The truth is that Joyce DeWitt was the actress that was FIRST offered the thigh-master endorsement deal. When she turned it down, it was offered to Suzanne, and away she went.
Joan Rivers reportedly banks $17-18 million a year from her QVC line. Not too shabby, and this is in addition to all her other work. But she also reportedly lost it all after Edgar died, though in watching JOAN & MELISSA last year, and seeing the house they owned when she was just subbing for Carson, makes me think she must have been incredibly well-paid for the time. That house was massive!
Mindy Cohn said the only reason they agreed to do the Facts of Life reunion movies a while back was that they didn't get one cent in residuals, but she's gone on to become a very sough-after voice over actress and apparently lives very, well, large.
The cast of Everyone Loves Ray didn't love him initially when the show was to be released on DVD because they weren't getting any money from those sales. They banded together and each got something like 1/2 of 1%, something incredibly cheap, but Doris Roberts said it would still net her like $50 million. The cast of Seinfeld was also largely cut out of the DVD's and that's why, I believe, they banded together to get all that money per episode that they did. And yes, Julia Louis Drefuss is one of the heirs to the Dreyfuss Investment group--it's her grandfather's or great grandfather's company and she is worth around one billion dollars as a result.
What always puzzles me is celebrities like Florence Henderson. She had basically ONE ROLE her entire life that couldn't have paid very well and I'm sure she missed out on residuals, so how was she able to really live? You know, we look at things now with celebrities making insane amounts of money for tv shows, movies, and commercials, but that's something only relatively recent.
Of course, the grand-daddy of this thread is Dick Wolfe. Law and fucking Order. How much must HE be worth as the creator of that incredibly successful franchise? They are constantly in repeats, on several different stations, many times per day. They have dozens of seasons on DVD and still producing new episodes. Jesus, I'd like to be him!