James Douglas Muir Leno was born on 28 April 1950, in New Rochelle, New York State, USA of Italian (father) and Scottish (mother) descent, and is an actor, stand-up comedian, TV producer, voice actor but perhaps best known as a TV presenter and talk-show host, in particular :”The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” from 1992-2014
So just how rich is Jay Leno? Sources estimate that Jay has a net worth as large as $380 million. In the years 2009 and 2010 he was able to earn $30 million per year, the main source of Jay Leno’s net worth being “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on NBC, but actually Leno is continuing to earn a substantial income of up to $20 million a year from stand-up comedy tours around the USA.
Jay Leno Net Worth $380 Million
Jay Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and from an early age Jay liked making people laugh and was really good at it, so he was thinking about being a comedian as a teenager. Everyone was amazed by his talent, well except maybe school teachers. Once Jay’s parents got a note from his school teacher: “if Jay spent as much time studying as he does trying to be a comedian, he’d be a big star”. Somehow she was right about Jay Leno – his talent as a comedian really helped to build up his net worth. Jay attended Emerson College, graduating with a BA degree in speech therapy in 1973, after which he moved to Los Angeles expecting to find a satisfying job, and during the 80s Jay appeared in many T V shows as a host and as a guest. Of course, these didn’t make a big investment in Jay’s net worth, but he gained a lot of experience and became recognised around the United States.
Jay’s successful and really serious step to the building of his net worth was in 1992 when he appeared in the famous ‘Tonight Show’ after replacing Johnny Carson, having filled the position several times on a temporary basis during the previous five years, and such was the success of the show that he subsequently signed several .contracts aimed at keeping him at NBC until 2009. Obviously these contracts contributed substantially to his net worth.
Meantime, as an actor Jay Leno made his first noted appearance in 1997 as a carpenter in the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane”, after which he has played in many other movies: “Americathon”, “Polyester”, and “Collision Course” to name a few. He has also become known as a great voice actor who worked on “What’s Up, Hideous Sun Demon”, the Scooby Doo series, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” and many other famous movies. Actually, since 2005 Jay Leno has ‘appeared’ only as voice actor. Of course this work also added to Leno’s net worth.
In 2009 Jay ‘transferred’ to a new show “The Tonight Show”, however, conflict with his former show now hosted by Conan O’Brien, confusion over programming contracts and falling audiences eventually saw Jay Leno resume his former position, in March 2010, which he retained until his own decision to retire in 2014.
Jay now performs over 200 stand-up performances a year around the US, and making guest appearances on many TV talk shows – there is no doubt of his continuing popularity, and rising net worth.
In his personal life, Jay has been married to Mavis since 1980, but decided not to have children, Jay’s dyslexia hasn’t effected him at all, including in driving his stable of cars, reputed to number in the hundreds and counting a Jaguar CX75, Lamborghini Countach, Mercedes Benz SLR, McLaren MP4-12C among many others.
Jay and Mavis are also noted philanthropists, supporting war veterans, education, and gender equality in the US and other countries including Afghanistan.
