Horror is a very profitable genre, and it has lined the pockets of many actors ever since the genre rose in popularity thanks to films like the monster movies that were popularized by Universal Studios and Hammer Productions.
The films made by these companies skyrocketed the careers of men like Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Lon Chaney (The Phantom of The Opera) and his son Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolfman), Boris Karloff (Frankenstein and The Mummy), and plenty of others. But did each of these stars turn a profit? Well, some did and lived comfortably until they died, and others, tragically, fell victim to real demons much scarier than anything they filmed.
8 Bela Lugosi - $1,900
Of all the actors to grace horror, Lugosi is one of the most iconic as the man who first brought Dracula to life. He was so iconic in the role that his is the image still most commonly used when people do Dracula or vampire costumes. Because he was so good in Dracula he ended up being typecast as villains for most of his career. He also had a serious drug problem that would eventually cause him to die of heart failure in 1956. He quickly lost money as he used whatever meager paycheck he'd get for drugs. Lugosi's tragic end was a key plot point in the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp movie Ed Wood.
7 Lon Cheney Sr - $700,000
Horror films would not exist today were it not for the innovative makeup of silent film star Lon Cheney Sr, then just called Lon Cheney. Cheney was in iconic silent horror films like The Phantom Of The Opera, London After Midnight, and The Phantom Of The Opera. Cheney did all of his own makeup and was so famous for it that he earned the nickname "The Man Of 1000 Faces." When he died in 1930 he is reported to have had $700,000 to his name, which would equal more than $12 million today.
6 Peter Lorre - $1.5 Million
Although he did not do horror for Universal, Lorre was still famous for several menacing horror roles like M where he played a child murderer, and The Beast With Five Fingers. His villainous look was so famous that his image was the inspiration for the design of several mad scientist villains in Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons. Lorre struggled to break out of horror thanks to type casting, and near the end of his career, he was doing B-movies for director Roger Corman.
5 Lon Cheney Jr - $1.5 Million
Lon Cheney Jr. did not initially want to follow in his father's footsteps into horror, as his early films included adaptations of books like Of Mice and Men. But he ended up in horror at the insistence of producers who thought he had a bankable name. Like his father, Cheney often did his own makeup, which he was taught to do by his father. Cheney was cemented into horror thanks to his role in The Wolfman which also featured Bela Lugosi as the werewolf who bites him. Cheney died in 1973 with $1.5 to his name, approximately, which would be around $6-7 million today.
4 Sir Basil Rathbone - Approximately $1-5 Million
Rathbone did not play any of the iconic horror monsters, but he was in the popular sequel to Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein which also featured the first appearance of the character Igor, who was played by Bela Lugosi. Other horror titles include The Black Sleep, Tales Of Terror, and Mad House. Rathbone was more famous for his recurring portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, which is not horror but does involve murder, suspense, and mayhem. Sources are conflicted about how much he had when he died, but when averaged out it is most likely he had between $1 million and $5 million.
3 Vincent Price - $5 Million
Price's first horror role was in the second Invisible Man film, but he became a horror icon thanks to movies like House Of Wax, The House On Haunted Hill, and the Edgar Allen Poe movies he did with Roger Corman. Price's voice was so attached to horror that it was used in Scooby-Doo and in Michael Jackson's classic song "Thriller." Price had $5 million to his name when he died in 1993 just after completing his final movie, Edward Scissorhands.
2 Boris Karloff - $20 million
The man who gave the world Frankenstein and The Mummy had plenty of spare cash when he died in 1969. Karloff supplemented his film income with lots of voice-over and radio work, which earned him a healthy living. Karloff acted with almost every actor on this list in several other horror films besides the ones he was most famous for. He was in The Black Cat with Bela Lugosi, who was also somewhat of a rival. He did several movies with Price and Peter Lorre, thanks to Roger Corman. And of course, he worked with Rathbone on Son Of Frankenstein.
1 Christopher Lee - $25 Million
The only other person to play Dracula who might be as iconic as Bela Lugosi would be Christopher Lee. Lee played the vampire for a series of movies for the Hammer company in the 1960s and 1970s with Peter Cushing (Star Wars) as his nemesis, Van Helsing. Lee would make incredible sums of money later in his career thanks to his roles in franchises like Star Wars and Lord of The Rings. Other famous horror roles of Lee's include The Wicker Man and Sleepy Hollow. He died in 2015.
