Brian Russell De Palma was born on 11 September 1940, in Newark, New Jersey, USA of part-Italian descent, and is an acclaimed film director, producer and screenwriter who has nevertheless been an occasional controversial figure throughout his career of more than 40 years, having been responsible for directing such cult classics as “Scarface”, “The Untouchables” and “Carlito’s Way”; part of a very an impressive roster that has certainly contributed to his ever-growing net worth.
So just how rich is Brian de Palma? Authoritative sources indicate that Brian’s net worth is estimated at $65 million, accumulated during his career in the film industry which began in the early 1960s.
Brian De Palma Net Worth $65 Million
Brian De Palma was educated at several protestant and Quaker schools in Philadelphia and New Hampshire, finally at Friends New School in the former. Brian was not to discover his passion for film-making until after he had entered the University of Columbia as a physics student.The director credits the films “Citizen Kane” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” as the deciding influences that led him to his current career, and he produced his first film – “The Wedding Party”, featuring a young and then still unknown Robert De Niro – in 1963. De Palma’s Hollywood debut, however, would have to wait until the very late 60s and early 70s, when his 1968 hit “Greetings” grossed in excess of $1 million at the box office, a considerable success at that time, and sealed his reputation as a capable director. In 1976, he produced his first true blockbuster in the psychic thriller “Carrie”, which netted an astonishing $33.8 million in box office revenue against a budget of only $1.8 million. Such successes paved the way for De Palma to begin working on more personal projects; it is then, ultimately, that – after a short detour with the relatively unremarkable release of another supernatural thriller, The Fury, in 1978 – he began working on the gangster films that would, in the eyes of countless film enthusiasts, go on to become some of his greatest work.
Released in 1983, “Scarface” – casting Al Pacino in the central role of Tony Montana – initially received mixed critical reception, with several reviews questioning the exaggeratedly violent nature of the film and on-screen depictions of drug abuse. It would be several years until the film became recognized as a cult classic and one of the great films of its day, but meantime raking in a whopping $65.8 million at the box office. Only four years later, in 1987, De Palma would outdo its financial success with the blockbuster crime drama “The Untouchables” with its box office gross of $106 million, and almost matched it with $63 million for the 1993 “Carlito’s Way”. Finally, in 1996, he trumped all his prior successes with the action spy film “Mission: Impossible”, which featured Tom Cruise and netted a grand total of $457 million. This string of profitable high-profile films certainly contributed greatly to setting Brian De Palma up for his current status as one of the world’s best-paid directors. Overall, Brian has been involved in over 30 full-length feature films, and more than a dozen short films and documentaries.
In recent years, De Palma has taken a step back from directing, though his legacy is still evident in the work of many of today’s best-known directors, including Quentin Tarantino. In 2012, he directed the erotic thriller “Passion”, which was one of the contenders for that year’s Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.
In his personal life, Brian de Palma has been married to actress Nancy Allen(1979-83), producer Gale Anne Hurd(1991-93) with whom he has a daughter, and Darnell Gregorio(1995-97) with whom he also has a daughter. Today, he divides his time between Los Angeles and New York.
