Morgan Freeman's Net Worth is a $250 Million Dollar Baby
Morgan Freeman’s net worth is around $250 million. Some say it is higher and might be as high as $300 million now depending on how you value his homes, cars, and business investments. Not bad for a guy who was born on June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee to a middle-class family. His father was a barber and his mother was a teacher. He dreamed of becoming an actor when young. He made his dream come true.
Freeman always had a penchant for acting since he was a child. He played the lead role in his elementary school play when he was just nine years old. He won an award for drama in a statewide competition when he was 12 years old.
Yet his life did have some setbacks. When he was 16, he nearly died from pneumonia. Perhaps, this health challenge made him focus on his breathing, which later gave him such a powerful voice after his recovery.
While still in high school, he performed in a radio program created in Nashville. After graduating from high school, he served four years in the military and then moved to Los Angeles to try his luck at an acting career. He took acting lessons. His first roles were on stage. He associated himself with the Pasadena Playhouse and landed parts in plays and musicals.
15 Things You Didn’t Know About Morgan Freeman
His Big Break
He got a part in the off-Broadway play The Nigger Lovers in 1967, which is a dramatic story about the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights era. This got him a role in the all-black version of Hello Dolly! He performed with Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey. He did television with a role in the soap opera Another World and the kid’s show The Electric Company before he went on to be cast in films that created Morgan Freeman’s net worth.
Celebrity Status
Morgan Freeman’s net worth is very respectable when compared to some of his peers. Johnny Depp made more than Freeman made. Depp had a net worth of over $400 million at some point when Depp was the highest net worth actor until fast-spending-Johnny blew his fortune. He was in a financial crisis due to overwhelming debts. Depp blames his manager, not his irresponsible way of spending money like a drunken pirate, including his monthly habit of buying $50,000 in fine wines and who knows what other extravagances. Now, Depp is worth a rough $200 million. Morgan Freeman’s net worth became substantial because Freeman is more stable and less frivolous.
Another superb actor, Matthew McConaughey is one of the wealthy actors. He has a net worth of around $125 million. We would like to see him in a movie with Freeman. Angelina Jolie’s net worth, as one of the richest celebrities, is around $110 million, even after divorcing her wealthier husband Brad Pitt.
The Films That Built Morgan Freeman’s Net Worth
Morgan Freeman’s net worth came from his appearances in many highly-successful and critically-acclaimed moves. He receives a salary of $5 to $10 million per film. The total box office for all of his films is around $5 billion, with an average of over $70 million in gross box office receipts per film.
His first movie credit is the 1971 film called Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow? One of his most memorable performances is in Driving Miss Daisy (1989). He was in a play of that same name before it was adapted for the movie screen. He received a nomination for an Academy Award for his role in that film as well as for Street Smart (1987), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Invictus (2009) in which he played the South African leader Nelson Mandela.
An Academy Award
He won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2004 for his stellar performance in Million Dollar Baby. One of my favorites is that he played the role of God in Bruce Almighty and its sequel Evan Almighty. I want God to be exactly like that.
Besides being in dozens of great dramatic films, he also has been in blockbusters. He starred in the Batman movies of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises. He has been in comedies (Nurse Betty), westerns (Unforgiving), horror films (Se7en), and action films (Deep Impact). Freeman is an actor with an amazing range in the characters he can play.
The Money Makers
Freeman’s highest-grossing films so far are:
The Voice Is Part Of Morgan Freeman’s Net Worth
Many think the remarkable acting skills and his performances in movies are what make Morgan Freeman special. While that is true, for me, his voice makes him spectacular.
I never even thought about the life of real penguins until I saw the March of the Penguins released in 2006. It was not the penguins that were the main reason this documentary was a smash hit in the movie theaters. It was Morgan Freeman’s hypnotic, deeply resonant voice. Listening to him do the voice-over narrative is like hearing the audio equivalent of smooth, melted, chocolate butter. Yummy!
War of the Voices
Freeman does not enough have to say much in a movie narration to make an impact. He only had the opening lines in War of the Worlds, which came out in 2005. The opening lines of the movie start like this “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's ...”
If you want proof of Freeman’s powerful voice, just listen to this regular guy read the opening lines and then listen to War Of The Worlds opening by Morgan Freeman. There is no comparison. Freeman’s voice is outstanding while the other guy’s voice is ho-hum. Then, there is this chilling effect when Freeman says, “…and slowly and surely they drew their plans against us.”
Great Movie Endings
At the end of the horror-thriller Se7en, released in 1995, after giving a stellar performance as the character Detective Lieutenant William Somerset, Freeman’s voice closes out the film by saying in a voice-over, “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for’…I agree with the second part.” This gives the audience the rare chance to compare the acting skills of Freeman, side-by-side, with the power of his voice-over acting. Both are exceptional.
