Burt Sugarman Net Worth

What Is Burt Sugarman's Net Worth?

Burt Sugarman is an American film and television producer who has a net worth of $100 million. That's a combined net worth with his wife, Mary Hart. They are often seen sitting together behind home plate at Dodgers games, especially playoff games.

Burt Sugarman is a true legend in the world of TV entertainment and has earned an Academy Award nomination and a Primetime Emmy nomination for his work. Sugarman is best known as a TV producer whose name has appeared in the credits of shows stretching back to the early 1970s. Some of his notable producing credits include "The Richard Pryor Show" (1977), "The Wizard of Odds" (1973), "The Newlywed Game" (1988), and "Celebrity Sweepstakes" (1974).

Burt has also brought his special brand of producing prowess to the world of film, earning producer credits on movies such as "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982) and "Children of a Lesser God" (1986). Sugarman created and executive-produced the variety series "The Midnight Special," which aired from 1972 to 1981, and he appeared in an infomercial for a video collection entitled "The Midnight Special – Legendary Performances."

Early Life

Burt Sugarman was born Burton Roy Sugarman on January 4, 1939, in Los Angeles, California. Burt is the son of a pharmacy owner, and as a teenager, he enjoyed spending his time riding dirt bikes and won a California drag-racing championship. Sugarman attended the University of Southern California, earning a bachelor's degree in finance in just three years. He then began selling cars and launched a company to handle the financing contracts. When he was 24, Burt came across a photo of a Ghia, an Italian car, while looking at an auto magazine, and he flew to Turin to buy one of his own. He then took on Ghia's North American distribution, which was followed by a distributorship for Excalibur and Maserati. Sugarman told the "Los Angeles Times" in 1973, "At 28, I got tired of all the beautiful cars and fun clients; I sold the distributorships and retired to play golf. After about five months of being a playboy, I got bored. That's when I became involved with show business."

Career

Burt's first production credit was the 1969 TV special "Dionne Warwick– Souled Out," and he followed it with the specials "The Switched On Symphony" (1970), "Changing Scene" (1970), "Changing Scene II" (1970), "Changing Scene III" (1971), and "Changing Scene IV" (1971). He produced two 1971 episodes of "Stand Up and Cheer," then he produced the film "The Manipulator" (1971), the TV specials "The 14th Annual Grammy Awards" (1972) and "The Jud Strunk Show" (1972), and the TV series "The Wizard of Odds" (1973). Sugarman created the musical variety series "The Midnight Special," which premiered in August 1972, and he served as the show's executive producer. In 1974, Burt co-produced the game show "Celebrity Sweepstakes" with Ralph Andrews Productions, and in 1977, he produced "The Richard Pryor Special?," "The Richard Pryor Show," and the "Billboard No. 1 Music Awards." From 1979 to 1980, he co-produced the game show "Whew!" with Bud Austin and Jay Wolpert, then, he produced the films "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982), "Extremities" (1986), "Children of a Lesser God" (1986), and "Crimes of the Heart" (1986). Sugarman produced "The Newlywed Game" in 1988, and he co-produced "Mary Hart Presents Love in the Public Eye" with his wife in 1990. In 2019, he produced the short film "Holy Jail."

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In the late '70s, Burt owned shares in the Old Tucson Corporation, which owned amusement parks in Nevada and Arizona, and he was a part-owner of the production company Barris Industries until Sony bought it in 1989. In the '80s, Sugarman was head of The Giant Group, which purchased investments in media firms such as Reeves Entertainment Group and Media General. In 1982, he spent $3 million on the stock of the nearly bankrupt South Carolina company Giant Portland & Masonry Cement, and three years later, he bought the Keystone plant in Bath, Pennsylvania.

Personal Life

Burt married Pauline Schur on October 17, 1957, and they divorced in 1961. The following year, Sugarman became engaged to actress Ann-Margret. Burt was married to actress Carol Wayne from December 28, 1975, to December 1980. Sugarman wed TV personality Mary Hart on April 8, 1989, and they welcomed son Alec Jay (better known as AJ) on Christmas Eve in 1991. Hart, a former Miss America finalist, is best known for hosting "Entertainment Tonight" from 1982 to 2011.

Mary Hart and Burt Sugarman

Award Nominations

In 1987, Sugarman earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture for "Children of a Lesser God" (shared with Patrick J. Palmer). In 1970, he received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety or Musical Program – Classical Music for "The Switched-On Symphony" (shared with Pierre Cossette and Jack Good).

Real Estate

Burt and Mary own at least $50 million worth of real estate around the United States, but mainly in Los Angeles and Montana.

In 2013, Burt Sugarman and Mary Hart bought a condo at the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Downtown Los Angeles for $3.8 million. They sold this unit in 2018 for $6.7 million. That same year, they sold an 11,000-square-foot Beverly Hills home for $27 million.

In West Hollywood's Sierra Towers, they set a building price record with an $8 million purchase in 2015. They added a second unit off-market for $4.65 million in 2016. In 2018, they listed another Sierra Towers unit for $5.5 million. A closed sale price for that 2018 listing was not located in public reporting.

They have long maintained multiple properties in Montana. In 2014, they sold a lakefront house for $5.9 million. Within the Yellowstone Club, they listed a home for $7.9 million in 2014. No publicly reported closing price could be found. They also marketed their 160-acre Elk Horn Ranch inside the Yellowstone Club—first at $26.5 million in 2013, later reduced to $21 million and then $19.5 million by 2015–2016. There is no reliable public record of a completed sale.

In 2019, they sold another Ritz-Carlton (Downtown L.A.) residence—about 4,000 square feet, three bedrooms—for $6.3 million.

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