‘The Waltons’: What Is John-Boy Actor Richard Thomas’ Net Worth?
The Waltons is a classic American drama that ran for nine seasons on television throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with a number of television specials in the early 1990s. The show helped make some of the actors household names, including Richard Thomas, who played John-Boy Walton.
However, many of the child actors on the show have spoken out in recent years to let the world know that they were not adequately compensated for their work on the show, leading many of them to have a lower net worth than other child actors of the era and find work outside of Hollywood since the end of the series.
‘The Waltons’ is a classic family television show
The Waltons premiered in September 1972 and featured a Great Depression-era family living in the mountains of Virginia. The family consisted of a set of grandparents, parents John and Olivia, and their seven children.
The show revolved around the family’s ability to survive the depression as well as thrive in their own personal pursuits, such as John-Boy’s dream to be a writer, Jason’s desire to be a musician, and Mary-Ellen’s dedication to being a nurse.
After the show ended, many of the actors went on to pursue other careers, while some stayed in Hollywood, including Thomas, who has had a long acting career since the end of The Waltons.
What is Thomas’s net worth?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Thomas has a current net worth of $6 million, much of it being earned through acting, producing, and directing. Thomas has been a working actor since he was a young child, starting off in Broadway productions and soap operas including As The World Turns.
Before earning his role as the oldest child on The Waltons, Thomas had roles in movies such as Winning with Paul Newman, Red Sky at Morning with Richard Crenna, and Last Summer with Barbara Hershey. Although Thomas made the character of John-Boy popular, he left the show in the middle of the series to pursue other endeavors and returned to the franchise to reprise his role for the last three television specials.
Most recently, Thomas has had roles in television series such as Billions, Tell Me Your Secrets, and Ozark, where Thomas plays Nathan Davis, Wendy, and Ben’s father.
The cast claims their roles on the show were not making them rich
Although The Waltons is a beloved family show and was one of the most watched television shows of the 1970s, many of the cast members have spoken out about how much they were paid during the show’s run, and it wasn’t as much as some may have assumed.
The show’s main adult characters were paid what would have been standard at the time, including Ralph Waite, who was earning $10,000 per week by the show’s sixth season. However, it was the children on the show who seemed to not be as well compensated for their work.
According to an interview in Closer Weekly, actor Eric Scott who played Ben Walton said that they were not getting rich from their work on the show and that the studio wasn’t appreciative of the children’s work, stating “It was disappointing that no one even called to say, ‘By the way, thank you.’ We were loved by the public, but we never felt the studio appreciated us.”
Mary McDonough, who played Erin Walton, has also commented on the cast’s salary in her 2011 memoir Lessons from the Mountain. In it, she says of the production, “I found out how generous a production company could be. I had heard Lorimar was frugal, as evidenced in our salaries – cheap, cheap!”
