Quick answer: Celebrity Net Worth, first published 1 June 2020 and last updated 1 September 2026, says Randy Quaid “has a net worth of -$2 million.” Forbes has no profile for him. The previous version of this page used -$1 million as a 2026 finding, then walked a decade staircase through $5 million, $10 million, $2 million and $0 with no publisher under any of those rungs. A living estimate and a court judgment are different objects. The $3,502,347 Santa Barbara award, affirmed on 28 July 2026, is not added to the -$2 million, and the -$2 million is not treated as if it cancelled or confirmed the judgment. This page will keep them apart.
Quick facts
| Financial Metric | Estimated Value (2026) |
|---|---|
| Name | Randy Randall Rudy Quaid |
| Born | 1 October 1950, Houston, per Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia. 75 as of September 2026 |
| Known for | The Last Detail; Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon’s Vacation films; Independence Day; Brokeback Mountain |
| Celebrity Net Worth estimate | -$2 million, first published 1 June 2020, last updated 1 September 2026 |
| Forbes estimate | None. The Forbes profile URL returns a 404 |
| Previous version of this page | -$1 million in 2026, plus an unsourced decade table. Cut |
| Largest court number on this file | $3,502,347 state judgment, Santa Barbara Superior Court 19CV06268, affirmed 28 July 2026 as Turicchi v. Quaid, B346952. A liability. Not a second living net worth |
| Separate federal case | Quaid v. Granet, 9th Cir. Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026, memorandum 13 May 2026. Dismissal with prejudice, vexatious-litigant order, fees to Berman. Not the $3.5 million |
The -$2 million, and the -$1 million this site used to print
Celebrity Net Worth, first published 1 June 2020 and last updated 1 September 2026, says Randy Quaid is an American actor who has a net worth of -$2 million. That is the only named, dated personal estimate we found. Forbes does not carry a profile; forbes.com/profile/randy-quaid/ returns a 404. There is no second publisher’s net worth to set beside the first.
The previous page used -$1 million as of 2026. That is not Celebrity Net Worth’s number. It is also not a midpoint, a rounding, or a confirmation. We are not going to average -$1 million and -$2 million into a hole of our own making, and we are not going to treat a September 2026 modification stamp as a documented 2026 appraisal just because this URL has 2026 in the title. Celebrity Net Worth does not show its work. The -$2 million is unexplained. It is still the only estimate with a name and a date on it.
The same old page then printed a growth table: $5 million in 1990, $10 million in 2000, $2 million in 2010, $0 in 2020, then -$1 million in 2026. None of those rungs had a publisher. The 2000 bankruptcy inventory on Celebrity Net Worth is roughly $3.4 million in assets against $3.5 million in debts — already underwater, and not $10 million. The staircase is out.
Quantities that are not the same thing
| Quantity | What it would measure | What is published |
|---|---|---|
| Living net worth, dated | What one publisher thinks he owns minus what he owes | -$2 million, Celebrity Net Worth, updated 1 September 2026. Unexplained. Forbes: none |
| The previous page’s 2026 number | A different living hole | -$1 million. No publisher. Cut |
| The previous page’s decade staircase | A career fortune that rises and vanishes on cue | $5 million (1990), $10 million (2000), $2 million (2010), $0 (2020). No publisher. Cut |
| January 2000 bankruptcy | What a filing listed 26 years ago | Celebrity Net Worth: about $3.4 million in assets against $3.5 million in debts. Open until 2005. Underwater while he was still working. Not current net worth |
| Tax liens, as reported | What collectors were said to be owed | Celebrity Net Worth: IRS roughly $412,000; California liens more than $207,000. Liens, not a living net worth |
| Christmas Vacation paycheck | A pay-year plus a backend formula | Celebrity Net Worth: $1 million plus 5% of gross. Same page: the definition of “gross,” and the actual backend, were never publicly documented. Do not invent a total |
| Four named upfront salaries, summed | Celebrity Net Worth adding reported paycheques | Prose: those four total $5.6 million. The same page’s earnings table: $5.5 million. Two wordings. Neither is net worth |