This was only one of the possible alternative endings for the movie Se7en and was not even the one preferred by the director, the actors, or even Freeman himself. Nevertheless, it really ties up the film in that one quote very nicely and that narrative piece is like icing on a cake for a superb thriller film. It has a calming effect on the audience that helps them transition from the hyper-gore of the film back to facing the real world.
Freeman won an Academy Award for his Best Supporting Actor performance in the 2004 film, directed by Clint Eastwood, called Million Dollar Baby. The Oscar was for his acting and could just as easily been for his narration work in the film.
Another film, where Freeman’s voice was a critical part was in The Shawshank Redemption released in 1995. In this film, Freeman stars with Tim Robbins. The film’s happy ending is narrated by Freeman’s voice. He narrates the classic quote from the film, “Get busy living or get busy dying,” as he makes his way, after being paroled, to join up with his friend who previously escaped from prison, to live in Mexico.
He's Still Got It
Morgan Freeman’s net worth is well-deserved and his voice has been a big part of his success. After all, he first gained national fame because of his deep, resonant voice as part of the cast for the children’s television program The Electric Company, which aired on the Public Broadcast System (PBS) during the 1970s. On that show, he played the characters of Easy Reader, Mel Mounds the DJ, and the iconic Vincent the Vegetable Vampire.
The Morgan Freeman Car Collection
Besides enjoying driving Miss Daisy in the movies, Morgan enjoys driving some of his cars from his car collection. The collection has a BMV 745 he bought for $10,000 so that he could restore it. He also has a GMC Denali worth $49,000, which is an eight-cylinder SUV. He bought an electric-motor Tesla Model X for about $79,000.
There is a 2004 Chevrolet Corvette Indianapolis that was an official pace car and the Indianapolis 500. Freeman bought it for about $20,000. He has a Toyota Tundra pickup truck that he paid around $47,000 for and a Chevrolet Silverado he got for $35,000. He also has a red 1966 Ford Mustang GT350 with white racing stripes in the collection that is worth $140,000.
The crown jewel of the car collection is a Lamborghini Aventador worth about $400,000.
Don’t Wait. Start Building Wealth Now. Meet the Wealthry Shop.
Morgan Freeman Likes To Fly
Freeman has a private pilot’s license, which he got when he was 65. He owned three planes that he became certified to fly, which include a Cessna Citation 501 jet and a Cessna 414 twin-engine prop, and an Emivest SJ30 longer range, private jet.
Morgan Freeman’s Net Worth From Bee-Friendly Real Estate
Freeman owns houses in New York, Greenwood, Mississippi, parts of Indiana, and his favorite home in Charleston, Mississippi. It is a hacienda-style mansion sitting on 124 acres and is probably worth more than $10 million.
In 2014, the 80-year-old Freeman decided to tend honeybees. He enjoys taking care of them and says he needs no protective gear and has never been stung.
As part of his mission to educate the world about the importance of honeybees for pollination, which he talks about in an article in Forbes, he imported 26 beehives from Arkansas. He raises the bees to create more wild bees and does not collect the honey. He feeds them sugar water. They love the flowers that bloom on his magnolia trees and the wildflowers found on his property that include lavender. This is such a fitting and lovely hobby for a man his age, and he really enjoys it.
Fine Dining And the Blues
Morgan Freeman was the co-owner of a fine dining restaurant called Madidi that was open for 10 years in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The Madidi restaurant closed in 2012; however, Freeman still owns a blues club called Ground Zero in Clarksdale, which also serves great southern style foods such as fried pickles and fried green tomatoes, pulled-pork barbecue, fried chicken, grilled catfish, and All-American burgers with seasoned fries and fried onion rings. This makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
If you are in the vicinity of Clarksdale, this club is a must-see place to go. The blues music is excellent and the food is delicious. If you are really lucky, you might see Morgan Freeman hanging out there. If you see him, tell him Willi sent you (that’s me!). Ask for an autograph if you must, but it is better if you ask for extra barbecue sauce to take home.
Conclusion
There are so many things to appreciate about Morgan Freeman and his career. Another thing that I appreciate about Morgan Freeman is his name. It is his real legal name. It is a terrific name to have as a “free” man, because his heritage goes back to Africa, especially the country of Nigeria, where his ancestors were taken as slaves.
He brings an amazing sensibility to issues relating to slavery and civil rights. This sensibility infuses the characters in so many of his stellar performances. Most of all, his voice got me to fall in love with penguins!