What is Nancy Cartwright's Net Worth and Salary?
Nancy Cartwright is an American film and television actress, comedian and voice artist. Nancy Cartwright has a net worth of $60 million. Nancy Cartwright earned her fortune thanks to her voice acting work on the Simpsons. As we detail later in this article, Nancy Cartwright's net worth is slightly lower than her fellow cast-mates because over the years she has donated over $20 million to Scientology.
On the show Nancy voices Bart Simpsonm Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Nelson Muntz, and Maggie Simpson. According to their latest contract, each principal voice actor on "The Simpsons" makes $400,000 per episode, which translates into around $9 million per season. Nancy has also lent her voice to "Goof Troop" (1992–1993), "Rugrats" (1992; 2002–2004), "The Critic" (1994–1995), "Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain" (1998–1999), "Kim Possible" (2002–2007), and numerous other animated projects.
As an actress, Cartwright has appeared in the films "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983) and "Godzilla" (1998) and the TV shows "Cheers" (1985), "Mr. Belvedere" (1987), "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (1995), and "24" (2007). Nancy published the autobiography "My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy" in 2000, and in 2004, she adapted it into a one-woman play. Nancy has formed two production companies, SportsBlast and Spotted Cow Entertainment. She wrote and produced the 2017 film "In Search of Fellini," which was based on an award-winning 1995 one-woman play she co-wrote with Peter Kjenaas, and she has also served as a producer on the TV movies "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" (2002) and "Holiday Joy" (2016).
Salary and Contract
According to their latest contract, each principal voice actor on The Simpsons makes $400,000 per episode. That translates into around $9 million per season.
Early Life
Nancy Cartwright was born Nancy Jean Cartwright on October 25, 1957, in Dayton, Ohio. She grew up with mother, Miriam, father Frank, and five siblings in Kettering, Ohio; sadly, Miriam passed away in 1978. Nancy attended St. Charles Borromeo and Fairmont West High School, and as a fourth grader, she won a school speech competition in which she performed Rudyard Kipling's "How the Camel Got His Hump." At Fairmont, she appeared in school plays and was a member of the marching band as well as president of the Forensic League. Cartwright often competed in public speaking competitions, and two years in a row, she came in first place in the National District Tournament's "Humorous Interpretation" category.
Nancy graduated in 1976 and earned a scholarship to Ohio University, where she continued to participate in public speaking competitions, placing fifth in the exposition category at the National Speech Tournament with a speech entitled "The Art of Animation." In 1976, she was hired to do voice-overs for ads on the Dayton radio station WING, and after a Warner Bros. Records rep visited the station, he gave her a list of animation industry contacts. This led to Daws Butler, the voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and Elroy Jetson, becoming Cartwright's mentor and Nancy leaving Ohio for Los Angeles. She transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, earning her theater degree in 1981.
Career
Daws Butler introduced Cartwright to many of Hanna-Barbera's voice actors and directors, and director Gordon Hunt asked her to audition for the TV show "Richie Rich." She landed a recurring role as Gloria Glad and was involved with the show from 1980 to 1984. In 1982, she played the title role in the TV movie "Marian Rose White," and she made her film debut in 1983's "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Throughout the '80s, Nancy did voicework in "My Little Pony: The Movie" (1986), "Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw" (1988), "The Little Mermaid" (1989), "Shirt Tales" (1983–1985), "Snorks" (1984–1988), and "My Little Pony 'n Friends" (1986–1987) and appeared in the films "Flesh and Blood" (1985) and "Yellow Pages" (1988).
In 1987, Cartwright auditioned for a voice role in a series of animated shorts that would appear on "The Tracey Ullman Show." Though she had intended to audition for the role of Lisa Simpson, she found Bart's character description more interesting and asked if she could try out for that part instead. After her audition, creator Matt Groening offered Nancy the role on the spot. The shorts were spun off into a Fox TV series in 1989, and as of this writing, "The Simpsons" has aired more than 700 episodes over 32 seasons, making it the longest-running American sitcom, animated series, and scripted primetime series. Cartwright has also voiced Bart in "The Simpsons Movie" (2007) and numerous video games, such as "The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants" (1991) and "The Simpsons: Tapped Out" (2012).
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Nancy voiced Chuckie Finster on Nickelodeon's "Rugrats" and reprised the role on "All Grown Up!" from 2003 to 2008, the film "Rugrats Go Wild" in 2003, and the Paramount+ revival/reboot "Rugrats" in 2021. She provided the voice of Rufus the naked mole rat on the Disney Channel series "Kim Possible" from 2002 to 2007 as well as the TV movies "Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time" (2003), "Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama" (2005), and "Kim Possible" (2019) and the DVD release "Kim Possible: The Secret Files" (2003). Nancy has also done voice acting in the films "The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock" (1998), "The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story" (1998), and "Leroy & Stitch" (2006) and the television series "Raw Toonage" (1992), "God, the Devil and Bob" (2000; 2011), and "Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures" (2007–2010), to name a few of her 150+ film and TV credits. In 2013, Cartwright was featured in the documentary "I Know That Voice," and in 2017, she appeared in an episode of the Nerdist web series "Talkin' Toons."
Personal Life & Scientology
On December 24, 1988, Nancy married writer Warren Murphy (who was 24 years her senior) two months after meeting him. They welcomed daughter Lucy and son Jack before divorcing in 2002.
Nancy began a relationship with contractor/fellow Scientologist Stephen Brackett in 2007, and the two were engaged at the time of Brackett's tragic death in May 2009. According to "The Monterey County Herald," Stephen "apparently leaped" to his death from the Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur, California.
Though she was raised in a Roman Catholic household, Cartwright joined the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s, and she received the organization's Patron Laureate Award in 2007 after she gave them a $10 million donation. In May 2023 it was revealed that Nancy had donated $21 million to Scientology over the course of her lifetime.
Cartwright has contributed to ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive Project, and she was honored with the Make-a-Wish Foundation's Wish Icon Award in 2007 for "her tremendous dedication to the Foundation's fundraising and wish-fulfillment efforts." In 2005, Nancy was named Honorary Mayor of Northridge, California. She created a scholarship at her alma mater, Fairmont High School, to help graduates who were interested in attending Ohio University and "following in her footsteps and studying speech, debate, drama or music." She received an honorary doctorate in communication from Ohio University in 2012, and in 2019.
Nancy co-founded the Know More About Drugs alliance, "an alliance of medical professionals, child advocates and parents who champion the right of parents and caregivers to be warned about the most serious side effects of prescribed psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs in a simple, easy-to-understand format." Scientologists are infamously at war with psychologists.
Awards and Nominations
Cartwright has been nominated for three Primetime Emmys for "The Simpsons," winning Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992. In 1995, she won an Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in the Field of Animation for "The Simpsons" and a Drama-Logue Award for "In Search of Fellini," and she received the Faith Hubley 'Web of Life' Award at the 2002 High Falls Film Festival. Nancy has received four Behind the Voice Actors Award nominations for "The Simpsons," taking home the prize for Best Female Lead Vocal Performance in a Television Series in 2012, and the show has also earned her seven Online Film & Television Association Award nominations for Best Voice-Over Performance/Best Voice-Over Performance in a Animated Program. In 2004, Cartwright received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for "Kim Possible."
