Actor Nicolas Cage’s films have grossed a collective $3.9 billion in worldwide box office receipts. Today, though, the Oscar winner owes $6 million in back taxes; in October, he sued his former money manager for $20 million, saying he was led “down a path of financial ruin,” according to court documents.

How did he do it?

Bad financial advice or not, Cage, 45, lived a super-sized life. While most of his possessions are now for sale, already sold or in foreclosure, the star once owned a staggering — and bizarre — array of, well, stuff.

Among Cage’s many, many expenditures — as tabulated by New York magazine — were the following:

One jet and two yachts.

In 2007, he outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a dinosaur skull, shelling out $276,000 for the artifact.

His homes included three castles — plus two islands in the Bahamas. Among his “dozen or so” mansions, one Bel Air home, purchased in 1998, features a billiard room with a 1955 Jaguar parked inside plus an array of “shrunken heads.”

Out of his 50 cars, the most Cage ever shelled out was $495,000 on Lamborghini — used. (Its former owner was the shah of Iran.)

Obsessed with superheroes (he was once set to star in a Superman sequel), he sold his comics collection in 1997 for $1.6 million.

While portraying an alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas (his Oscar-winning role) in 1995, he hired an “on set drinking-consultant-poet.”

He’s not merely a big spender when it comes to himself, either. He proposed to Patricia Arquette upon their first meeting in 1987. The actress refused, and Cage suggested he go on a “quest” to prove his love. Arquette challenged Cage to track down a laundry list of odd items: an autograph from author JD Salinger, a “Bob’s Big Boy” statue and a Tibetan wedding dress. Cage fulfilled his “quest,” but it took him another eight years to convince Arquette marry him in 1995. (They divorced six years later.)

Cage and his third wife, Alice Kim, have a four year-old son, Kal-El (named, naturally, after Superman.)

Source