Richard Schiff was born on the 27th May 1955, in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and is an actor and comedian perhaps best known to the world for his role of Toby Ziegler in the NBC TV drama entitled “The West Wing”, for which role he received an Emmy Award. He is also recognized as a TV director and producer. His career has been active since the mid-1980s.
Have you ever wondered how rich Richard Schiff is? According to authoritative sources, it is estimated that Richard Schiff’s net worth is $5 million as of late 2015, with the main source of this amount of money being his career in the entertainment industry, especially in TV series and movies.
Richard Schiff Net Worth $5 Million
Richard Schiff grew up in his hometown, as the middle child of Edward Schiff, who worked as a lawyer, and Charlotte, who worked as a TV and publishing executive. He attended high school but he didn’t finish, so later he obtained an equivalency diploma. Afterwards, he became a student at the City College of New York, but according to sources from the college, he didn’t graduate. However, he moved to Colorado to work as a firewood chopper, but didn’t give up on education, so two years later in 1975, came back to New York and started to study acting at the same college; soon after, he joined their theater program.
Schiff began his career firstly as a director, with off-Broadway shows such as “Antigone” in 1983, however by the mid-1980s he had switched to acting. In 1988 he made his debut film appearance in the role of Pat Harding in the film “Medium Straight”. In 1990, he was cast in the sequel of the 1988 “Young Guns”, “The Young Guns II”. After two years, Richard found a new engagement in the Roger Spottiswoode`s film “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot”, which featured Sylvester Stallone in the lead role. Through 1997, he had numerous small roles in films such as “City Hall” (1996), “Se7en” (1995), “Rough Magic” (1995), “Tank Girl” (1995) and others; then he was cast as Eddie Carr in the Steven Spielberg`s film “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”.
Ever since then, Schiff’s career has gone only upward, and so has his net worth; the roles succeeded one another, starting with Dr. Gene “Geno” Reiss in the film “Dr. Dolittle” in 1998, then appearing as Joe in the film “Forces Of Nature” (1999), alongside stars such as Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock, and in 2001, he starred in the role of Mr. Turner alongside Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer in “I Am Sam”.
Furthermore, Schiff appeared in films “What`s The Worst That Could Happen” (2001), “Martian Child” (2007), “Imagine That” (2009), “Solitary Man” (2009), which increased his net worth by a large margin. In recent years, he was cast in films such as “Another Harvest Moon” (2010), “Before I Disappear” (2014), “Man of Steel” (2013), “Knife Fight” (2012), and “Entourage” (2015), which have also added to his net worth.
Apart from his successful career on big screens, Schiff is also known for his TV roles; in the beginning he earned a few part time roles in series like “ER”, “NYPD Blue”, and “Relativity”. However in 1999, Schiff was cast in a lead role in the TV series “The West Wing”, which was aired for seven full seasons, significantly increasing Richard`s net worth. In 2010, Richard was selected to play Dr. Malachi Talmadge in the TV series “Past Life”. Furthermore, in 2012 he was a part of the TV series “House OF Lies”, and “Chasing the Hill” in 2013. More recently, Schiff was one of the lead actors in the series “Murder in the First” (2014), “Manhattan” (2014-2015), and “Rogue” (2015-2016).
Overall, Schiff is one of the better actors of Hollywood, having appeared in over 130 film and TV titles, and winning numerous prestigious awards, such as Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work in “The West Wing”.
Regarding his personal life, Richard Schiff married to Sheila Kelley in 1996, and they have two children. In his free time, he is an active supporter of the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor
Movies
Man of Steel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Dr. Dolittle, I Am Sam, The Infidel, Last Chance Harvey, Johnny English Reborn, The Arrival, Seven, What's the Worst That Could Happen?, Deep Impact, Made in Dagenham, Fire with Fire, Living Out Loud, People I Know, Gun Shy, Forces of Nature, Decoding Ann...
TV Shows
Murder in the First, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, Past Life, The West Wing, Relativity
I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were suddenly dead.
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It seems not to matter that we are at the brink of a war that may spread beyond Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran and Georgia and then where? To Syria? To North Korea? To China? That we in America are in economic doldrums and are seeing small businesses fold and houses reclaimed by banks and a smouldering panic that is palpable everywhere.
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We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.
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Listen - I like musicals. Even when they're bad, there's a couple of dancers I can watch.
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Every role is challenging in its own way, but the most challenging roles are the ones that are badly written - then it's completely up to you to come up with something that is interesting to the story and myself as an actor.
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I have to admit I've rarely been happier in my life. I have been absolutely thrilled to be back in New York and living a block from where I grew up. Just to be back in New York and, quite honestly, away from Hollywood has been an absolute thrill for me. I feel like I'm a real actor again.
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I love David Fincher - even though it was just two scenes, I loved the way we worked and could tell by the way he was shooting it that this was going to be an affective movie to say the least.
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I love my wife... but sometimes not so much. Frustration and fights can muck up a good thing. And just when a thing can move past differences and into the realm of peace and prosperity, another thing - an old idea or new interpretation or any spark that relights the paradigms that comfort us - will keep us where we are, where it is safe.
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It was tough doing 'Underneath the Lintel' in New Jersey in the wintertime, but rewarding. Those audiences were lively and interactive. On-stage was great, but off-stage was difficult.
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I was doing a play out in L.A. 20-some-odd years ago called 'Goose and Tomtom' by David Rabe, and somebody saw it and the next thing I know I'm doing the table read of the film version of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon - one of the great films of our generation.
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I am one of the lucky ones; believe me, I haven't forgotten that.
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I fell in love with my wife twenty years ago. I am only now, it seems, getting it through my very thick skull how lucky I am.
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I've been very lucky not to have turned down too many roles that I've later regretted.
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My favourite British spots are any of the beautiful parks, especially on a sunny day such as this, after a long stretch of cold, cloudy and rainy days.
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I mean everyone, from Al Pacino to Murphy Guyer, are phenomenal actors.
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I wanna be in action movies, I wanna be the tough guy... I wanna scare people.
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Things happen to us and reaction is sometimes tough to measure.
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I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.
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Fact
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Played different characters in Ally McBeal (1997) and The Practice (1997), two shows that are set in the same universe.
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Daughter, Ruby Christine.
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Received an alumni association award from his alma mater, the City College of New York, for outstanding post-graduate achievement. [2000]