by Ken Fisher
My editor feared I sounded too mean-spirited in describing Cuban—particularly my last few sentences that don’t make him sound like a great talent—and that you wouldn’t like that. And it’s true—I really haven’t said anything laudatory about him. Well, I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around and that I haven’t said anything sufficiently nasty about Cuban to make him really like it. For him to love it, I’d have to rag on him pretty heavily. And I like him. OK, Mark, this is just for you: You’re a dirty rotten blah, blah, blah. Feel better? For the rest of you readers, my point is that if you’ve made a bundle as a mogul and want a taste of fame as well, you can go from the rich to the famous as a celebrity, just like Mark Cuban did.
THE TALENT SHOW
So how do you become a rock star, NFL pro, or Jennifer Lawrence? This road’s journey starts young. If you’re past age 15 and starting football, you won’t ever go pro. Sorry. For acting, maybe you can start a bit later—age 18—though many start much younger. Any road requires industry and perseverance. Think of a 50-year-old, financially successful CEO—he’s likely been at it since he left college, maybe 30 years! But a 35-year-old pro athlete has been at it almost as long. Tiger Woods famously started golf at age two.8 His dad probably enjoyed that more than two-year-old Tiger did. But for winning the Masters at age 22—starting at age two seems right. As Michael Jordan said, “Being a pro is practicing when you don’t want to.”
Getting Started
Getting rich as a talent requires youth or a youthful decision. A 35-year-old newbie aspirant won’t make it in Hollywood, the NFL, golf, or pretty much anything—no matter what. That doesn’t mean older folks aren’t talents. Katharine Hepburn still starred at age 87. But she also starred young. Can miracles happen? Yes, but almost never. Glenn Close didn’t land her first movie role until she was 35. Soul queen Sharon Jones didn’t start singing professionally until age 40 and nabbed her first chart hit at the tender age of 54. The key? Recall the “almost never” part. Most celebs start very young. If you aren’t and haven’t, the cost of this book will have been worth it, because now is the time to stop wasting time considering this road and seek another.
If you’re young and determined with grit—now what? Practice. All day, every day. Successful stars start young but are also freakishly single-minded. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake worked far harder as children than probably anyone you ever met. Pro athletes generally led monastic childhoods, rising pre-dawn, practicing before, during, and after school. So start waking at 5 AM now for wind sprints.
Want to be a rock star? Join a church choir, play guitar at the old folks’ home on weekends, play county fairs. Never decline a gig, no matter how mortifying. Have you seen The Voice? Pretty much all of them have been singing for crowds since age nine.
If you want to act, do it. Take classes at your local community college. Big cities have lots of choices. Classes are really just another excuse for practice. To self-teach, pick up Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen and An Actor Prepares by Konstantin Stanislavsky—the book on method acting. But find a local theater, improv class, or summer stock and just do it.
Sell Yourself
To succeed, you must sell yourself or you miss gigs. If you make it, you’ll have an agent selling you. (Entertainment and athletics are highly unionized. You must play by union rules.) But how can you get to needing an agent? Back Stage magazine lists casting calls in every major city for TV, films, voiceover, radio, you name it. It even has listings for nonpros like you! You can search and post your resume (skinny though it is) online at Backstage.com. You need a headshot (8 × 10 black-and-white photograph—have a pro do it, or a very skilled friend) and a phone number. The listings tell you just what you need for the audition—a prepared monologue, an accent, eight bars of a Broadway tune. With Back Stage, a stack of headshots, and some postage, you’re ready. Getting the job—that’s up to you. It’s selling.
Eventually, you’ll need an agent. They’ll find you higher-profile work but also take a cut of profits. Agents are also listed in Back Stage magazine. Note: Never pay to audition or have an agent look at you. Real agents won’t ask for money until you get paid. If they want money up-front, it’s a scam. Always. Run. One day, like Brad Pitt, you can be picky. But at first, if someone offers you seven bucks an hour to wear a chicken suit and dance, start dancing. For more on getting started, Back Stage is a great source overall. (Read the section on “Avoiding Scams” first.) Also, pick up Breaking Into Acting for Dummies by Larry Garrison and Wallace Wang, which covers acting’s business side, from resume building to finding every kind of job and dealing with unions.
