Australian comedian and actor Paul Hogan have a net worth of $20 million. For his role in the Crocodile Dundee films and their subsequent sequels, Hogan is most widely recognized. Hogan’s fortune peaked at more than $75 million, but it has since plummeted due to a bitter divorce and a protracted legal struggle with the Australian Taxation Office, which we’ll go into more detail about in the following paragraphs.
Early Years
On the 8th of October, 1939, Paul Hogan was born in Sydney, Australia. As a ruse to garner more attention, he’s claimed to have been born in Lightning Ridge, Australia’s outback town. While growing up in Sydney, he began working on the Sydney Harbor Bridge as a rigger when he was just 16. Prior to entering the entertainment industry, he had kept much of his personal life out of the public eye.
Quick Facts
Net Worth: | $20 Million |
Date of Birth: | Oct 8, 1939 (82 years old) |
Gender: | Male |
Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.75 m) |
Profession: | Actor, Film Producer, Comedian, Screenwriter |
Pre-Career Stage
It was on the talent show “New Faces,” which aired before the well-known English version, that he made his Australian television debut back in 1971. To him, it seemed that rather than being driven by the participants’ skills or performances, the show’s popularity was mostly due to the judges’ mocking and belittling of them. With this in mind, he resolved to turn the tables on them and mock them. Hogan appeared on the show as a tap-dancing knife-thrower and made a series of jokes about the panel of judges.
He was invited back to perform again, despite the fact that he performed only a short dance and threw the knives to the floor at the end of the show. Australian newsmagazine anchor Mike Willesee was impressed by his distinctive routines and humorous ability, and invited him to appear on “A Current Affair.” Willesee approached Hogan about appearing on his show for a few funny segments, and he readily agreed. Following the show’s producer John Cornell becoming a buddy, he later became his manager and business partner, as well.
A comic sketch show titled “The Paul Hogan Show” was created in 1973 to feature Hogan. As a producer, he collaborated with Cornell and soap opera actress Delvene Delaney on the project, which was penned by him. An Australian version of “Saturday Night Live” was compared to the show. Hogan won a TV Week Logie Award for Best New Talent in its inaugural season.
It was followed by much comedic advertising for the Australian Tourist Commission in which he starred after the filming was completed. “Come and say g’day” and “I’ll toss an extra shrimp on the barbie” were two of his most popular commercials with American audiences. Australia had previously been listed as the 78th most desirable vacation location before the ad campaign’s launch. As soon as advertising started showing, it rose to eighth on the list of most popular vacation destinations.
Crocodile Dundee and Other Pieces of Literature
“Anzacs,” a miniseries portraying a group of Australian and New Zealander troops on the Western Front, was a role for Hogan in 1985. When “Crocodile Dundee” was released in 1997 he had his breakout role. He and John Cornell wrote the screenplay together. What started as an Australian-American co-production has become a worldwide phenomenon. It made almost $325 million worldwide on a budget of under $10 million. Over the past 34 years, it has remained the highest-grossing Australian picture. In addition to his on-screen charisma, Linda Kozlowski, whom he would eventually marry, was acclaimed by critics.
A Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a comedy went to Hogan, who garnered an Academy Award nomination, two Saturn Awards nominations, and two Golden Globe nominations. The sequel to 1988’s “Crocodile Dundee” was also a box office success. The movie made almost $235 million worldwide on a budget of $14 million. The sequel, directed by Cornell, was panned by critics for being overly long and only somewhat amusing.
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“Crocodile Dundee’s” popularity allowed Hogan to be more selective about the characters he chose and the direction he intended to go with the franchise. In the early 1990s, Paramount approached him with the notion of a crossover starring Hogan and Eddie Murphy between “Crocodile Dundee” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” The absurd premise piqued neither actor’s curiosity.
“Almost an Angel,” a comedy-drama he wrote and acted in back in 1990, was his directorial debut. It was a failure. In spite of a $25 million budget, the film grossed just over $7 million over the world. ‘Lightning Jack,’ a 1994 western comedy starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beverly D’Angelo, was his first screenplay. Even though it did better than his previous film, it only made $16 million globally and was a critical and box office dubiousness for the director.
Although he appeared in the 1996 family film “Flipper,” it would be his final role in a major film throughout the decade. “Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles” flopped at the box office, making just $39 million, and critics hated it. In addition to the Razzie nomination, it was also nominated for the worst remake or sequel category. He appeared in Dean Murphy’s “Strange Bedfellows” in 2004, and “Charlie & Boots,” which was Australia’s second-highest-grossing film of 2009, both directed by Murphy. He toured Australia in the early 2010s performing standup comedy. In 2017, “Hoges: The Paul Hogan Story” was adapted into an Australian miniseries.
What Crocodile Dundee Made
The Crocodile Dundee series was made possible by Paul Hogan’s decision to finance and distribute the film outside of the usual movie studio system. For the first film, Hogan raised the $8.8 million budget and sold the distribution rights to each and every one of the countries in which it was released.
The film’s eventual earnings were split between him and 60 percent of the proceeds, according to reports. It’s estimated that Crocodile Dundee I made more than $320 million globally. After grossing $240 million and earning $40 million, Crocodile Dundee III follows in its predecessor’s footsteps with a tidy profit. Paul’s net worth is anticipated to have exceeded $100 million as a result of the franchise.
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Personal Life
From 1958 through 1981, Hogan and his first wife, Noelene Edwards, were married. Within a year of their divorce, they remarried. Among the most expensive and messy divorces in Australian history, this one is said to be the second. Linda Kozlowski, his Crocodile Dundee co-star, was Hogan’s wife from 1990 to 2014, when they divorced.
Real Estate
For $3.8 million in Malibu, California, Paul and Linda bought a house in July 2012. Chris Hemsworth bought the house a year after they sold it.
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