Sarah Jessica Parker: About Her Early Life, Career, Net Worth, And Salary

Sarah Jessica Parker is an American actress and television producer who was born on March 25, 1965. She has received numerous honors, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards. She was listed among the top 100 important persons in the world by Time magazine in 2022.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is well-known for playing the character of Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she received two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. The character gained enormous popularity when the show was airing and was subsequently hailed as one of the best female characters in American television.

In the subsequent movies Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010) as well as the television series And Just Like That… (2021–present), she played the character again.

Read More On: Roxy Sternberg: Interesting Facts About Her

Early Life

The daughter of Barbara Parker, a nursery school director, and educator, and Stephen Parker, a businessman, and journalist, Sarah Jessica Parker was born in Nelsonville, Ohio. She was one of eight children born to her parents’ first marriage and her mother’s second union, along with Pippin Parker and Timothy Britten Parker, who are also actors. When Parker was three and a half years old, her parents separated, and shortly after, her mother wed Paul Forste, a truck driver and account executive. Jewish and a native of Brooklyn, Parker’s father originally went by the name “Bar-Kahn” (“son of Kohen”).

Through her mother, Parker is descended from Esther Elwell, one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. Parker’s mother is of German and perhaps English ancestry. Despite not having received any formal religious education, Parker has culturally connected with her father’s religion, Judaism. She has said that her mother imitated a New York lifestyle even when the family was residing in Cincinnati. Due to financial hardships, Parker’s parents frequently had to turn off the electricity or force their large family to skip birthday and holiday celebrations.

She has nonetheless said: “I wouldn’t change any of it, for anything … for the most part, we had everything we needed. Not always, but for the most part.” Parker’s mother instilled culture and extracurricular activities in her children and frequently took them to Cincinnati’s free public institutions like the ballet and theater so they may lead “full, rich lives.”

Parker had dancing and singing instruction as a young child, and she was soon cast in the Broadway production of William Archibald’s play The Innocents. In order for her to receive specialized instruction, her family first relocated to Cincinnati and subsequently to Dobbs Ferry, New York, which is close to New York City. There, Parker’s mother and stepfather assisted her in advancing her acting career as a young child.

The family relocated to Roosevelt Island in 1977, a newly developed planned community on the East River between Manhattan and Queens, and then to Manhattan. Parker attended Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey after the family later relocated there.

Sarah Jessica Parker attended the Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, the New York Professional Children’s School, and the School of American Ballet in New York City.

Career

The Sound of Music was performed by Parker and his four siblings at the outdoor Municipal Theatre (Muny) in St. Louis, Missouri. She was chosen for a role in the brand-new Broadway musical Annie, which ran from 1977 to 1981. Initially, she played the little part of “July,” then starting in March 1979, she succeeded Andrea McArdle and Shelley Bruce in the starring position of the Depression-era orphan. For one year, Parker was in charge. Parker landed the lead role in the CBS sitcom Square Pegs in 1982, but the show only ran for one season.

Critics praised her portrayal of a quiet adolescent who still had hidden depths. Parker was cast in four movies over the course of the next three years, with Footloose (1984) and Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), starring Helen Hunt, being the most notable. Parker made an appearance in the Disney science fiction movie Flight of the Navigator in 1986.

Sarah Jessica Parker made an appearance in the 1996 Tim Burton film Mars Attacks! as part of a big ensemble cast that included Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, and Pierce Brosnan. She played a chat-show host whose head gets replaced with that of her chihuahua by the alien invaders. Parker reconnected with Hocus Pocus co-star Bette Midler when playing a dim-witted but cunning fiancée in the romantic comedy The First Wives Club. The movie gained a cult following among middle-aged women and was a critical and financial triumph, earning US$105 million at the North American box office.

Sarah Jessica Parker reenacted her stage role from 1991 in her second 1996 release, The Substance of Fire. In the under-the-radar comedy ‘Til There Was You, Parker starred as a disillusioned former child actor in 1997.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker received the Sex and the City episode script from the HBO dramedy series. The show, which is based on Candace Bushnell’s 1997 book of the same name and is set in New York City, follows the lives of four women, three of whom are in their mid-thirties and one of whom is in her forties. Despite their different personalities and constantly shifting sex lives, the women remain inseparable and confide in one another. Parker consented to star in the project despite having some reservations about being chosen for a long-running television series since its creator, Darren Star, wanted her for it.

Read More On:Gerard Pique: What To Know About Shakira’s Ex-Husband And The Divorce

Each episode was based on the thoughts Carrie Bradshaw had as she wrote her fictional weekly column “Sex and the City” for the New York Star. She played the part of Carrie Bradshaw, the narrator, and protagonist.

Sarah Jessica Parker performance received favorable reviews both during the run of the show and in the years that followed. Her character gained a lot of acclaim while the show was airing and was later named one of the top female characters in American television. Bradshaw was recognized as an icon of the decade by The Guardian in 2009, noting that “Carrie Bradshaw did as much to shift the culture around certain women’s issues as real-life female groundbreakers.”  For her performance, Parker won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards.