Eventually, you must join a union. You can’t get certain jobs unless you do, but then you’re bound by draconian union rules. Remember the 2008 Hollywood writers’ strike? Many writers probably didn’t want an unpaid four-month vacation, but if the union strikes, them’s the breaks.
Rock On
The same rules apply for would-be rock stars: Sell yourself and take whatever work you can. Walk into every bar and offer to play—for free! (Once you get a following, you can demand money.) Create a press kit—a picture, some reviews (have your mom write them—if you’re too old to have your mom write them, then you’re too old), newspaper clippings, and a CD. Hit as many venues and booking agents as you can. It’s a numbers game! The more people you contact, the better your odds.
Once upon a time, it was all about the studio album. Not anymore! With a decent computer, pretty much anyone can make a CD, and anyone can buy most any single song through iTunes. You can even make a YouTube video, like Justin Bieber. But to make it big, you either have to be a songwriter (see Chapter 8) or go on tour. Even big names like Madonna, U2, and rapper Jay-Z (more on him later) have abandoned traditional record labels and signed huge contracts—$120 million for Madge and $150 million for Jay-Z—with Live Nation.9 Live Nation, a spin-off from radio conglomerate Clear Channel, owns and operates hundreds of music venues internationally.
Before you can negotiate a $150 million deal, though, you must log hours on the road. So how do you find a “booking” agent? Same as actors! Again, don’t pay up-front. Second . . . sell! Booking agents are listed in the Yellow Pages or with your local union. Send them a press kit and invite them to gigs. Required reading: All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald S. Passman walks you through finding an agent and negotiating a contract. And for a clear-eyed look at the industry, read So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star by Jacob Slichter or Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be by Jennifer Trynin. You may not want to anymore after reading them.
The Sporting Life
Athletes’ paths are better defined. High school sports star. Recruited for college. College standout. Recruited for pro team. If you don’t make it as a high school sports star, take another road. It’s very rare to enter top pro leagues direct from high school. Some have, like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, but don’t try it. If you suffer a career-ending injury, you’ll at least have a college degree. Tennis champs generally don’t go the college route. Many baseball players go straight from high school to the minor leagues, but few of them ever make it to the Big Show. Olympic gymnasts’ careers are usually over by age 19, giving them time for college afterward, but they generally aren’t “rich and famous.” Tiger went to college! Sure, he dropped out (like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates), but first Stanford wanted him.
Pro athletes require an agent. IMG is perhaps the best-known sports agency and manages many huge names. For others, check the Sports Agent Directory (www.prosportsgroup.com). Again, don’t pay up-front! They get paid when you do—always. Your agent helps negotiate better contracts and lands sponsorships and Wheaties boxes. That’s where the big bucks are (like lunch boxes and action figures for writers—see Chapter 8). So, to become a pro athlete: (1) Practice. (2) Finish high school. (3) Get recruited to college. (4) Find an agent. (5) Become the face of Nike. Easy as that. Now go do more wind sprints.
POTHOLES AHEAD NO ONE SEES!
> The talent road is youthful, but unreliable. Persistence has no high correlation with financial success. Nor does talent alone. No matter how talented an actor you are, odds are seriously against you ever being employed in acting. The numbers are scary. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in any year there are only about 70,000 acting jobs. Not 70,000 actors—70,000 jobs (some as dancing chickens). No way to know how many wannabes are waiting tables instead. The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA—the TV and movie actors union) has about 160,000 members, but even SAG-AFTRA admits only about 50 earn, say, in excess of $1 million per picture. Only a tiny elite make much more. The rest, according to the BLS, make a median salary of $18.80 per hour—when they’re working!10 Recall those Dell computer commercials with the floppy-haired kid yelling, “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!”? He did countless Dell commercials for three years or so—and likely earned quite a bit. Then he got busted for drugs, couldn’t get work, and was relegated to tending bar at a popular Manhattan Mexican restaurant, Tortilla Flats.11 Years later he’s back in the biz, but there was a long drought.