| Kingpin / Pluto Nash / Goya’s Ghosts | Pay-years | Celebrity Net Worth: $2.3 million, $1.3 million and $1 million, reported or “historically tracked.” Not the -$2 million |
| Brokeback Mountain lawsuit | What he asked a court for, then stopped asking | Celebrity Net Worth: sued for at least $10 million; claimed he waived a seven-figure fee plus a percentage; later withdrew; a bonus was alleged and disputed; the amount was never disclosed. Wikipedia records the suit, not the $10 million. A claim is not a settlement |
| Lone Star Love / Actors’ Equity | A union penalty | Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia: more than $81,000, plus a ban. A fine, not wealth |
| San Ysidro Ranch, 2009 | An unpaid hotel bill | Celebrity Net Worth: exceeding $10,000; felony against Randy dismissed. Wikipedia: a $10,000 bill. Two wordings of a bill, not a balance sheet |
| Bail face amounts | What a bond paper said | Celebrity Net Worth: as high as $500,000 apiece, and that those were surety bonds. The same page says it would be misleading to assume he personally lost the stated bail. We are not going to assume it |
| Santa Barbara civil judgment (state) | What a California court awarded later owners | $3,502,347 against Randy and Evi Quaid in Santa Barbara Superior Court No. 19CV06268, caption R. Scott Turicchi et al. vs Randy Quaid et al.; affirmed 28 July 2026 as Turicchi v. Quaid, B346952. Permanent bar on claiming the house sold in 1992. Not stacked onto -$2 million |
| Federal case (Ninth Circuit) | A different court, different case numbers, different subject | Quaid v. Granet, Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026, memorandum 13 May 2026, from C.D. Cal. No. 2:24-cv-03455-MRA-JPR. Affirmed dismissal with prejudice, the vexatious-litigant declaration, and attorneys’ fees to Berman. The memorandum does not print a dollar amount. Celebrity Net Worth: about $68,000 in related federal fees. Not the $3,502,347 |
| Vermont house, 2022 | A modest asset with a mortgage | Celebrity Net Worth: Burlington house on Randy Lane; 30-year mortgage of $280,725. Not the -$2 million, and not proof it is wrong |
| Independence Day / Brokeback grosses | What the films took in | Celebrity Net Worth: more than $800 million worldwide; roughly $178 million. Studio numbers. Not his pay |
A paycheck is flow. A bankruptcy schedule is a 2000 inventory. A tax lien is a claim. A lawsuit demand is a ask. A surety bond is a paper face. A judgment is a liability. A film’s worldwide gross is the studio’s weekend, not his. Adding any of those to the -$2 million, or using them to cancel it, is how a court file becomes a fortune twice.
Two courts, two case numbers, two subjects
The Santa Barbara house fight produced parallel files. One is a California property judgment. The other is a federal case about later claims, a vexatious-litigant order and fees to a different defendant. They belong to the same broader dispute. They are not one ruling, and the dollars on each file are not added to each other or to the -$2 million.
The $3,502,347 state judgment is not the -$2 million
This is the single newest and most legally significant dollar on the file, and it is not a net-worth estimate. Later owners of a Santa Barbara house the Quaids had sold in 1992, R. Scott and Lannette Turicchi, obtained a slander-of-title judgment against Randy and Evi Quaid. The trial-court caption, on the Santa Barbara Superior Court public docket, is R. Scott Turicchi et al. vs Randy Quaid et al., No. 19CV06268. Celebrity Net Worth prints the award as $3,502,347 and breaks it into $655,778 in property taxes, $310,998 in homeowners insurance, $368,569 in mortgage interest, $392,757 in maintenance and utilities, $140,877 in security, and $1,633,368 in attorneys’ fees and costs. The court also permanently barred the Quaids from claiming the house.
The California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Six, affirmed that judgment on 28 July 2026 in Turicchi v. Quaid, B346952, an unpublished opinion. Law360 (Lauren Berg, 28 July 2026) reported the same day that the couple cannot overturn a $3.5 million judgment, and that the court found substantial evidence the ownership claims damaged the property’s marketability. That article is paywalled from here beyond the lead; we are citing the sentences we could open, not the rest of the file.
