Miserly duck tops list of richest fictional characters

(Reuters) - A miserly duck, a vampire and pair of precocious kids are among the richest fictional characters, according to a ranking by Forbes.


Scrooge McDuck, the "penny-pinching poultry" with a fortune in gold coins whose estimated worth is $44.1 billion, headed the list of Forbes' "Fictional 15" wealthiest imaginary characters.

But despite his riches, McDuck still trails Microsoft founder Bill Gates' $53 billion.

Vampire-themed franchises have become big business, so it's no surprise that Carlisle Cullen, the 370-year-old vampire from the "Twilight" books and films who has been accruing interest on a small savings account since 1670, came in second with $36.2 billion.

A pair of over-achieving youngsters came in third. Artemis Fowl II, the prepubescent scion of an Irish crime family from Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl novels, was pegged at $13.5 billion, while the altruistically inclined comic book character Richie Rich totaled $9.7 billion.

To qualify for the list the characters must be known in their fictional stories and by their audiences for being rich.

"Net worth estimates are based on an analysis of the fictional character's source material, and where possible, valued against known real-world commodity and share price movements," Forbes said.

While the list, which Forbes editors have compiled since 2005, is all in fun, the process and resultant numbers are serious business, said special projects executive editor Michael Noer.

"We go to great lengths to calculate their net worth," Noer said in an interview. "It's similar to how we calculate real billionaires."

Market forces, especially commodities, also provided some guidance.

"McDuck was up over 30 percent, which is what gold has done this year, and his wealth is mostly in gold," Noer explained.

Similarly Jed Clampett, the country bumpkin who found black gold in the television series "The Beverly Hillbillies" benefited from rising oil prices for a $9.5 billion net worth.

Mr. Monopoly, the top-hatted, mustachioed character from the popular board game, placed ninth with $2.6 billion. The editors based his worth on the current value of Atlantic City real estate and a presumed percentage of property ownership.

The full list, with character profiles and sources of their wealth, can be found at www.forbes.com/fictional15.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia)

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Pixar Retrospective

R.I.P.: The voice of Mickey Mouse

The voice of Minnie Mouse has reported the death of her husband — the voice of Mickey Mouse since 1976.

Wayne Allwine died Monday of complications from diabetes, said his wife, Russi Taylor, a voice-over artist who has put words in Minnie's mouth since 1986. He was 62.

Allwine, an Emmy Award-winning former sound effects editor, was only the third man to give voice to Mickey. Walt Disney was the first, in 1928.

"Wayne was my hero," Taylor told the Los Angeles Times. "He really loved doing Mickey Mouse and was very proud that he did it 32 years."

Allwine was hired by Jimmy Macdonald, who succeeded Disney.

Cheryl Holdridge dies at 64; popular Mouseketeer

Cheryl Holdridge, the beautiful blond actress who first gained fame as a Mouseketeer on TV's "The Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1950s, has died. She was 64.

Holdridge died Tuesday at her home in Santa Monica after a two-year battle with lung cancer, said Doreen Tracey, another former Mouseketeer.

"What's amazing is that Cheryl and I have gone through so many things together, I'm glad I could have been there in the end too," Tracey said Thursday.

Holdridge was 11 years old in the spring of 1956 when she auditioned and was hired for "The Mickey Mouse Club," which had debuted on Oct. 3, 1955, with 24 talented youngsters who sang and danced and yet came across as the kids next door.

Holdridge joined the Mouseketeers in the second season of the show, which ran until 1959.


She quickly became part of the core group that appeared on the famous Mouseketeer roll call at the start of each show, along with Tracey, Annette Funicello, Tommy Cole, Cubby O'Brien, Sharon Baird, Bobby Burgess, Karen Pendleton, Lonnie Burr and Darlene Gillespie.

"She was a good technical dancer, but I think she was picked mostly because she had this angelic look and a great smile; she's known for her smile," Tracey said. With a laugh, she added: "We used to try to keep her quiet when she started singing because she sang off key."

The other reason Holdridge was included in the core group was that "her fan mail was quite high, and they need those ratings," Tracey said. "We were trying to win over the American public, which we did.

"Annette had the highest rating, but Cheryl came pretty close."

During her Mouseketeer days, Holdridge appeared in some of the show's episodic serials, including "Boys of the Western Sea" and the "Annette" series.

Unlike some of the other Mouseketeers, Holdridge didn't have trouble finding work in television as a young actress after hanging up her Mouse ears.




She went on to play Wally Cleaver's girlfriend, Julie Foster, for two seasons on "Leave It to Beaver." And she had guest roles on shows such as "The Rifleman," "Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Bewitched!" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

"Our reputations as Disney players opened doors," Holdridge told the Chicago Tribune in 2001 during a Mouseketeer autograph session at a Disney memorabilia show in Bloomingdale, Ill., that drew a crowd of more than 1,000.

"Directors knew we understood how to move on camera, how to hit our marks and say lines. Doreen and I went up for many of the same parts. We both did Ozzie & Harriet' and 'Bachelor Father.' "

Holdridge left the business in 1964 when she married Lance Reventlow, the son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, "because that's what you did then. You married and stayed home."

Reventlow died in a plane crash in 1972. In 1994, Holdridge married Manning Post, a prominent West Coast Democratic Party fundraiser and advisor, who died in 2000.

Holdridge was born Cheryl Lynn Phelps on June 20, 1944, in New Orleans and moved to Los Angeles when she was 2. Her mother, Julie Austin, was a former Ziegfeld Follies featured dancer and comedian and encouraged her to express herself through dance.

After her mother married Herbert Holdridge, a retired brigadier general, he adopted Cheryl in 1953.

At 9, she was selected by George Balanchine to perform for the New York City Ballet Company in a Los Angeles production of "The Nutcracker Suite." Her first screen appearance was a small role in the 1956 musical "Carousel."

Then came "The Mickey Mouse Club."

"She certainly was a very pretty blond and just had a very winning personality," said Lorraine Santoli, author of "The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book" and a former Disney publicist who worked with the Mouseketeers as adults in the 1980s and '90s.

As an adult, "Cheryl was the most joyous person, is the best way I can put it," she said. "She saw the positive side of everything."

Holdridge enjoyed joining other former Mouseketeers at shows and appearances at Disneyland, Santoli said.

"She got such joy out of it, she really did, and she was so proud of the fact that she was an original Mouseketeer."

Tommy Cole said Thursday that "Cheryl was one of the loves of my life, especially because we were like family."

"Being one of the prettiest girls on the set, I always considered her Miss Sunshine," he recalled. "She'd walk into the room and this ray of sunshine would happen every time she smiled."

Cole was among the former Mouseketeers who visited with Holdridge on Monday night. And, he said, when he heard that she had died two hours after he left her side, "a little bit of sunshine went out of my life."

Holdridge, who had no immediate surviving family members, supported various environmental causes as well as the Children’s Burn Foundation in Sherman Oaks, Friendly House of Los Angeles and the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, where donations may be made in her name. A memorial service is pending.

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