How Much Money Is Patty Hearst Worth
The Hearst family's boggling story
Scandalous secrets of the Hearst family
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From frontier mining tycoons to one of the most powerful newspaper publishers in history, the Hearst dynasty has spawned a vast business empire. Today, Hearst Communications generates annual revenues of around $xi.v billion (£8.5bn), and the Hearst family unit is worth $21 billion (£15.4bn) according to Forbes, making them the 12th richest family in America. Just they've had their off-white share of lows too, including a kidnapping story that saw a Hearst heiress become a convicted depository financial institution robber. Click or curl through the eventful story of this loftier-rolling family, and the secrets behind their wealth.
Small town farmer to multi-millionaire miner
The Hearst family actually had humble begininngs. George Hearst was born in 1820 and was raised in a log cabin on a pocket-sized farm in Franklin County, Missouri. As a child he played at prospecting, hunting for chunks of atomic number 82 on the many local copper mines in the area. This sparked a lifelong passion for excavating the earth for valuable metals. However, disaster struck when George's begetter died, leaving huge debts of $ten,000. At 26 years onetime, George had to presume responsibleness for the family.
Striking rich in the gilded rush
Under George'due south management the farm started to brand money. He even opened a store and started to charter two prospective lead mines, which shortly started to produce pb and copper. It's said that within 2 years George was able to pay off his father's debt. Simply past 1850 news of golden in California swept into town and George left domicile to seek his fortune. After a disappointing winter of mining in Placerville, George and his team moved on to Grass Valley, where he before long hit on golden at a mine he later on named Merrimac Hill after a river in Missouri. So came another rich find at what became the Potisi mine. He sold both mines in 1852. Merely this was only the beginning for George...
Striking rich in the gold rush
After buying and selling several mines, he bought a share in the Ophir silvery mine in Nevada, which produced 38 tonnes of silver ore that sold for $91,000, the equivalent of $2.5 1000000 (£one.8m) today. Eventually, he endemic interests in the biggest mines in U.s. history: Anaconda copper mine, Comstock Lode, and the Homestake gold mine (pictured), which Hearst invested into in 1877. The son of a debt-ridden farmer had become a multi-millionaire. He also had a stake in Ontario silverish mine, which eventually added $12 million to the $19 one thousand thousand fortune he had when he died.
Self-made millionaire
Business boomed when Homestake became the starting time mine listed on the Stock Exchange in 1879. It produced a massive 39.8 million troy ounces of gold and 9 million troy ounces of silver until its closure in 2001. Aslope his mining interests, George became a Democrat Senator in 1886. Around this time, he caused the San Francisco Examiner every bit payment for a gambling debt, which would testify pivotal for future Hearst wealth. George died in 1891 at the age of seventy, leaving a huge $19 million fortune to his wife, a certain Phoebe Apperson...
A woman of substance
Missouri-born Phoebe Apperson was just 19 when she married wealthy miner George Hearst, who was and so 42. Her parents didn't approve of the age gap, merely she had a sharp intellect, negotiating a pre-nuptial agreement of 50 shares in George's lucrative Comstock mine. A school teacher before spousal relationship, her passion for teaching became a defining characteristic of her later philanthropy. She doted on her but child, William Randolph Hearst, who was built-in in 1863. She introduced her son to classical art, which shaped his hereafter passion for collecting art.
Multimillion-dollar heiress
Every bit sole heir to George'due south multimillion-dollar fortune, Phoebe became a hugely influential philanthropist, donating antiquities to museums and bankrolling archaeological expeditions. Notably, in 1895 she sponsored a competition for the redesign of the University of California at Berkeley campus. The consequence was the Hearst Memorial Mining Edifice, dedicated to her hubby George (pictured). She also established scholarships for female person students and was the beginning woman to serve on UC Berkeley's board of directors.
Educator and suffragette
A large laic in instruction as a driver for social mobility, Phoebe co-founded the National Congress of Mothers, pictured here in 1897 (Phoebe is tertiary from right on the front row). Information technology evolved into today's National Parent-Instructor Association. In 1911, Phoebe declared herself in favour of the Suffragette Movement of votes for women. Her philanthropy was wide-ranging, from building schools and libraries across the nation to preserving Mount Vernon, onetime family unit home of President George Washington.
Hacienda del Pozo de Verona
Although the aureate mines Phoebe owned continued to yield about $10 million per year, she scaled dorsum her philanthropic commitments in afterward years. Instead she retreated to her magnificent mansion, Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, set on 1,900 acres in Pleasanton, California, which was built in the mode of an 18th-century Spanish fortified villa. Phoebe died there in 1919, aged 77, during the Spanish Flu pandemic. On her death Phoebe left $xi million, the equivalent of $164 million (£120m) today, to her only child, William Randolph Hearst.