The open-access write-up is the Metropolitan News-Enterprise (Kimber Cooley, 29 July 2026). It quotes the opinion’s holding that no error was shown on quiet title, slander of title, damages or the injunction, and it prints the same damage schedule Celebrity Net Worth uses, then the same total: $3,502,347. Justice Hernaldo J. Baltodano wrote for the panel, joined by Acting Presiding Justice Kenneth R. Yegan and Justice Tari L. Cody. Metropolitan News-Enterprise also records that neither defendant appeared at the April 2025 slander-of-title trial. We are using that paper for the ruling and the breakdown. We are not using its caption that the house was in Mendocino; Law360, Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia all place the dispute in Santa Barbara, and that is the location this page uses.
Celebrity Net Worth adds that a request for rehearing on the state appeal was denied the following month. That follow-on sentence is cited as Celebrity Net Worth presents it. We did not open a separate rehearing order from here. It is still the state case. It is not the federal memorandum below.
The $3,502,347 is the largest court number, from the state proceeding that would look largest if it were stacked onto a living estimate. The -$2 million is the living publisher figure, from the site that would need a method to defend it. They are not added. They do not cancel each other. A judgment can sit on a balance sheet without being the same object as a compiler’s net worth, and a compiler’s net worth is not a finding that the judgment has been paid, unpaid, collected or written down.
The Ninth Circuit case is not the $3.5 million
A separate federal action, filed in the Central District of California as No. 2:24-cv-03455-MRA-JPR, is the case Celebrity Net Worth compresses into “related federal litigation” and “approximately another $68,000 in attorneys’ fees.” The Ninth Circuit’s own memorandum opinion in Quaid v. Granet, Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026, filed 13 May 2026, is that appeal. Circuit Judges Rawlinson, Friedland and VanDyke affirmed.
What the memorandum actually holds, in that order: the district court’s dismissal with prejudice stands; the Quaids’ privacy claims against the Turicchi defendants, the Fidelity defendants and Williams are barred by California’s litigation privilege; the claims against the Santa Barbara County defendants fail the Government Claims Act; the slander-of-title claim against Berman was dismissed with prejudice as already adjudicated; and the district court’s order declaring the Quaids vexatious litigants and awarding attorneys’ fees to defendant-appellee Berman is affirmed because the opening brief did not challenge those rulings. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise (14 May 2026) reported the same memorandum the next day as Quaid v. Granet, 25-270.
The memorandum does not print $68,000, or any other fee total. The dollar remains Celebrity Net Worth’s figure for that federal file. We are not going to put CNW’s $68,000 in the Ninth Circuit’s mouth, and we are not going to fold the federal fee into the $3,502,347 as if Division Six and the Ninth Circuit had issued one order. Two courts. Two case numbers. Two subjects: a state property judgment, and a federal dismissal-plus-vexatious-litigant fee award. Same broader house fight. Not the same object, and not a third living net worth.
January 2000: already underwater, and still working
Celebrity Net Worth says Randy and Evi filed for bankruptcy in Los Angeles in January 2000, listing roughly $3.4 million in assets and $3.5 million in debts, and that the case stayed open until 2005. That is a closed historical inventory, not a 2026 net worth. It also undercuts the old page’s $10 million for the year 2000. A man can be a working actor with seven-figure pay-years and still be underwater on a petition. Celebrity Net Worth itself uses the filing that way: the later hole did not begin only after 2010.
The same page says they reportedly owed the IRS about $412,000 and faced California tax liens of more than $207,000. Those are collector claims from the bankruptcy period as that site reports them. They are not added to the -$2 million, and they are not treated as if Celebrity Net Worth had itemised them inside that estimate.
Pay-years, including the backend that was never documented
Celebrity Net Worth has historically tracked $1 million plus 5% of gross for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, $2.3 million for Kingpin, $1.3 million for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and $1 million for Goya’s Ghosts. A salary is a pay-year. It is not what he owns minus what he owes in 2026, and it is not evidence that residuals from those titles have been published as a total. Celebrity Net Worth says residual income has never been publicly disclosed. We are not going to invent it.
