Celebrity Salaries: Then & Now

Ever imagine Don Draper serving sandwiches? Actor Jon Hamm, 41, spent much of the 1990s going on auditions and waiting tables (earning $14,350) to pay the rent. He now earns $2.3 million for his role on AMC's Mad Men [for which he's paid $175,000 per episode]. "I loved the original script, but i thought, 'Who's going to watch this kind of show on some random cable channel?'" Millions of people, it turns out.

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Before she became an American Idol, Carrie Underwood was slinging slices as a part-time waitress at Ella’s Pizza Joint while she attended Northeastern State University in Oklahoma. The country star now earns a whopping $20 million.


As a struggling actor in the 1980s, Steve Buscemi, 54, worked as New York City firefighter [and, at various points, as a dishwasher and an ice cream truck driver], earning $22,700 before he went on to star on Boardwalk Empire, bringing home $75,000 per episode.


Fist Pump! Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, 24, currently earns $1.6 million on Jersey Shore; In 2009, Snooki earned $45,000. With her mini-empire of self-branded products, the mom-to-be will likely enjoy an even bigger windfall next year.

Growing up outside Atlanta, Ryan Seacrest dreamed of one day being a successful broadcaster like Dick Clark, and “from the time I was 15 or 16 years old, every single thing I did, every single day of my life, was to get closer to that dream.” In 1995, Ryan Seacrest, then age 20, earned  $10,800 as a radio host. Now, Seacrest earns $15 million as the Host of a little enterprise called American Idol.

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