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Not a few of the overnight opulent are deeply concerned that their new eminence will cost them their friends. They worry a lot about terrorists, IRS investigators, kidnapers and privacy. Then, too, a certain pelf-consciousness envelops swift enrichment. Some of the very uncomfortable cling almost defiantly to old clothes, old habitats, old autos—the insecurity blankets of their past.
Of course, wealth is relative. As the great John Jacob Astor acerbly observed, "A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if he were rich." Moreover, any definition of wealth must take into account the field in which it is earned and the expectations of the aspirant. For example, a novelist or a ballet dancer, a realtor, baker or candymaker can hardly expect to garner the green that grows for conglomorateurs or discoverers of new oil. For the former, wealth—in however many digits—can mean simply the absentia of angst, the farewell forever to dunners, lien servers, repossessors, plaintive dentists, minatory mailgrams from utilities and arsenical missives from the Diners Club. That, pace Astor, is wealth enow.
The jester, juggler or minstrel may earn more today than the merchant, soldier or king. This shift has been vastly enhanced in the past decade by the great Golconda of TV. Its immediate beneficiaries are, of course, the performers —actors, singers, newscasters and athletes, all of whom can make more money by plugging wares than they can in their primary roles. More recently, whole garrets of writers have joined the plutocracy as a result of the convoluted inter-twinings of screen and publishing, whereby books become films that generate huge paperback sales and are transmogrified into prime-time TV series that in turn make the original books runaway hits. Many of the newly minted millions go not to prima-facie talent but to entrepreneurs, managers, agents and packagers (see box).
How to win megabucks?
In a society less concerned with making things than making money, few inventors or new manufacturers are pulling in fortunes. The fast payoffs in the past few years have gone mostly to individuals in four general, quite arbitrary and sometimes overlapping categories: the gifted, the spotters, the diligent and the promoters. Profiles in making it and spending it in each group:
The Gifted
Favored of face or figure, endowed perhaps with surprising wit or superb hand-eye coordination, lucky in time or place, the gifted are destiny's children, whose achievements and rewards seem as inevitable as they are magical.
Superbug. Steve Cauthen is the kind of folk hero who might have been invented by television. Son of a blacksmith from tiny Walton, Ky., born during Kentucky Derby week, he grew up with the dream of becoming a great jockey. Since May 1, 1976, when he turned 16 and could compete in the big time as an apprentice jockey ("bug" in racing parlance), the kid with the huge hands and rock-solid seat has ridden 217 winners, 187 seconds and 156 thirds for a total of some $3 million in prize money —of which he kept 10%. Steve would have booted home even more booty had he not taken a bad spill at Belmont last month. Recovering from a concussion and a broken rib, wrist and three fingers, he expects to be back in the saddle by mid-July.