On Christmas Vacation, the same page is explicit: the contractual definition of “gross,” and therefore how much the 5% became, has never been publicly documented. The previous temptation on pages like this is to multiply a holiday classic into a secret fortune. The source that printed the formula is the source that says the cheque was never shown. We are stopping where it stops.
Celebrity Net Worth’s prose says those four upfront paycheques alone total $5.6 million, before any backend. Its own “Career Earnings” table on the same page totals $5.5 million. We are printing $5.6 million and $5.5 million as two wordings of the same site adding the same four numbers. We are not picking one and calling the other a typo, and we are not treating either sum as net worth.
After Brokeback Mountain, Celebrity Net Worth says he sued Focus Features and the producers for at least $10 million, stating he had waived a customary seven-figure fee plus a percentage of gross; he later withdrew; representatives said a bonus was agreed; the studio disputed that a settlement had been negotiated; the amount was never disclosed. Wikipedia records that he sued over a below-market rate and a misrepresented commercial prospect, without printing the $10 million. A withdrawn claim is not a recovery. It is also not proof of his “normal market rate” as a current fortune.
The credits, without treating box office as a paycheck
Randy Randall Rudy Quaid was born on 1 October 1950 in Houston, per Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia. He is 75 as of September 2026. Wikipedia is the compiled credits list: The Last Picture Show (1971); an Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nomination for The Last Detail (1973); Midnight Express; Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon’s Vacation films; a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for LBJ: The Early Years (1987); Independence Day (1996); Brokeback Mountain (2005); an Emmy nomination for Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis (2005). Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia both put the career above 90 screen credits. Those are biography. They do not generate a dollar we can add to the -$2 million.
Where Celebrity Net Worth prints film grosses — more than $800 million worldwide for Independence Day, roughly $178 million for Brokeback Mountain — those are studio numbers. They are not Randy Quaid’s salary, backend or residual statement.
Celebrity Net Worth has a 2024 return in The Christmas Letter opposite Chevy Chase, and says there is no indication that recent acting income has approached the seven-figure pay-years. That is a negative: no published recent salary. It is not a figure we can use.
Legal history is not a finance story
The innkeeper case, the 2010 Santa Barbara arrest, the Canadian asylum attempt, the Vermont extradition fight and the “Star Whackers” claims are extensively documented as legal and criminal history. Wikipedia and Celebrity Net Worth both treat them that way. They are not a method for a net worth, they are not a valuation of a film, and they are not Dennis Quaid’s money. This page does not use the conspiracy label as an earnings category, and it does not attach a dollar figure to his brother’s career.
What those files do have, as money, is already in the table: a hotel bill worded as $10,000 or as exceeding $10,000; surety bail as high as $500,000 apiece, which Celebrity Net Worth itself says must not be read as cash he lost; an Actors’ Equity order of more than $81,000; the $3,502,347 state judgment; and a separate federal fee that Celebrity Net Worth puts at about $68,000. Wikipedia, on Lone Star Love, matches the “more than $81,000” fine and the lifetime ban.
What this page cannot tell you
We cannot tell you that the -$2 million is right. Celebrity Net Worth does not show its work, and Forbes never entered the comparison. We cannot tell you that the old page’s -$1 million is wrong by a specific amount; that number was never sourced. We cannot tell you that the $3,502,347 has been paid, or that it is already inside the -$2 million, or that it sits on top of it. We cannot tell you that the Ninth Circuit’s fee award is $68,000; that dollar is Celebrity Net Worth’s, not the memorandum’s. We cannot tell you what the Christmas Vacation 5% became. We cannot tell you what residuals from a ninety-credit career add up to. We cannot tell you that $500,000 in bail face was cash out of his pocket. We cannot tell you what the Burlington house would sell for, or what is left on the $280,725 mortgage.
We can tell you what one publisher estimated, on which dates; what this site used to print instead; what a 2000 bankruptcy listed; which pay-years have names; that the backend was never documented; that a July 2026 state opinion affirmed a $3,502,347 judgment; and that a May 2026 Ninth Circuit memorandum affirmed a different case’s dismissal, vexatious-litigant order and fees to Berman. That is less than the previous page promised. It is also the first version that does not spend a decade of invented millions, or two court files, as if they were one living fortune.