To make big bucks on this road, you must sell yourself.
Let’s assume 100 unemployed actors for every acting job (probably a low estimate). That means about a million and a half claim to be “actors” when their tax returns don’t so indicate. (Most don’t earn enough to pay income taxes.) So if there are 1.5 million of you and 50 big earners, you have about 0.003 percent odds of hitting it big. You might scrape out a living, but at that median hourly rate, you’re likelier making $25,000 a year than anything close to Jennifer Lawrence status.
Musicians face similarly daunting odds. There are no numbers for out-of-work musicians, but very few become the Rolling Stones. Or athletes! Odds are best for baseball players. If you play high school varsity, the NCAA says you have about a 0.45 percent shot at making the major leagues.12 Terrible! And you still must be a superstar to make a superstar salary. Minimum salary for Major League Baseball players is $500,000.13 Not bad, but you don’t get super rich on that because you don’t last long enough. If you can’t hit a fastball, try hockey—the odds are 0.32 percent you’ll play professionally—but the top pay isn’t so high. Pay is high for top football stars but the odds are worse (0.08 percent chance you’ll go pro). Basketball? Only 0.03 percent. Women have it worse. Varsity female high school basketball players have a 0.02 percent chance of going pro.14 They have fewer teams. It’s an unfair world. Still, overall those odds beat the odds of being Jennifer Lawrence.
Start very young. Stick with it. But make sure you have other marketable skills.
You may say, “But Jennifer Lawrence makes $26 million a movie!” With that, you don’t need a lifelong career. One $26 million movie—pay your manager, accountant, trainer, chef, Kabbalah coach, and yoga instructor, take the $10 million left over, and retire. Fine, but to make the $26 million, you still actually need to be Jennifer Lawrence—and that requires having started young or possibly a Faustian deal with the devil. Which raises another trait for all the roads to riches! Folks making $26 million a picture aren’t interested in making one picture and retiring. They don’t quit—they’re tenacious and driven. You must be, too. I’m not trying to dissuade you—merely warn you. While on the talent road, you may want to cultivate other functional skills so transitioning to a more reliable road is less painful.
When in Doubt, Start a Business!
Like I said in Chapter 1, everyone can start a business. If you’ve tried the Fourth Road and are tired of not getting anywhere, try the First Road!
One enterprising actor named Chuck McCarthy did just that. An Atlanta transplant to Los Angeles of unspecified age, Chuck’s film credits include the role of “Business Zombie” in a show called Hot Girl Walks By and “Bowling Alley Bouncer” in a short film called Joan’s Day Out. Hey, you gotta pay your dues. But Chuck wasn’t content to just loaf around between auditions for Homicidal Biker. He wanted extra cash! So he became the first “people walker” in LA. You read that right. Some people walk dogs for a living. Chuck McCarthy walks people, for $7 a mile.
Sound silly? There’s a market for everything. As McCarthy told the Guardian*: “The more I thought about it, the less crazy it seemed. . . . I’ve been doing walks almost every single day for the past week and I’m getting repeat clients, which is what you want.” Turns out there are a lot of Angelenos who want someone to walk and talk with but can’t sync their schedules with friends or family. Demand soon overwhelmed him, so he recruited more walkers. Copycat businesses sprang up in New York and Israel. Now he’s developing a formal business model and getting ready to solicit crowdfunding. He’ll probably pull it off, becoming the “Uber” of leisurely strolling.
*Rory Carroll, “‘We Need Human Interaction’: Meet the LA Man Who Walks People for a Living,” Guardian (September 14, 2016).
