The Forbes Fictional Fifteen
If fiction can be regarded as a culture’s subconscious, then it’s clear that we are a nation obsessed with the very rich. From avaricious caricatures like The Simpsons’ Montgomery Burns to literary character studies like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, our culture–both high and low–is littered with images of billionaires and tycoons. Some characters are intentional riffs on real-life counterparts, most famously Orson Welles’ blistering portrayal of William Randolph Hearst in Citizen Kane.
Others, like Gordon Gekko from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, came to symbolize both a man–convicted inside trader Ivan Boesky–and an era: the go-go 1980s. To be sure, many are pure products of the imagination. But given the legion of publicity men and image handlers surrounding the typical real-life billionaires, understanding these fictitious characters is as close as most of us will come to grasping the minds of the very rich.
Rank Name Net Worth
1. Santa Claus $ ?
2. Richie Rich 24.7 billion
3. Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks 10 billion
4. Scrooge McDuck 8.2 billion
5. Thurston Howell III 8 billion
6. Willie Wonka 8 billion
7. Bruce Wayne 6.3 billion
8. Lex Luthor 4.7 billion
9. J.R. Ewing 2.8 billion
10. Auric Goldfinger 1.2 billion
11. C. Montgomery Burns 1 billion
12. Charles Foster Kane 1 billion
13. Cruella De Vil 875 millon
14. Gordon Gekko 650 millon
15. Jay Gatsby 600 millon
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