William Randolph expelled from Harvard
William Randolph Hearst had a flair for the dramatic. At Harvard University he was in drama grouping, Hasty Pudding Theatricals, whose authentication was burlesque cantankerous-dressing musicals. This continued later in life and William is pictured second right with mistress Marion Davies, centre. Only it was his uncontrollable urge to prank professors that got him expelled from the prestigious university. George was furious, but Phoebe quietly paid her son a $ten,000 per month allowance.
Publishing tycoon
Desperate to prove himself, William (pictured in 1900) pleaded with his father for ownership of the declining San Francisco Examiner paper. His father agreed and, bankrolled by his mother, he put $8 million of family unit coin into creating the virtually popular newspaper in San Francisco, hiring top writing talent Mark Twain, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce and political cartoonist Homer Davenport forth the way. Merely it was his signature sensationalising of news which both made his fortune, and tainted his legacy.
Yellow journalism
Eager to expand, William bought The New York Forenoon Periodical for $150,000, the equivalent of $4.4 meg (£3.2m) today, in which he favoured popularist journalism focusing on sex activity, scandal, sport, human being interest and law-breaking stories told in an exaggerated way. Information technology became known as 'xanthous journalism'. Pictured is a satirical attack on Hearst'southward newspapers, depicting him equally a jester spewing out sensationalised news. Only working-class readers loved the stories, and circulation boomed from just 77,000 to more than a million readers per mean solar day.
Bitter rivals
Locked in a sales war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York Globe, William stole top writers away with the lure of higher salaries. Hearst and Pulitzer's yellow journalism is mocked in this cartoon, which satirises the role of the ii newspapers in drumming upward public opinion in favour of war with Espana. William fifty-fifty sent a swashbuckling reporter to break a young female Cuban rebel out of jail – and succeeded!
Political ambition
Seeking political ability, William was elected to the House of Representatives as a New York Democrat twice. But he missed out in the presidential election of 1904, wasting a reported $2 million on his unsuccessful bid. He likewise narrowly missed out on condign New York City Mayor in 1909. Hearst is pictured here voting for himself in that ballot.
A scandalous love life
Following in his father's footsteps, William married a much younger bride afterward in his life. In 1903, anile 40, William wednesday 21-year-old showgirl Millicent Wilson, whose mother was rumoured to run a brothel catering to the political elite. Millicent is pictured in 1951 with their five sons. Simply William became infatuated with some other chorus girl, 19-year-quondam Marion Davies. In fact, he began to live openly with her from around 1919 and splashed $7 one thousand thousand on boosting his lover'south film career, according to his obituary in The New York Times. Marion remained his very public mistress until his death, and it was revealed in 1993 that the extra and socialite Patricia Van Cleve Lake, who had been publicly presented as Marion'southward niece, was in fact their daughter. Notwithstanding, Hearst and his wife Millicent never divorced.
Hearst Castle
Hearst and his mistress Marion lived in Hearst Castle, a palatial 250,000-acre hilltop estate overlooking San Simeon, California. Hearst commissioned architect Julia Morgan "to build a little something" on land he had inherited, and building started on the site in 1919, with William spending nearly $10 million, the equivalent of $155 meg (£115m) today, on the castle's construction, which went on until 1947. Designed in the Mediterranean Revival manner, the Castle has 38 bedrooms and more than forty bathrooms, and it also had three guest houses. The buildings became home to many of the antiques and artworks in Hearst's drove, and information technology even one time housed the earth's largest private zoo, with zebra, camels, antelope, kangaroos, ostriches and emus grazing freely on the hillside. After Hearst'due south death in 1951, his family unit gave the castle to the state of California, and while the family still has buying of much of the land, the state opens the house, now known as the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument, to visitors.
Male monarch of the world
By the 1920s, an impressive 25% of the Usa population read a Hearst newspaper. He controlled 20 daily and 11 Sunday papers in 13 cities, and owned half-dozen magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping. He had a jutting real estate portfolio and thousands of acres of country. The money-spinning mining and timber interests from his father were still raking it in. In the 1920s was a very powerful human (seen here with New York Urban center Mayor John Hylan in 1922) and Hearst's business interests were booming, but then he nearly lost it all...
Fiscal ruin
The stock market crash of 1929 heralded the Bully Low, with low profits and plunging incomes. This was bad news for Hearst, who had over-extended himself and couldn't pay his debts. Hearst Corporation was forced into a court-ordered reorganisation in 1937. Hearst named a trustee to control his finances, who slashed his salary to $500,000, and his annual $700,000 dividend was stopped. Newspapers and belongings were liquidated and Hearst Castle mortgaged for $600,000. He also sold his animals to Los Angeles Zoo. He managed to narrowly avert bankruptcy, but the humiliation was huge.
