CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: Non-Cabinet-Level Icons Destroyed by the Tax Man  Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:00 am | |
| 5. Redd Foxx
Bawdy, Yet Broke
As a foul-mouthed stand-up comic he paved the way for comedians including Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy (and proved he could work clean with sitcom Sanford and Son, whose title was inspired by Foxx's real name, John Sanford), but never quite mastered the art of money management. He filed for bankruptcy protection in 1983, but that failed to ward off the IRS, who raided his Vegas home and seized a number of his possessions to pay off the three million dollars they said he owed in back taxes, interest, and penalties. He remained in the hole (and under a tremendous amount of stress) the rest of his life, dying in 1991 of a heart attack at the age of 68 on the set of his soon-to-premiere TV show, The Royal Family.
4. Pete Rose
Gambled with the Tax Man
His battles with baseball commissioners get the publicity, but it’s the ones with the government he should worry about. Charlie Hustle has a legendary knack for stick-to-itiveness, which enabled him to become the major league hit king, maintain with a straight face that he never bet on baseball for 14 years, and continually piss off the Internal Revenue Service. False tax returns led to five months in prison in 1990 and 1991. True to his nature, Pete refused to learn from the experience and in 2004 -- just seven months after he remembered that he had bet on baseball, after all -- the IRS announced he owed nearly one million dollars in back taxes. But don't knock the Hustle. So far, Rose has been able to avoid a return visit to the pokey and can finally say he's made the Hall of Fame -- pro wrestling’s WWE Hall of Fame for his achievements at WrestleMania.
3. Sammy Davis, Jr.
The Candy Man Can’t
One of the three Rat Pack members people remember -- no disrespect, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop -- the singer-dancer-impressionist dude who briefly converted to Satanism lived a life filled with highs (such as a Kennedy Center salute for career achievement in 1987) and lows (the Kennedy Center’s namesake, John Fitzgerald, prevented him from attending his inauguration because of the black Davis’s relationship with white actress May Britt). There was one constant though: debt. Indeed, his obligations outlasted him -- he owed nearly $7.5 million in back taxes at the time of his death. It took his widow seven years to work out a settlement.
2. Joe Louis
A Late-in-Life Beating
The Brown Bomber’s demolition of German Max Schmeling signaled to Hitler that world domination would not come as easily as he believed. The heavyweight champ further supported the cause of freedom during World War II by donating purses to military relief funds. The IRS showed its appreciation by years later claiming the charitable bouts counted as earnings and demanding back taxes, forcing him to stay in the ring when he should have retired ("I had to keep working to pay taxes, but the more I worked, the less I had.") While the government may have turned its back on Joe, aid did come from one unlikely source: the ’70s heroin kingpin/American Gangster star Frank Lucas, who gave him money when things were particularly dire. What a guy...
1. Abbott and Costello
Who’s in Debt
Most of the people on this list make sense. They tended to live recklessly and, with the exception of Rose, may have even been the victims of institutional racism. But William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello? The comic duo whose "Who’s on First?" routine became a smash in the 1930s and is still saluted in the Baseball Hall of Fame today? Stars of stage, radio, TV, and film -- with movies including the classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and the less classic Pardon My Sarong -- they were among the biggest stars in the world in the 1940s (and, like Louis, worked to raise money for the military during World War II). Their career was already in decline when the IRS dealt the deathblow, with demands for back taxes bankrupting both men and causing them to split up in 1957. Costello -- who had never really recovered from the drowning death of his one-year-old son in 1943 and long suffered health troubles because of a bout of rheumatic fever -- died of heart problems in 1959. Abbott made an unsuccessful attempt to revive the act with new partner Candy Candido (declaring, "No one could ever live up to Lou") before retiring after a stroke and dying of cancer in 1974. Happy Tax Day!
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/destroyed-by-the-irs |
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