TopBillingHollywood's highest-paid actor and actress, every year since 1916About the data

The Jazz Age · 1920s

1926

Tom Mix

Top-earning actor

Tom Mix

≈ $910,000

$17,500 a week, annualizedEstimate

About $16.6 million in 2025 dollars

Fox's cowboy king. His salary eventually reached $17,500 a week; he reportedly made more than $6 million in films and lost most of it in the 1929 crash.

The pictures that paid

Lillian Gish

Top-earning actress

Lillian Gish

$1,000,000

MGM, six filmsDeal

About $18.2 million in 2025 dollars

MGM offered her $1 million for six films.

The pictures that paid

Box office champions of 1926

By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales

  1. 1

    What Price Glory

    $2 million

  2. 2

    The Black Pirate

    $1.7 million

  3. 3

    Beau Geste

    $1.5 million

Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.

Sources