Robert Barton Englund was born on 6 June 1947, in Glendale, California, USA, of Swedish ancestry. Robert is an actor, voice-actor, director and singer probably best known for his portrayal of the iconic horror character Freddie Krueger from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series. He’s also noted for his performance in the 1980s miniseries “V”. His accomplishments in acting have put his net worth to where it is now.
How rich is Robert Englund? As of early-2016, sources estimate that his net worth is at $14 million, mostly acquired through a successful acting career. He’s considered a horror movie star and has been in various horror films throughout his life. He still continues to star in films which help raise and maintain his wealth.
Robert Englund Net Worth $14 Million
Robert’s interest in acting began at the age of 12, when he attended a children’s theatre program at California State University, Northridge. He would continue studying acting in high school, attending the Cranbrook Theatre School in the Cranbrook Educational Community. He then studied at the University of Califonia, Los Angeles (UCLA) before dropping out and going to Oakland University. From there, he trained at the Meadow Brook Theater.
One of the first films Englund was interested in was “Star Wars”, where he auditioned for the role of Luke Skywalker and was even briefly considered to play Han Solo. In the end, it would be his friend Mark Hamill who would be cast as Luke. His debut film would be “Eaten Alive” and following that he starred in “Galaxy of Terror”. Robert made many small appearances in film and television, but was finally noticed when he played the role of the Visitor technician Willie in the miniseries “V”. Englund would reprise the role in the 1984 sequel, as well as the series. Wanting to break out of this typecast, Robert would accept the offer to portray Freddie Krueger in the Wes Craven film “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, which catapulted him to success and he found various opportunities after the film. His net worth would also rise significantly from this point.
The film company, New Line underestimated Englund’s ability to act as Krueger and originally cast someone else to play as Krueger for the second film “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”. They eventually called Robert back for the role and he would also go on and play the character in the next films. These include “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child”. From the 1990s up to 2003, Englund would be called back to play the role in “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare”, “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare”, and “Freddy vs. Jason”.
Aside from Doug Bradley as the horror character Pinhead, Englund would be the only one who played a horror character eight consecutive times. He would go on and star in other films and series, mostly steering away from horror. He also found voice acting work and provided voices for villains in superhero animated series and movies. He also tried his hand at directing before going back to acting for television and film. He’s set to release a few more horror movies in the coming years.
For Englund’s personal life, he was married to Elizabeth Gardner (1968-86), Roxanne Rogers (1986-88), and to Nancy Booth since 1988. Not much else is known about him and his current personal endeavors, as he likes to keep things private.
“Galaxy of Terror” (1981), miniseries “V” (1983), “Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), "Freddy's Nightmares", “Freddy’s Dead (1990-2003), “Eaten Alive” (2014)
Freddy Krueger is a great politically incorrect villain, the logo character of a franchise spawned by a low-budget movie, made by some reasonably artistic people who came up with a gimmick. And it is a great gimmick - the idea that a bogey man, a revenge-motif serial killer could manifest himself in the subconscious of the children of the people that did him wrong. Freddy likes it, he is having fun doing it. He is unapologetic about that. You have a punk-rock nihilistic villain.
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[on his wide-ranging career, including Shakespeare] I had a nude scene with Susan Sarandon, for God's sake. I've done fight scenes with Kris Kristofferson and Richard Gere. I was in all sorts of places in the 1970s. I shot Burt Reynolds point-blank, so I have been around the block.
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[observation, 2014] I'm on my third generation of fans. It's not strange at all for me to go someplace and have a father come up with his sons that he watched ['A Nightmare on Elm Street'] with when they were 12, and invited some friends for a sleepover.
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The modern horror audience is wise to our tricks this lets it in on the gag.
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I have friends that are much better actors than I am that had to quit the business because they couldn't survive the auditions or the rejections, or people just didn't realize how good they were.
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I'm basically a movie actor now, and my big roles are mostly horror movies - unless I'm doing a guest star or something - and occasionally I try to get back into television.
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If they do something like that, maybe a Freddy Krueger fan, a girl, a really sick goth girl starts killing kids herself and Freddy has to put a stop to it, or they have to fight it out.
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I always get inspiration from whatever characters say about my character.
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I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American.
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I have an Italian comedy at the Venice Film Festival.
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I would like to see the technology used to explore more period horror genre works, for example, E. A. Poe.
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I wouldn't want the pressure of a Six Feet Under or the pressure of improvising like Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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Jeff Bridges taught me a lot about how to keep a scene fresh.
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Kids today don't watch a black and white movie.
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Many great horror stories are period pieces and English actors have a facility for historic characters.
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Most of my nightmares involve me forgetting my lines in a stage play.
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The last time we had Freddy in reality was part two and Freddy sort of went out on his own.
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I think superheroes today are like whistle blowers.
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You're going to have to surrender a little bit to the contrivance of how Freddy and Jason get together.
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And in Freddy vs. Jason I like when Jason and I double team Destiny's Child.
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But it's mostly about pacing yourself when you do these movies.
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Gosh, I'd like to direct Our Town on stage.
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I get a lot of teenagers going, 'Yo, Krueger,' and honking their horn and giving me the claw. Yeah, I'm recognized.
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I saw an entire magazine of Freddy Krueger tattoos. Hey, I'm a classically trained actor who was doing [Anton Chekhov], and now there are thousands of people walking around America with my tattoo on them. I just take it as pop culture.
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When I was 9, I went to a birthday party. We were supposed to see a cowboy movie, but the programming got screwed up and we saw The Bad Seed (1956) instead. Horrifying. For years I was frightened of girls with pigtails.
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Fact
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Was considered for the role of Mr.Joshua in Lethal Weapon (1987).
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An only child.
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Lives in Laguna Beach, California.
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While a student at the Academy of Dramatic Art he spent a summer teaching at Cranbrook Theatre School in Bloomfield Hills.
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In 1973 he returned to the Academy of Dramatic Art to teach a stunts and stage fight class while appearing at the nearby regional professional Meadow Brook Theatre.
Robert is an honors graduate from the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Prior to that he attended Cal State University, Northridge and UCLA.
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He has Swedish and Danish ancestry on his father's side, and Scottish ancestry on his mother's side.
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Ranked the #40 top villain for the American Film Institution's Top 100 list of 100 Heroes and Villains for his role as Freddy Krueger.
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Married twice, the first occurred during his college heyday. He met his second wife Nancy Booth while working on his feature directorial debut 976-EVIL.
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One-time TV/radio host.
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Member of Actors' Equity Association (1968-), Screen Actors Guild (1973-), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Directors Guild of America. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
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Parents: Kent and Janis (nee McDonald) Englund.
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Attended UCLA (for three classes) and The Academy of Dramatic Art (in Rochester, MI). Other Academy of Dramatic Art graduates include Curtis Armstrong and Richard Riehle.
$14 Million