Career timeline
| Year | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 October 1950 | Born, Houston. 75 as of September 2026 | Celebrity Net Worth; Wikipedia |
| 1971–1973 | The Last Picture Show; Oscar/Globe/BAFTA nominations for The Last Detail | Wikipedia; Celebrity Net Worth |
| 1983–1989 | Cousin Eddie. Christmas Vacation: $1 million plus 5% of gross; backend never documented | Celebrity Net Worth |
| January 2000 | Bankruptcy: about $3.4 million assets vs $3.5 million debts. Case open until 2005 | Celebrity Net Worth |
| 2005 | Brokeback Mountain. Later suit for at least $10 million; withdrawn; amount never disclosed | Celebrity Net Worth; Wikipedia (suit, not the $10 million) |
| 2007–2008 | Lone Star Love; Equity ban; more than $81,000 ordered | Celebrity Net Worth; Wikipedia |
| 2009 | San Ysidro bill, $10,000 / exceeding $10,000. Felony against Randy dismissed | Wikipedia; Celebrity Net Worth |
| 2010–2015 | Santa Barbara arrest; Canada; Vermont. Legal history, not a wealth method | Wikipedia; Celebrity Net Worth |
| 2022 | Burlington house; mortgage $280,725 | Celebrity Net Worth |
| Santa Barbara Superior Court 19CV06268 | Turicchi et al. vs Quaid et al. Trial-court file for the state property case | Santa Barbara Superior Court public docket |
| 13 May 2026 | Ninth Circuit memorandum, Quaid v. Granet, Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026: dismissal, vexatious-litigant order and Berman fees affirmed. No dollar in the memo. CNW: about $68,000 | 9th Cir. memorandum; Metropolitan News-Enterprise, 14 May 2026; Celebrity Net Worth (the $68,000) |
| April 2025 / 28 July 2026 | Slander-of-title trial; $3,502,347 affirmed, Turicchi v. Quaid, B346952 | Metropolitan News-Enterprise; Law360; Celebrity Net Worth |
| 1 June 2020 / 1 September 2026 | Celebrity Net Worth at -$2 million | Celebrity Net Worth |
How we research this page
Every figure on this page is attributed to the organisation that published it, with the date it was published, because estimates from different publishers are not interchangeable and they go stale at different speeds.
We used Celebrity Net Worth, first published 1 June 2020 and last updated 1 September 2026, for the -$2 million estimate, the 2000 bankruptcy inventory, the reported tax liens, the named film salaries, both of its $5.6 million / $5.5 million salary-sum wordings, the undocumented Christmas Vacation backend, the Brokeback demand, the Equity fine as that site prints it, the surety-bail caution, the Vermont mortgage, the state judgment breakdown as compiled there, the state rehearing sentence and the “about $68,000” federal-fee figure. We checked Forbes and found no profile.
For the state judgment we did not stop at that compilation. The Santa Barbara Superior Court public docket confirms No. 19CV06268, R. Scott Turicchi et al. vs Randy Quaid et al. Law360, 28 July 2026, is the same-day legal-press report of the Court of Appeal affirmance; from here the piece is paywalled after the lead, so we cite only the outcome in that lead. Metropolitan News-Enterprise, 29 July 2026, is the open-access account of the same unpublished opinion, including the $3,502,347 schedule and B346952.
For the federal file we opened the Ninth Circuit’s 13 May 2026 memorandum in Quaid v. Granet, Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026, and Metropolitan News-Enterprise’s 14 May 2026 report of that memorandum. The memo affirms dismissal, the vexatious-litigant declaration and fees to Berman. It does not state $68,000. Wikipedia’s article on Quaid is the compiled biography for credits, age, the innkeeper wording, the Equity ban and the existence of the Brokeback suit. Wikipedia, in the passages we opened, does not print the -$2 million or the $3,502,347.
We do not average conflicting figures, we do not convert a paycheck, a bankruptcy schedule, a tax lien, a lawsuit demand, a surety bond or a civil judgment into a living net worth, and we do not treat an unsourced -$1 million on our own previous page as a second publisher. Where Celebrity Net Worth says $5.6 million in prose and $5.5 million in a table, we print both. Where it says a hotel bill exceeded $10,000 and Wikipedia says $10,000, we print both. We do not add the state judgment to the -$2 million, and we do not merge the Ninth Circuit fee award into the $3,502,347.
