From Child Star to Billionaire: How the ‘Air Force One’ Kid Turned Hollywood Fame into a $2.1 Billion Fortune!
Added on October 3, 2026 inFree CelebrityNews
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In a cinematic universe where Harrison Ford takes on the role of a president battling adversity aboard Air Force One, one could argue that the real drama lies not in his heroics but in the astonishing wealth dynamics of the film’s cast. With Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, and William H Macy sharing the screen, you’d think the richest actor would be among them. But wait—enter Liesel Pritzker Simmons, a child star from the movie who’s now worth an eye-popping $2.1 billion! Think about it—how many actors can say that their wealth primarily stems from legal battles against their own family? As planets align in today’s celestial dance, it’s fascinating to consider how fortune can shift dramatically, like a plot twist in a gripping film. Just like those cosmic uncertainties, the story of Simmons entwines wealth, familial ties, and a journey through Hollywood’s glitzy yet treacherous terrain. Curious to dive deeper into this riveting tale? LEARN MORE.
Air Force One has an absolutely stacked cast for a film in which Harrison Ford plays a president trapped in a Die Hard style situation on a plane, but it’s fair to say that he isn’t even close to the wealthiest member of that cast.
Ford is joined by Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, and William H Macy, but none of them come close to the net worth of child star Liesel Matthews, who is now known as Liesel Pritzker Simmons.
Simmons is, according to Forbes at the time of writing, worth a whopping $2.1 billion which puts her in the very upper echelons of former actors.
Unlike some of the highest paid actors like Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise however, her money comes nearly entirely from moves she made after leaving Hollywood in 2000.
Initially however, the biggest bump in her net worth came when she sadly ended up having to sue her own family over them mismanaging her earnings.
She starred in Air Force One as the daughter of Harrison Ford’s character, and is now worth substantially more than him (Columbia Pictures)
Simmons was a very successful child star considering she only appeared in three films, starring as Ford’s daughter Alice Marshall in Air Force One, but also appearing in A Little Princess and Blast.
That said, her earnings for appearing in those three films did not quite equal the $500 million fortune she ended up winning when she sued her father and wider family.
Simmons is the daughter of Robert Pritzker, a member of the uber-wealthy Pritzker family whose fortune comes from founding the Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
In 1989 Robert and Simmon’s mother Irene became divorced, leading to her and her brother Matthew becoming the subject of arguments over custody between her parents.
Ultimately Irene won custody of them both, but her father reportedly invested her and Matthew’s trust funds into the family’s corporation. When the family chose to split up this money she and Matthew were left out, leading them to sue her father, uncle, and cousins, for $6 billion, with her and her brother earning half a billion each from the settlement.
Simmons is now a prominent name in the venture capital world (Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
Speaking to Forbes about her experience of winning the lawsuit, which took place when she was a student at Columbia university, she said she had initially planned to be an actor in New York.
She ended up preferring her classes on African studies however and, when the high profile lawsuit went through, needed to get away from the notoriety. She explained that she moved to Dharamshala in India, saying: “When you go someplace where you’re completely foreign to anybody, you’re just there.
“You’re seen for who you are and not for all of the Googling behind you, so to speak.”
She joked that she knew she was a ‘cliché’ because she volunteered and taught yoga to rehabilitate drug addicts.
Matthews in 1995 and 2024 (Steve Liss/Getty Images / YouTube)
Her experience of witnessing poverty firsthand in both India and later Tanzania led her to become involved in ‘impact investing’, a form of investment where financiers aim to make positive social change whilst still profiting themselves.
She set up the venture capital fund ‘Blue Haven Initiative’ with her husband, with whom she shares two daughters, which invests in iniatives such as one that takes dried out human fecal matter and turns it into burnable fuel, as well as general investment in climate and clean energy infrastructure.
Now worth $2.1 billion and the 2017th richest person in the world, she told Forbes: “I didn’t earn this money and I’ll be damned if I’m going to screw it up!”
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