Not So Rich or Famous
This is also far from the richest road—even for those making it huge. No Forbes 400 member is a talent-only richie. Oprah is more of a mogul. The top-earning pure talent is Taylor Swift—taking home a reported $170 million in 2016.15 With mogul potential, Taylor should be Forbes 400 material someday. But take Madonna—something is materially wrong with the Material Girl. She made $76.5 million in 2016 and big bucks for decades, yet her net worth is only $560 million.16 Given her huge earning tenure, she’s lagging. She’s been huge for over 30 years—if she saved a mere $10 million a year and invested wisely, she’d have at least $1 billion by now. How much can rhinestone-encrusted bustiers cost?
Few actors accumulate astronomical wealth. Matt Damon reportedly made $55 million in 2016, beating his BFF Ben Affleck by $12 million. Ben’s onetime steady, the multihyphenate Jennifer Lopez, took home $39.5 million in 2016.17 These folks are about as big as you get. But if Madonna can’t reach the highest wealth echelons, they won’t, either.
A Short, Unsteady, No-Privacy Road
Then, too, talent life is fickle—an easy road to fall from. You’re only as good as your last movie, hit song, or home run—but also the lifestyle tends toward self-destruction. I needn’t dwell here, as it’s obvious from the news. Peer pressure, drugs, divorce; these all fuel self-destruction and don’t aid wealth-building. And—no privacy. The stars simply can’t go out in public without attracting a mob, putting them in physical danger. Don’t believe it? A friend of mine tried going with Whoopi Goldberg to the local 7-Eleven at 3 AM. They had to flee from the paparazzi for their safety. And Whoopi’s no tabloid fixture.
If you don’t do yourself in, your allies may. Boxer Mike Tyson accused his manager, Don King, of mismanaging his assets, and ultimately won a $14 million settlement.18 While Mr. King probably wasn’t the wisest custodian of Tyson’s assets, Tyson famously lived an excessive lifestyle, throwing money away with both gloves. Child stars are ultra vulnerable since they need scrupulous parents and ethical management. Gary Coleman (from the 1980s sitcom Diff’rent Strokes) earned at least $8 million as a kiddie star, much of which his parents paid themselves in management fees.19 He later sued and won. But his settlement couldn’t protect him from bankruptcy or, sadly, an untimely death. Corey Feldman (in a string of 1980s hits including Stand by Me) fell prey similarly—his folks left him with only about $40,000.20 Rip-off management isn’t all. Once-upon-a-time massive talents often don’t remain on top for long. Where is Macaulay Culkin now? On this road, you start early, must star early, and then stay persistent.
For a lasting rich and famous career, don’t do stupid, self-destructive things.
Hollywood demands youth and beauty. Pro sports require healthy joints. Even the music industry doesn’t favor the old. Springsteen, U2, and Madonna are still making hits and touring. Fleetwood Mac, with all members over the retirement age, took in over $75 million touring in 2015.21 All still huge, but that’s about it. Older acts are notable, though few, compared with the endless roster of young bucks on the radio. Ichiro Suzuki is a baseball s
uperstar elder-statesman, yet his career is in its twilight. Few pro athletes are on top in their 40s. Actors have it easier than actresses. Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, and Denzel Washington are still considered sexy. But not older actresses! Even though Dame Helen Mirren is probably more age-appropriate for Mr. Neeson, she’s unlikely to be cast as his romantic interest. Ditto Michelle Pfeiffer, who’s still got the look but gets cast as the family matriarch, not the love interest. Leading ladies, like athletes, are usually done by their mid-40s. This book’s first edition featured Cameron Diaz prominently. When was the last time you saw her headline a blockbuster? It’s no accident that onetime starlets Kate Hudson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Jessica Alba launched businesses in their 30s—the First Road is richer and more sustainable than life on the silver screen. These ladies were savvy enough to see it.
If you can’t make wise money decisions, hire someone who can.
With ridiculously low odds on the far-from-the-richest of the roads, and lots of ways to do yourself in (or have your supposed allies do you in), are you sure you want to continue down this road? If you do, no one but you will ever stop you.