Della Reese Net Worth

#Fact1She collapsed on the set of Touched by an Angel (1994), and was hospitalized. [2000].2She contributed to her diabetes, after years of eating her old, nightly snacks of fried chicken, potato chips, ice cream, candy bars and cola.3The IRS Criminal Division began investigating the disappearance of nearly $2 million from vanishing church banking investments, as well as very questionable/misappropriation of church funds and not paying church employees their earned wages at Understanding Principles for Better Living. [2014].4Sold her Beverly Hills, California, mansion, on the market for $7.5 million. [7 November 2014].5She is using a wheelchair, after having 2 serious brain surgeries. [29 August 2016].6After her final guest-starring role on Signed, Sealed, Delivered (2014), she has retired from acting at age 84.7She is most widely known to be a social butterfly.8Is the first gospel singer to perform in Las Vegas.9Had nearly died of a stroke.10Every weekend for 9 seasons, she commuted from her Los Angeles house to Salt Lake City, Utah, to film Touched by an Angel (1994).11On a few episodes of Touched by an Angel (1994), her character sang, in real-life, she is also a singer.12Lives not too far from Marla Gibbs, in Inglewood, California.13She had rheumatoid fever, when she was only 2.14Reese had decided to become an actress, because when she was singing, she acted out the lyrics of the song, and emotions came towards her.15Every Christmas, when Reese was growing up, her mother had baked her favorite cake, made her favorite dinner, and made her crocheted items.16Her favorite subject in school was: Music.17Her favorite Touched by an Angel (1994) episode is each and every one of them.18Is a Republican.19Is a close friend of Cissy Houston and knows the entire Houston family, very well. She frequently gave Cissy permission to discuss their exchange.20Met Nipsey Russell at one of the clubs in New York City, where the two became good friends, until Russell's death in 2005.21Became a surrogate mother to Dr. James Barger, after he lost his own mother, in 1969.22Ed Sullivan was a favorite of hers.23Lived in West Chester, New York, from 1962 to 1969.24Before she was a successful actress, she became the director of the young's people's church choir.25Future Motown singer Martha Reeves sites Reese as a major influence, and said she named her group The Vandellas after Van Dyke Street in Detroit and Della Reese.26Was born in and grew up in the Black Bottom neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan.27Created the character of Tess in Touched by an Angel (1994).28Began acting at an early age.29A coupon collector from every Detroit church, Reese won a coupon-clipping contest sponsored by the local black paper, The Michigan Chronicle.30Began her show Touched by an Angel (1994) at age 63.31Her father was her mother's primary caregiver, while Della was in college.32Was a fan of both shows: The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) and The Ed Sullivan Show (1948).33Her eldest sister was age 20 when Della was born.34Of Cherokee ancestry.35Her popular song, 'Don't You Know?,' was adapted from Puccini's music for La Bohème, specifically, the aria Musetta's Waltz.36Worked with longtime friend, Marla Gibbs, on episodes of both series: 227 (1985) and Touched by an Angel (1994).37Was a fan of The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) and The Ed Sullivan Show (1948).38Childhood friend of Marla Gibbs.39Her song, 'Don't You Know?,' reached the #2 spot on the Pop Charts and topping the R&B charts in 1959, which were then called the 'Hot R&B Sides,' that year.40Acting mentor and friends of Roma Downey.41As of 2011, she was promoted from ordained minister to senior minister and founder of the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church, in Los Angeles, California.42Longtime friend of the late Rosa Parks, who attended her funeral on 2 November 2005. Just before her death, Parks guest-starred with her on Touched by an Angel (1994).43Her childhood friend, Marla Gibbs attended her 80th birthday party on 19 August 2011.44Met Merv Griffin when she was working in New York City doing a radio show. Basically, Helen Basiley wrote a song where Griffin began singing the weather report to this groove as did Reese herself, and was hired to co-host alongside him on his talk show in the 1960s.45Was a spokesperson for Campbell Soup Products in 1980.46Met Redd Foxx at a nightclub in Chicago, where they became best friends for 40 years.47Was a fan of The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) and Your Show of Shows (1950).48Had appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), 33 times.49A lyric-soprano.50Had always wanted to be a singer.51Was also friends with Nat 'King' Cole's family.52Appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), 18 times.53While working at the LaFlame Showbar in Detroit, Michigan, comedian Soupy Sales gave her a shot at becoming a star on television.54Through Erskine Hawkins, she also toured with Nat 'King' Cole.55Before she was a successful actress, she used to work at a nightclub with all the unfamiliar and legendary singers of the 1950s in New York City.56The death of her mother along with a lack of money had caused her to drop out of college, because her father wouldn't allow her to finish.57Victor Taliaferro assaulted her when they were married and she was hospitalized. This situation led her to divorce him.58She was the producers' first choice for the secondary lead role of Tess on Touched by an Angel (1994), she was reluctant but went ahead and auditioned.59She and the rest of Foxx's The Royal Family (1991) cast