After Sex and the City ended, there were rumors that it will be made into a movie. Production on the movie continued in 2007 and it was released on May 30th, 2008. 2010 saw the release of Sex and the City 2, the sequel. Despite mixed reviews from critics, both movies were financially rewarding. Parker and Hugh Grant later collaborated on the romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), in which they portrayed a newly split New York power couple who were about to get divorced when they witnessed a guy being murdered.

Although the movie had a mediocre box office performance, Parker was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, and Roger Ebert, who gave the movie a negative review, stated: “I grant you Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker evoke charm in the right screenplay. This is the wrong screenplay”.

Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Broderick appeared for two weeks in a revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite in February 2020 at Boston’s Colonial Theatre. Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, the Hudson Theatre was to host preview performances in March 2020, followed by the formal premiere in April 2020. Following multiple delays, it is now anticipated that the previews will start on February 28, 2022, with the formal launch scheduled for March 28, 2022.

The Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That…, was approved by HBO Max in January 2021. The initial season began airing on December 9, 2021.

Personal Life

From 1984 through 1991, Sarah Parker was romantically involved with actor Robert Downey Jr. They met while filming Firstborn. Downey struggled with drugs, which harmed their union. “I assumed I was the one holding him together,” Parker has admitted. Later, she had a brief romance with John F. Kennedy Jr. On May 19, 1997, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Parker wed actor Matthew Broderick in an Episcopal ceremony officiated by Janet Broderick Kraft, Broderick’s sister.

At the Naked Angels theater company, where Parker and Broderick both appeared, one of Parker’s brothers had introduced the couple. The Lower East Side of Manhattan’s historic synagogue served as the site of the couple’s civil wedding. James was born to them on October 28, 2002.

Marion and Tabitha Parker and Broderick’s twin daughters were delivered via surrogate on June 22, 2009. Elwell and Hodge, their respective middle names, come from Parker’s mother’s family, as Parker learned when investigating her lineage for the first episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, which was broadcast on March 5, 2010. She also learned through the appearance that she had relatives who were involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the California Gold Rush of 1849–1850.

Read More On:Eminem: All The Interesting Facts About Slim Shady

Sarah Jessica Parker has been in Greenwich Village since 2009 along with her husband and kids. According to rumors from 2017, the pair planned to integrate the two townhouses they had bought for $35 million on West 11th Street in 2016. Work on the properties would last into 2019.

In addition, the family spends a lot of time in their second house close to Kilcar, an Irish village in County Donegal where Broderick spent summers as a youngster.

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Net Worth and Salary

American actress, model, singer, and producer Sarah Jessica Parker is worth $200 million. Together, she and her long-term partner, actor Matthew Broderick, have a combined net worth of that amount.

In terms of pay per episode, Sarah currently holds the record for television. She established this record after getting a raise in pay and a producer credit before the fourth season of the show in 2001. Due to this agreement, Sara made $3.2 million for each episode for the show’s final three seasons, which ran from 2001 to 2004. During that time, she shot 46 episodes, which works up to $147 million for just those three seasons.

Sarah Jessica Parker essentially made $4.333 million per episode after accounting for inflation, which works out to $182 million over the course of the final three seasons.

Over the first three seasons and 48 episodes, Sarah made about $50 million, bringing her total earnings from the show to just under $200 million.

Sarah Jessica Parker received big paychecks for the two feature films as well, much to the dismay of her fellow cast members. For her first film, Sara made $15 million, and for her second, she made $20 million. Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, her co-stars in the first movie, each made $3 million.

For the 10-episode “And Just Like That” return in 2021… Each episode brought in $1 million for Sarah.

Real Estate

A New York City home cost Sarah and Matthew $18.995 million in March 2011. Before offering the home for $24.99 million in 2012, they spent millions refurbishing it. However, they were unable to find a buyer ready to cover their renovation costs. When their renovation costs were factored in, they were ultimately compelled to sell for just $18.25 million, swallowing a multi-million.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew lavished $34.5 million on two adjacent NYC townhouses in 2016. With 14,000 square feet of interior space, 2,100 square feet of exterior area, and 50 feet of street frontage, they united the properties to create a single, completely new home.

Read More On:Top 10 Hot Female Chess Players

They were working up a large real estate development project in New York while residing in a townhouse they had bought for $2.995 million back in 2000. They updated this building as well. For the majority of the 20 years between 2000 and 2002, they resided in this house. The couple put this townhouse up for sale for $19 million in January 2020. The final offloading process took exactly a year. In the end, they took the $15 million.

Additionally, they have two modest homes in Amagansett’s Hamptons region that they bought in 2006 for a combined $6.6 million. According to reports, Matthew spent his childhood vacations in a region of Ireland that is purportedly owned by Broderick and Parker.

Affiliate Disclosure: Purchases that are made using our links may earn us commissions from affiliate partners such as Amazon and other retailers.

Leave a Comment!