he’s starred in massive hits like 12 Monkeys, Seven, Snatch, and the Ocean’s Eleven film franchise based on the original Rat Pack movie. Look for Pitt in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood next!