Top-earning actor
John Gilbert
≈ $520,000
$10,000 a week, annualizedEstimate
About $10 million in 2025 dollars
The highest-paid star few wanted to see: Gilbert's $10,000-a-week contract ran on while his talkies flopped.
The Studio Era · 1930s
1930
Top-earning actress: unknown
Likeliest: Constance Bennett
No reliable figure
No salary report survives for 1930. Constance Bennett, Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer are the likeliest candidates; Bennett's record contracts came the next year.
Her films that year
Box office champions of 1930
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
Whoopee!
$2.7 million
- 2
Check and Double Check
$1.8 million
- 3
All Quiet on the Western Front
$1.6 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.