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Did You Make The Forbes Celebrity 100 List?

The good capitalists at Forbes magazine have amused and edified us by publishing annual lists of the richest Americans and most valuable corporations. One of their more recent additions to the mix is the Forbes Celebrity 100: the entertainers, sportspersons, authors and other public personalities with the most clout -- however one measures something as nebulous as clout. 

The Forbes Celebrity 100 isn't simply a running roster of glitterati earning power, though money figures heavily into the formula. The folks at Forbes also take into account the number of magazine covers, TV and radio mentions, web hits and press clippings. Did some poor editorial assistant actually have to count all the media references to Tiger Woods (#2 on the list) over the course of a year? If so, I wonder if that poor assistant was also tempted to compare their annual incomes. I know that's what I'd do if I had to count a year's worth of references to Tiger Woods. I'd wonder how many centuries I'd have to work if I wanted to net Tiger's single-year earnings of $53.0 million. If I were a poor editorial assistant earning, say, $20,000, and I did a little calculating, I could easily conclude that I'd have to labor at my magazine for 2,650 years. One year of work for Tiger, 26 ½ centuries for me. Seems fair enough. Tiger had a pretty good year, after all.

I was disappointed to discover that, once again, I didn't make the cut. My media clout is nowhere as impressive as that of Stephen King (#13 on the list) or Jay Leno (#41) or even Gisele Bundchen (#84). Gisele Bundchen? This is no joke: she's definitely #84. The fact is I've never HEARD of Gisele Bundchen, have you? Maybe she delivers the nightly network news in Berlin or Dusseldorf. Come to think of it, I've never heard of Todd English (#98), either -- and somehow he made the list. 

Granted, I'm not the hippest cynic on the block, since I live in a state of willful ignorance when it comes to contemporary pop culture. I'm a classicist; I prefer names like Juvenal, Jonathan Swift and G. K. Chesterton. But despite my contemporary-unfriendly mentality, most of the names on the Forbes list have bombarded me at one time or another. I can't help having heard of Britney Spears (#4) or Jennifer Lopez (#34). A few of the names, like Kobe Bryant (#25) and Oscar de la Hoya (#50), ring a distant mental bell, but I couldn't tell you if they're basketball players or Fuller-Brush men. Some of them, like Michael Schumacher (#15), astounded me by their prominence. How can someone I've NEVER HEARD OF possibly rank FIFTEENTH among all the shining lights in CelebrityWorld? Not only did he top such universally recognized megastars as Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy and David Letterman in terms of clout... the guy actually raked in more loot than any of them. In fact, Mr. Schumacher ranked sixth among all celebrities in yearly earnings, with an insane $59.0 million. What did the man do to merit such astronomical celebrity status and earning power? Turns out he drives cars for a living.

I was happy to see amiable geezer Regis Philbin soar to #22 on the Forbes list. I was equally surprised that Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern were still hanging in there at #28 and #31 respectively. Both of them peaked before the mid-nineties -- half an eon ago in pop culture -- yet their yearly earnings still loom in the enviable $30 million range, nearly twice the pulling power of Tonight Show trouper Jay Leno. I practically spewed when I saw that Siegfried and Roy, the twin Liberaces of the animal-training world, netted a ferocious $50 million between them, enough to place ninth on the celebrity earnings list. (We are what we pay to see, my fellow Americans.) Glib illusionist and erstwhile Claudia Schiffer fiancé David Copperfield managed even better, if you can believe it: his act grabbed $60 million in greenbacks last year, good enough for fifth on the money list. Claudia, meanwhile, trailed him at 77th, with 'only' $9 million in earnings. And you have to admit she looks even prettier on a runway. How did Copperfield pull $60 million out of his hat in a single year? Maybe he's a better magician than we give him credit for.

If David Copperfield could rank fifth in earning power, who (you're doubtless wondering by now) rounded out the top five in that department? Let me reveal their names -- and if the sight of obscene earnings makes you queasy, just avert your eyes for a few moments. Fourth on the money list was soulful smirker Bruce Willis, with $70 million in fees and box office receipts. The Beatles, bless their aging moptops, managed to finish third in both clout AND money (with $70 million) -- a full thirty years after their breakup. (Old-timers like me had to replace their scratchy Sergeant Pepper's LPs with CDs somewhere along the way.) Second in the money department (but surprisingly just ninth in overall clout, lagging behind the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync) was daytime TV empress and all-around media moguless Oprah Winfrey, with an annual take of $150 million. That's the equivalent of roughly 7,500 editorial assistants' salaries (at $20,000 a year), in case you were still thinking about the math. 

So who ranked as the #1 moneymaker in the Forbes Celebrity 100? Could it have been Madonna? Jim Carrey? Tom Hanks? Not Adam Sandler or Michael Jackson, was it? No, in fact none of the above even made it to the top 100, which makes me suspect that something went seriously amiss when the Forbes folks compiled the roster. How could Madonna or Jim Carrey possibly rank below John Madden (#75), Juwan Howard (Juwan WHO?) (#76), merry survivor Richard Hatch (#77) or, for cryin' out loud, Maya Angelou (#88)? Even the 'Whassup' guys finished in the top 100. Is there something wrong with this picture? I suspect there is, but let me wrap up the gospel according to Forbes: the number one money champion in all of CelebrityWorld was... drumroll please... GEORGE LUCAS. His take: $250 million, which makes a pretty tall stack of pennies. All I can say is that the godfather of Star Wars must have moved an awful lot of Jar-Jar merchandise last year.

But Lucas ranked just twelfth in terms of overall clout. So who was Number One, you ask? Who's the most potent celebrity of them all? I'd like to tell you it wasn't Tom Cruise, but I'd be lying. Yes, the title goes to the silky-smooth Scientologist who still looks as callow as the suburban teenage pimp he played in 'Risky Business' all those years ago. He reigns supreme as the heir to Clark Gable and John Wayne. (But can anyone do an impression of Tom Cruise?) If it's any consolation, Cruise ranked 13th in earning power, with a measly $43.2 million to show for all of last year. I'd only have to write 3.6 million columns to catch up with him.

Cynic's Pick of the Week
The animal rights activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) asked the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh to remove leather couches from its lobby. In a rare display of common sense for an art museum, the director refused the request as 'ridiculous.' It's time the folks from PETA got used to leather and saved their wrath for guys who like to have their pictures taken with dead bears.

© 2001 by Bridget Petrella Media Relations. "Some Cynical Guy" appears here by permission of the publisher. If you'd like this column to appear regularly in  your own site or publication, write to UPBEATmag@aol.com.

Profile of a Cynic...

Bayan, who claims to be a "kinder, gentler cynic," currently lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania. His weekly column, "Some Cynical Guy," is published and syndicated by Upbeat Online. 

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