Top-earning actor
John Gilbert
$1,500,000
MGM, six-picture contractDeal
About $28.1 million in 2025 dollars
Garbo's co-star signed a $1.5 million multi-picture contract with MGM, just as the talkies arrived.
The Jazz Age · 1920s
1928
Top-earning actress
Pola Negri
≈ $520,000
$10,000 a week, annualizedEstimate
About $9.8 million in 2025 dollars
Paramount's imported vamp was earning $10,000 a week in 1928, her last year in Hollywood silents.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1928
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
The Singing Fool
$3.8 million
- 2
The Circus
$1.8 million
- 3
Street Angel
$1.7 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.