Citizen Kane
Some other accident to William'due south reputation was the 1941 movie Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles. An unflattering portrait of a fictional newspaper magnate, it was conspicuously partly based on Hearst. He used his influence to squash information technology, banning it from his publications and pressuring theatres to pull showings. It failed to recoup its costs at the box office, partly because of Hearst'south interference. But it's now considered one of the most influential films of all time.
Empire restored
Later a disastrous decade, Hearst began making a profit over again in the 1940s equally business recovered. He resumed collecting fine art and this interior shot of Hearst Castle shows a wealth of antiques. William died in in 1951 at 88, leaving a whopping a fortune worth the equivalent of $31 billion (£22.6bn) today. But business control was given to trustees – non his five sons. Today, Hearst'due south family unit even so has simply five out of 13 votes on the board. William stipulated whatever heir who challenged his will was to exist disinherited.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Hearst
The Hearst business remained a family affair. All five sons joined the company. His 2nd son, William Randolph Hearst Junior (pictured with President Kennedy), became a celebrated war correspondent and won a Pulitzer Prize. Fourth son Randolph managed the San Francisco Examiner – the newspaper that kickstarted his father's media empire. But shocking events surrounding Randolph's daughter, Patricia, dragged the Hearst family into a media firestorm...
Teenage Hearst heir kidnapped
Patricia Campbell Hearst, known every bit Patty, was a carefree teenager. But that changed on iv February 1974, when armed intruders bankrupt into her California flat. Masked strangers beat out up Patty's fiancé Stephen Weed, and leap and blindfolded the terrified 19-twelvemonth-onetime Patty, flinging her into their automobile and driving away. Obscure far-left guerrilla group the Symbionese Liberation Regular army (SLA) said information technology was belongings Patty every bit a "pow" and demanded $lxx (£30) of food for every poor person in California as a bribe. The Hearsts donated $2 million (£880k)-worth of food, but Patty was not released.
Gun-toting revolutionary
Astonishingly, in April that year Patty was caught on security cameras holding a gun during a bank robbery in San Francisco, which netted the rebels $10,000 (£4.4k). She was as well seen spraying gunfire outside a Los Angeles shop trying to free a captured SLA fellow member. In a recording sent to the government, Patty proclaimed she'd joined the terrorist group. An image (pictured here) showed her brandishing a weapon in front of SLA insignia. On 17 May, police raided an SLA hideout and Patty's parents watched the horror unfold live on Television set. Six of the group'due south known nine members were killed in the gunfight, but Patty was non there.
Bedevilled criminal
Finally, in September of that year, Patty was arrested. Despite the fact she claimed she had been brainwashed, she was convicted of armed robbery on xx March 1976 and was sentenced to seven years in prison in the "trial of the century". However, information technology'south since been understood that she was likely a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, where captives bond with abusers in order to survive. Patty described beingness locked in a cupboard for 57 days, deprived of sleep, food and blindfolded, in abiding fear of existence killed. She also recounted being raped. After serving virtually two years in prison, President Carter commuted her judgement. In 2001, President Clinton granted her a pardon.
Adjacent generation: Lydia Marie Hearst
Patty went on to ally her babysitter. Today, she'south an author, extra and clemency fundraiser, with a reported net worth of $50 million (£36.6m). But her daughter Lydia Marie Hearst is even richer than her mother. Pictured here in 2017, the model and actress is reported to exist worth a cool $100 1000000 (£73.2m). Her first magazine embrace was for Faddy Italy in 2004. In 2016 she married actor and comedian Chris Hardwick.
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Next generation: Amanda Randolph Hearst
Another younger Hearst carving out her own path is Lydia's cousin and Patty's niece, Amanda Randolph Hearst, photographed here in 2020. Equally a fashion editor at Marie Claire magazine, she became interested in sustainable mode and in 2015 she co-founded Maison de Mode, a luxury ethical fashion label. She also runs an animal welfare and environmental protection charity. Her net worth is thought to be effectually $100 million (£73.2m).
The patriarch
Today's wealthiest Hearst is believed to be William Randolph Hearst Iii, pictured here in 2016. He is the current chairman of Hearst Corporation and is reported to be worth a massive $2.3 billion (£1.7bn). The unabridged Hearst family currently has 67 heirs, sharing a fortune of $21 billion (£15.4bn) as of 2020, which is down from $35 billion (£25.6bn) in 2014. Notwithstanding, history has shown that the Hearst family can certainly bounce back. And what about the family'southward key business interests?
The Hearst empire today
Based in Hearst Tower, the modernistic Hearst business is a mass media behemothic, publishing 24 daily and 52 weekly U.s. newspapers, plus 250 international magazines. Information technology has 33 Idiot box stations reaching 19% of US viewers. While the hereafter of impress has been in the rest for many years and the digital business model shaky basis for publishers, the family business has looked to diversify. In 2018, Hearst bought credit ratings agency Fitch Group for $two.8 billion (£2bn). And then the business concern empire which began in mining and moved to media could now be gear up to evolve once once again...
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