Frank Gifford Net Worth
At the time of his passing, Frank Gifford was an American football player and sportscaster who amassed a net worth of sixty million dollars before his passing. That was the total net worth that he shared with his wife, Kathie Lee Gifford.
Frank Gifford passed away on August 9, 2015, when he was 84 years old. According to the terms of his will, Frank’s liquid assets were worth a total of ten million dollars. In addition, he was the sole owner of a mansion in Connecticut worth a combined total of $22 million, which he owned jointly with his wife.
Gifford was a receiver and running back with the New York Giants from 1952 until 1960 and again from 1962 until 1964. During his time with the Giants, he participated in eight Pro Bowls and made five trips to the NFL Championship Game. Following his induction into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2012, Frank served as a commentator and play-by-play announcer for the ABC programme “Monday Night Football” for a total of 27 years.
As an actor, he had roles in the movies “Up Periscope” (1959), “Viva Knievel!” (1977), and “Jerry Maguire” (1996). He also had guest-starring roles on the television shows “Captain Kangaroo” (1962), “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1976), “Webster” (1984), “Coach” (1995; 1996), and “Spin City” (1997).
Additionally, he participated in multiple episodes of “Password The titles of the books that Gifford published include “Gifford on Courage” (1976), “The Whole Ten Yards” (1993), and “The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever” (2008).
Frank Gifford Early Life
Francis Newton Gifford was born to Frank Gifford on August 16, 1930 in the city of Santa Monica, in the state of California. He was raised in a family that also included his sisters Frances and Winona, as well as his brother Waine, by his mother Lola and his father Weldon, who worked in the oil industry. After graduating from what is now known as Bakersfield High School, Frank enrolled in Bakersfield Junior College to continue his education.
Bakersfield Junior College was formerly known as Kern County Union High School. Kathie Lee Gifford, who was married to Frank Gifford, disclosed after his passing that the Gifford family struggled financially during Frank’s childhood and that they were forced to eat dog food on occasion. She also mentioned that during the Great Depression, Gifford’s father had trouble finding job, which resulted in the family moving approximately thirty times before Frank entered high school.
Frank Gifford College Career
Gifford’s desire was to attend the University of Southern California (USC), but because his grade point average was too low to qualify for a football scholarship there, he ended up attending Bakersfield Junior College instead and playing football there for one season.
In addition to being selected for the Junior College All-America squad while he was attending Bakersfield, his academic performance was strong enough to earn him admission to USC. In his final season of college football at USC, Frank carried for 841 yards on 195 rushes, earning him All-American honours and a spot in the USC record books. As a student at USC, he became a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, and he went on to earn his degree in 1952.
Frank Gifford NFL Career
Gifford began his career with the New York Giants in 1952 and played both defence and offence for the team. In 1956, he was awarded the Most Valuable Player trophy by the National Football League (NFL) and was instrumental in the team’s victory over the Chicago Bears, which earned them the NFL championship.
In the year 1960, Frank had a severe head injury as a result of being knocked out during a game by Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles. The year after that, he took his retirement, but in 1962, he came back to the squad and played for them again, but this time he was a flanker instead of a running back. Gifford was a member of the Giants for a total of 136 games during the regular season during his time there.
He was selected to participate in the Pro Bowl each year from 1953 until 1959, and then again in 1963. In addition, he was named to the First Team All-Pro in 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1959. He also played in the Pro Bowl each year. Frank officially hung up his cleats in 1964, and the Giants honoured him by retiring his number 16 jersey in the year 2000.
Frank Gifford Broadcasting Career
Following his retirement from football, Gifford transitioned into a career as a broadcaster for CBS, where he covered football, basketball, and golf. ABC intended to employ Frank for “Monday Night Football” when it premiered in 1970, but because his contract with CBS still had a year left on it, the network picked his friend Don Meredith instead.
Gifford recommended Meredith to the network. In 1971, Frank was hired to serve as the play-by-play announcer for “Monday Night Football,” and he continued in that capacity until 1997.
