TV’s $45 million woman says she’s just a regular Brooklyn gal at heart.
Judge Judy Sheindlin is once again at the top of TV Guide’s annual “Who Earns What” survey, but when the Daily News caught up with her, she was not doing anything particularly rich.
“Right now I am shopping in Kmart in Wyoming,” she said, “for leather cleaner to get a pen mark off my car seat.”
After making the five-and-dime purchase, she added, she was going home to scrub the seat clean. Herself.
This is not to say the Brooklyn gal hasn’t spent any of her money, which has built to what Forbes estimates at more than a $100 million fortune.
She and her husband Jerry live in Naples, Fla., where she bought a $6.9 million condo in 2005.
During the warm seasons, they migrate with the snowbirds to Greenwich, Ct., where they own a 24,000-square-foot mansion with 13 bathrooms,26-foot ceilings, a home theater for 50 and a 3,150-square-foot master bedroom.
For a pied-a-terre in New York, she bought a 3,100-square-foot, $6.75 million apartment in the Sherry Netherland in 2009.
When she travels to Los Angeles twice a month to tape the show, she stays in a hotel — but can use her private jet to get there.
But the 69-year-old Sheindlin has hardly gone Hollywood, friends say, preferring to spend her time at one of her homes or with her five children and 11, soon to be 12, grandchildren.
“When you do this long enough, you learn what’s really important in your life,” she told USA Today in 2010. “That’s family. I mean, when it comes down to it, it’s just TV.”
Appointed to the Family Court bench in 1982 by Mayor Ed Koch, she acquired a reputation as an impatient jurist with a low tolerance for nonsense.
She retired in 1996, salary $113,000, and that same year signed for the TV show, where her wisecracking style and no-nonsense approach made her a winner.
She was also shrewd enough to get paid for all this, negotiating up her salary by pointing out how much money the show was making for everyone else.
Her $45 million puts her well ahead of everyone else on TV, according to the annual TV Guide list that will be published Thursday.
Second-place David Letterman from CBS clocks in at $28 million, followed by Jay Leno of NBC at $25 million, Matt Lauer of “The Today Show” at $21.5 million, and Kelly Ripa at $20 million — reportedly the same as Sheindlin’s fellow judge Joe Brown.
In contrast, the highest paid actor in a scripted drama is Mark Harmon of CBS’s “NCIS,” at $500,000 an episode or $11 million for a full season.
Mariska Hargitay of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU” is second with $385,000 an episode, following by three “Grey’s Anatomy” stars on ABC, Sandra Oh, Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey, at $350,000 an episode each.
The top two sitcom earners, by a wide margin, are on the same CBS show, “Two and a Half Men.”
Ashton Kutcher rings in at $700,000 an episode and Jon Cryer gets $600,000.
Their closest competitor is Tina Fey of NBC’s “30 Rock,” at $350,000.
Actors in scripted shows, TV Guide says, earn less than they did a few years ago – partly because of the influx of actors from the movies, which have cut back on character dramas, and from theater.
So while Jon Hamm of AMC’s “Mad Men” earns $250,000 an episode, Lea Michele of the high-buzz “Glee” on Fox earns a relatively modest $75,000 and Zooey Deschanel of “New Girl,” also on Fox, $95,000.
Neil Patrick Harris earns $210,000 an episode for CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother,” while Michael C. Hall earns $295,000 for Showtime’s “Dexter,” and Claire Danes earns $110,000 for Showtime’s “Homeland.”
Lucy Liu will earn $125,000 for CBS’s “Elementary” this fall, while Kaley Cuoco and Jim Parsons will each earn $300,000 an episode for CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory.”
That’s the same pay Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner get for lending just their voices to Fox’s long-running animated hit, “The Simpsons.”
The bigger bucks these days, says TV Guide, are going to reality and personality shows.
Mariah Carey just signed for $17 million as a judge on Fox’s “American Idol,” vaulting her past the $15 million Howard Stern gets for judging NBC’s “American’s Got Talent” and the $10 million Britney Spears will be paid to judge “X Factor” this year.
They’re all well ahead of the judges on NBC’s “The Voice,” where Christina Aguilera gets $225,000 an episode and her three cohorts, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green make $100,000.
Ryan Seacrest makes $15 million a year for hosting “Idol,” and the old reliable Kardashian family clocks in at $10 million.
Conversely, the Landry Family of “Swamp People” on History get just $25,000 an episode.
In the news game, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News is second to Lauer in this survey, earning $15 million a year.
Brian Williams of NBC tops the broadcast network nightly news anchors at $13 million, followed by Diane Sawyer of ABC at $12 million and Scott Pelley of CBS down at $4 million.
Anderson Cooper of CNN earns a reported $11 million, while other morning show personalities include Robin Roberts of ABC at $6 million and Lara Spencer of ABC at $1.5 million.
Other late-night hosts include Jon Stewart of Comedy Central at $16 million, Jimmy Kimmel of ABC at $8 million, Jimmy Fallon of NBC at $5 million and Conan O’Brien of TBS at $12 million.
Stephen Battaglio, coauthor of the TV Guide report, notes that strictly speaking, Simon Cowell of Fox’s “X Factor” makes more than $45 million a year from television — $90 million, according to Forbes. But much of that comes from producing and owning the show.
Sheindlin grew up on Ocean Ave. in Sheepshead Bay, the daughter of a dentist. She attended James Madison High and returned to the city to graduate from NYU Law School in 1965.
And she still doesn’t really want to talk about the money. “My blessing,” she said Wednesday, “is that I have a great family and am enjoying good health.”
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
