The Jazz Age · 1920s
Top-earning actor
≈ $1,000,000
$1 million a year, ParamountEstimate
About $18 million in 2025 dollars
The last year of the contract. In September Arbuckle was arrested after a party at the St. Francis Hotel; he was acquitted in 1922, but his films were pulled and his career ended.
Top-earning actress
≈ $1,050,000
Repeats her last documented dealEstimate
About $18.9 million in 2025 dollars
Still the biggest female star in the world and a co-owner of United Artists; her income from her own productions isn't documented.
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
$4.5 million
$2.5 million
$1.5 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.
