Salary and the Biz

[Luvsbway]

I saw this post on a TV writer's blog I've been reading.

 

A useless and irrelevant bit of trivia, prompted by the reference to actors specifying in their contracts that no one else on their shows could be paid more: When Jackie Gleason was appearing on THE AMERICAN SCENE MAGAZINE--the source of those musical "Honeymooners" sketches--his contract specified that he would be the highest paid person at CBS. Not merely the highest paid performer; he was to paid more than any of the executives, as well.

This did not work quite as well for him as he may have expected. He was more interested in bragging rights than finances, so he took a straight cash payment. That meant he had to surrender a large portion to income tax. Other people with CBS at the time arranged more elaborate methods of payment--for example, Lucille Ball's contract required the network to buy a certain number of programs from her production company (that is how MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE got on the air)--and so they ended up actually putting more in the bank than Gleason

[C L A U D E]

I saw this post on a TV writer's blog I've been reading.

 

A useless and irrelevant bit of trivia, prompted by the reference to actors specifying in their contracts that no one else on their shows could be paid more: When Jackie Gleason was appearing on THE AMERICAN SCENE MAGAZINE--the source of those musical "Honeymooners" sketches--his contract specified that he would be the highest paid person at CBS. Not merely the highest paid performer; he was to paid more than any of the executives, as well.

 

This did not work quite as well for him as he may have expected. He was more interested in bragging rights than finances, so he took a straight cash payment. That meant he had to surrender a large portion to income tax. Other people with CBS at the time arranged more elaborate methods of payment--for example, Lucille Ball's contract required the network to buy a certain number of programs from her production company (that is how MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE got on the air)--and so they ended up actually putting more in the bank than Gleason

Gleason got the same amount of money that Lucy got for staying with the network, under the table, Lucy's was 600 thousand that she used to finance Star Trek and Mission Impossible, Gleason used his money for his train and high living.