paid a visit to see Redd Foxx in the hospital, just hours before he died.60Received a Grammy nomination for her album 'Della' in 1960.61Didn't start acting until she was 36.62Her idols when she was young were: Jane Wyman, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday.63Is the first African-American actress to host a talk show long before Oprah Winfrey.64Is a longtime, good friend with Kristoff St. John. They both worked together on The Young and the Restless (1973).65Was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball ceremony along with 25 other African-American women, in 2005.66Before she was a successful actress, she did everything from a very young age from directing a young people's choir in church, to being a truck driver, to being a dental receptionist, to that of a switchboard girl.67Future talk show host and friend Larry King said he enjoyed listening to her music, as a young adult.68Attended the same high school as future actress Ellen Burstyn, also known as: Edna Rae Gillooly.69Began singing at age 6.70Had purchased a home in Beverly Hills, California, in 1969.71Was the lead singer for the Erskine Hawkins Band.72She intended to major in Psychiatry at Wayne State University, but a personal setback ended her plans.73She formed a choir in Detroit called The Meditation Singers.74Her parents were, Richard Early, who was a steel worker, ladies' man and a gambler and Nellie Mitchelle Early, a Cherokee cook.75As a teenager, she was often chosen as a featured singer on radio.76On one of the tapings of The Royal Family (1991), she found out about one of Redd Foxx's rituals he had done, years after he was doing Sanford and Son (1972), assuming all of this was a joke. In fact, she actually heard it, for real, Foxx collapsed on the set and had a heart attack, where he was taken to a hospital and died in 1991. She attended his funeral later in the year.77Had traveled with Mahalia Jackson, for 3 summers, and went on tour with her.78Has type 2 diabetes.79Had a recording contract with RCA Records in 1957.80Is an ordained minister at the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California.81Adoptive daughter, Deloreese Daniels Owens, died on March 14, 2002.82Is one of the 2 actresses to appear in all the episodes of Touched by an Angel (1994), with the exception of 2, during the final season.83Composed the Touched by an Angel (1994) theme song, "Walk With You".84In 2007 she officiated for the second time--she is an ordained minister--at a wedding of her ex-Touched by an Angel (1994) co-star Roma Downey's, in which she married reality television show producer Mark Burnett in 2007.85Graduated from Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Michigan, in 1947, at only 15 yrs. old. She became the first in her family to graduate early.86Had feuded with her father, after her mother's passing, which led to moving out of the house, at age 18.87Her mother, Nellie, died in 1949, of a cerebral hemorrhage.88Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson was so impressed with her singing that she invited her on a Southern Tour, Della was only 13.89In 1944, Mahalia Jackson was at her church, and was impressed with Della's voice.90Friends with: Shirley Jones, Angela Lansbury, Marion Ross, Betty White, Bea Arthur, Charlotte Rae, Marla Gibbs, Jackée Harry, Florence Henderson, Valerie Harper, Carol Burnett, Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Lange, Redd Foxx, Nipsey Russell, Kristoff St. John, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Larry King, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Abby Dalton, Ruta Lee, Patty Duke, James Komack, Martin Lawrence, Alfre Woodard, Oprah Winfrey, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Billy Graham, Robert H. Schuller, Pat Robertson, Tim Reid, Dick Gregory and Eddie Murphy.91In 1953 she signed a singing contract with Jubilee Records, her first.92Met Vermont Taliaferro in church for years until she married him in 1951, but was divorced in 1953.93Had dropped and shortened her name from Early to Reese knowing it was too big for one club's marquee.94Television personality Ed Sullivan helped her get her bookings in Las Vegas, which was rare for an African-American singer, back in the early 1950s.95In 1969 she walked into a plate-glass door and underwent surgery for a severe laceration. She was swimming, and as she got out of the pool she tried to avoid a large piece of glass and fell through a plate-glass door.96She has 7 hobbies: singing, watching movies, spending time with her family, reading the Bible, swimming, cooking and playing games.97She was the youngest (age 22) performer to have the highest singing voice of anyone in jazz music, next to Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan.98Her father, Richard Early, died in 1959.99As a young girl of the 1940s, she and her mother would go to the movies to watch: Joan Crawford, Lena Horne and Bette Davis, portraying glamorous lives on-screen.100Her mother, Nellie, had children many years before young Delloreese was born, none of them lived with her, afterwards.101Was good friends with Roma Downey before Touched by an Angel (1994) and remained so after the show was concluded.102Earned $50,000 an episode--upped from $40,000--for Touched by an Angel (1994) in 1997.103Best known by the public for her starring role as Tess on Touched by an Angel (1994).104Suffered a stroke on the set of The Tonight Show (1962). [3 October 1980].105Is an ordained minister. She officiated at the wedding of Touched by an Angel (1994) co-star Roma Downey. She is the godmother of Downey's daughter, Reilly Marie.106Mother of Deloreese, James, Franklin, and Dominique.