Alec Guinness Star Wars Royalties

British actor Alec Guinness did not take a flat fee for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars." Instead, he received 0.45% of the films’ gross profits, a deal some people considered foolhardy at the time. Nine days after "Star Wars" opened in 1977, he wrote in his diary that he was pinning his hopes on his "Star Wars" percentage deal. He estimated it could bring him 100,000 pounds or more if the film did "Jaws" business, as people had predicted. The deal paid far beyond that, with Guinness later estimated to have earned about $95 million for roughly 20 minutes of screen time as Obi-Wan Kenobi, while his family continued to receive royalties 20 years after his death in 2000.

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