William Wayne McMillan Rogers III was born on 7 April 1933, in Birmingham, Alabama USA, and was one of the multi-millionaires in the entertainment industry largely as an actor, director and screenwriter, including as Trapper John from the highly popular long-running television series “M*A*S*H”. He also had success later in business and finance. Rogers passed away in 2015.
So just how rich was Wayne Rogers? Authoritative sources have been estimated that the net worth of Wayne was as high as $80 million, accumulated though his careers as an actor and in the world of finance, which began in the late 1950s.
Wayne Rogers Net Worth $80 Million
Wayne was educated firstly at Ramsay High School in Birmingham, then matriculated from The Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He subsequently graduated with a degree in history from Princeton University in 1954. Wayne began his acting career and the accumulation of the net worth as a television actor from the late ’50s, appearing in supporting roles in such television series as ‘The Fugitive’, ‘Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.’, ‘Gunsmoke’, ‘The F.B.I.’, ‘The Invaders’ and ‘Search for Tomorrow’ .
Moreover, he appeared in a noir film ‘Odds against Tomorrow’ (1959) directed and produced by Robert Wise, a role which brought him a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. In the supporting role of Gambler Wayne, he appeared in the critically acclaimed and commercially successful drama film ‘Cool Hand Luke’ (1967) starring Paul Newman and George Kennedy, who won an Oscar.
Rogers added much to his net worth appearing in the television series ‘M*A*S*H’ developed by Larry Gelbart, in the leading role alongside Alan Alda from 1972 to 1975. Moreover, in 1975 Wayne appeared in the main cast of the television film ‘Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan’ directed by Marvin J. Chomsky. He took the supportive role in a drama film ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’ (1996) directed by Rob Reiner.
Later, on the Fox Channel Wayne Rogers worked as a screenwriter, producer and director, also adding to his net worth. Concurrently, Wayne made a career for himself as an investor and advisor on the above-mentioned channel, yet continued to appeared in films which included ‘The Hot Touch’ (1981) directed by Roger Vadim, ‘The Gig’ (1985) directed by Frank D. Gilroy, and ‘I Dream of Jeannie… Fifteen Years Later’ (1985) directed by William Asher. In 2005 Wayne was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In the world of finance, he developed into a successful investor and money manager, in the late ’80 even appearing as an expert witness before the United States House Committee on the Judiciary, supporting retention of long-standing banking laws from an act of 1933. He was a regular panel member on Fox TV stocks investment/stocks news program “Cashin’ In”, and also worked as a host of ‘High Risk’. In 2006, Rogers was elected to the board of directors of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., and also headed investment corporation Wayne Rogers & Co., largely trading shares. In 2012, Rogers became the spokesman for Senior Home Loans, a direct reverse mortgage lender.
As for his personal life, Wayne Rogers married twice, firstly to Mitzi McWhorter, in 1960, but the couple divorced after twenty-three years of marriage and three children. He married his second wife, Amy Hirsh, in 1988. Wayne passed away on 31 December 2015 from pneumonia, at his home in Los Angeles, California.