Access limits, disclosed. Forbes blocks many article paths; that does not matter here, because there is no Forbes profile to read. Law360’s full article did not load past the lead from this environment. The official California slip opinion on courts.ca.gov was not retrieved as a separate PDF from here, so the state holding is cited through Law360’s lead and the Metropolitan News-Enterprise report, which quotes the opinion. Metropolitan News-Enterprise’s Mendocino caption on the state house is not used. The Ninth Circuit memorandum does not include a fee dollar; that amount stays with Celebrity Net Worth.
From the previous version of this page we removed the unsourced -$1 million, the $5 million / $10 million / $2 million / $0 staircase, the treatment of residuals as a published total, Star Whackers as a finance story, any stacking of Dennis Quaid’s career onto this balance sheet, and the use of film grosses as proof of current net worth. The -$2 million we kept, in the tense and on the dates Celebrity Net Worth used. Our approach is described in more detail on our About Us page.
Frequently asked questions
What does Celebrity Net Worth say Randy Quaid is worth, and when?
Celebrity Net Worth, first published 1 June 2020 and last updated 1 September 2026, estimates -$2 million. Forbes has no profile. The previous version of this page said -$1 million in 2026. That is a different number with no publisher. We are not averaging those, and we are not treating a September 2026 update stamp as a documented 2026 appraisal.
Is a film salary his net worth?
No. Celebrity Net Worth’s named pay-years — $1 million plus 5% of gross for Christmas Vacation, $2.3 million for Kingpin, $1.3 million for Pluto Nash, $1 million for Goya’s Ghosts — are what he was reported to have been paid for those jobs. A pay-year is flow. Residuals from the rest of the catalogue have never been published as a total. None of those sentences is what he owns minus what he owes.
What is the $3,502,347 judgment versus the -$2 million?
Different objects. The $3,502,347 is a California slander-of-title award against Randy and Evi Quaid in Santa Barbara Superior Court No. 19CV06268, affirmed on 28 July 2026 in Turicchi v. Quaid, B346952, as reported by Law360 that day and by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise the next. The -$2 million is Celebrity Net Worth’s unexplained living estimate. A separate Ninth Circuit memorandum in Quaid v. Granet, Nos. 25-270 and 25-1026 (13 May 2026), affirmed a federal dismissal, a vexatious-litigant order and fees to Berman; that is not the $3.5 million. This page does not add any of those figures, and it does not treat them as proof the others are right or wrong.
What did the 2000 bankruptcy list?
Celebrity Net Worth: about $3.4 million in assets against $3.5 million in debts, filed in January 2000 in Los Angeles, case open until 2005. That is a 26-year-old inventory from a period when he was still working. It is not current net worth, and it is not the old page’s unsourced $10 million for the year 2000.
Was the Christmas Vacation backend documented?
No. Celebrity Net Worth prints $1 million plus 5% of gross, then says the definition of gross, and therefore the actual participation, has never been publicly documented. We are not going to invent the cheque the source says was never shown.
How old is Randy Quaid as of September 2026?
He is 75 as of September 2026. He was born Randy Randall Rudy Quaid on 1 October 1950 in Houston, according to Celebrity Net Worth and Wikipedia.
Bottom line
Randy Quaid is worth -$2 million according to one publisher, first in June 2020 and still on that page in September 2026, using a method that publisher does not describe. This site used to print -$1 million for 2026 and a decade of unsourced millions on the way down. Those are not a range. They are a named estimate and numbers we should not have added.
What holds up without the staircase is smaller and more useful. A 2000 petition that was already underwater. Named pay-years, and a holiday backend the same source says was never documented. Surety paper that is not cash out. A July 2026 state opinion that left a $3,502,347 judgment in place. A May 2026 Ninth Circuit memorandum that left a different case’s dismissal and Berman fees in place. Neither file is a second living fortune. And an FAQ that no longer needs a brother’s career, or a conspiracy nickname, to look finished.