In the year 1986, Frank was promoted to the position of colour commentator, while Al Michaels was given the role of play-by-play announcer. Gifford gave colour commentary alongside O.J. Simpson and Lynn Swann in 1986, and then he was joined by Dan Dierdorf for the rest of his time on the show.
After that, Gifford left the show. Boomer Esiason took over the broadcast booth after Frank’s affair and subsequent scandal in 1997. The next year, in 1998, Esiason participated in the pregame programme for ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” but the show only lasted for one season. Gifford also hosted coverage of the National Football League (NFL) on Channel 4 in England in 1986. Additionally, he served as a pundit and reporter for ABC’s coverage of the Olympics, golf, and skiing.
In the 1970s, he served as the announcer for Evel Knievel’s jumps on the ABC series “Wide World of Sports,” and he also served as a guest host on “Good Morning America,” which is when he first became acquainted with Kathie Lee.
Frank Gifford Personal Life
His college girlfriend, Maxine Avis Ewart, proposed on January 13, 1952, and the couple married the following year. They went on to have three children together: Jeff, Kyle, and Victoria. At the time of Michael LeMoyne Kennedy’s death in 1997, reports that he had an affair with the family’s teenage babysitter led to their divorce.
Victoria had married Robert F. Kennedy’s son Michael in 1981. Astrid Lindley, a personal trainer, and Frank were married on March 11, 1978. After their divorce in 1986, they remarried on October 18, 1986, to Kathie Lee Johnson (née Epstein). Cody was born on March 22, 1990, and Cassidy was born on August 2, 1993, to the couple.
On one occasion, in 1997, the “Globe” tabloid magazine paid Suzen Johnson, a former flight attendant, to seduce Robert Gifford in a hotel room equipped with secret recording equipment.
After the images were released by the tabloid, “”There’s a difference between reporting the news and generating the news,” editor Steve Coz of the National Enquirer said. Catching an A-lister in the act is one thing; inducing or trapping them is quite another. Without the ‘Globe,’ there would be no plot to this story at all.
I’m a tabloid journalist, and this is ridiculous. It’s a slap in the face.” Johnson was apparently paid between $75,000 and $125,000 by the “Globe,” according to reports. Carson’s second wife Joanne allegedly had an affair with Gifford in the early ’70s according to Johnny Carson’s former lawyer Henry Bushkin.
Frank Gifford Death
On August 9, 2015, at the age of 84, Frank died of natural causes at his Greenwich, Connecticut, home. After a few months, Gifford’s family reported that he had been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease that can only be diagnosed after death.
In their words, “A sad decision was made by our family after we lost our dear Frank Gifford, our beloved husband and father, and we hoped that by studying Frank’s brain, we may contribute to the progress of medical research into the link between football and brain injury… It’s hard not to miss him every day, but we take solace in the fact that by revealing his condition, we’ll be a little part of the solution to a pressing issue that affects everyone involved in football at any level, and that we’ll be able to make a positive contribution to the ongoing conversation.”
Awards And Honours
Sports Emmys presented Gifford with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997; he won the Outstanding Host or Commentator Award for the 1976-1977 season. As host of “NFL Monday Night Football,” he received two Primetime Emmy nominations in 1974 and 1976 for Outstanding Sports Programming.
After receiving the Pete Rozelle Radio-TV Award in 1995, the Disney Legends Award in 2008, and the 2017 posthumous induction into the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) Hall of Fame, Frank was honoured posthumously in 2018. He was an All-American in college football in 1951 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975 as well as the Athletic Hall of Fame at the University of Southern California in 1977.. (1994).
Eight times, Gifford was selected to the Pro Bowl, and he was named NFL MVP (1956) and Pro Bowl MVP (1956). (1959). A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he served as honorary co-captain of the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl XLVIII team in 1977.
Frank Gifford Property
They built a $3.9 million Key Largo, Florida, home in 1998. For $10.5 million in March 2018, Kathie Lee put her 11,419 square foot, eight-bedroom home on the market. The Nantucket mansion cost the couple $5.8 million in 1999. A few months later, they sold a smaller house in the region for $1.5 million because they decided to move to a waterfront property instead.
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