Posted on 09/29/2007 11:14:36 AM PDT by LdSentinal
Hollywood actor Kevin Costner has squandered more than £20million of his fortune on doomed investments to save the planet, he admits.
The Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves star plunged the cash into "green technology", forming two companies to develop his passion.
His first venture championed a revolutionary method to clean up major oil spills and the second tried to develop a successful non-chemical battery.
But both projects failed and he lost the entire investment.
Rough rider: Costner, seen here at his Colorado ranch, is unfazed by his losses
He says in an interview in Live magazine: "I've invested enormous amounts in technologies I thought would help the world.
"There's nothing to show for the millions I've invested. My God, most people would want to die if they lost $1,000 or $100,000. I've lost $40million plus.
"But I knew that if I was right it would change things in an incredibly positive way. Do I regret that? Yes. Has it changed my life one bit? No, because I haven't been moved by money."
Costner, 52 – whose 1994 divorce from first wife Cindy Silva cost him £40million – was first moved to action by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, when the tanker struck a reef and lost 11million gallons of oil off Alaska.
Horrified by the primitive methods used to battle spillages, he set up Costner Industries Nevada Incorporated with his brother Dan. They discovered a technology used in the nuclear industry to separate chemicals by centrifugal force and set about adapting it. But the project failed.
Next, he created a subsidiary to launch a battery with a flywheel that could store four times the energy of an ordinary one. The firm even had a contract to make them for Nasa, but the deal lapsed.
Costner's movies, which also include box-office smashes The Bodyguard and Field Of Dreams, have grossed more than £1billion. But he has suffered bad luck in other ventures as well as his green projects.
Notably, he ploughed money into a South Dakota casino with a Dances With Wolves theme, but that plan also collapsed. However the star remains philosophical. "I'm not the shrewdest businessman," he admits. "I'm more of a dreamer."
A fool and his money...
This guy is God’s gift to con men.
Hey Kevin, ALgore has some carbon credits for sale real cheap. With those credits you can pollute and don’t give a hoot.
There’s no harm in spending your own money on your own dreams.
What about suckers who paid good money to see Waterworld, Kevin?
Naive dreamers. Hollywood is an endless fountain of these stupid people. Yet they all know how we should live our lives. Feh.
He’s blown a lot more than that making crap movies.
It’s great he is concerned. However, he could do more good if he tried something with practical value such as getting the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty repealed.
Schmuck.
What a Dingus
LOL It took him 20 million pounds to figure he was being taken for a ride???
Sounds like he has been “Dancing with Wolves” again. I read a Rod Stewart quote recently that went something like this: I don’t have to get married again. I’m just going to buy a big house for a woman that I don’t like.
If Costner wishes to spend $40Million+ on pipe dreams, that’s fine with me. It’s his money to spend and/or lose any way he wishes.
That's my own definition on urban dictionary, give it a thumbs up vote :-)
But I have been told countless times that actors are really smart. Aren’t they allowed to testify before Congress all the time?
A few years ago, we visited the Morningstar Hotel, Costner’s theme hotel/casino in Deadwood, SD. I thought it was kind of neat, but then I’m an eastern tenderfoot.
Kevin is an idiot.
Good! I hope that the jerk blows the rest. Has nothing to show for his expenditure? There was nothing to expect in the beginning.
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