Top-earning actor
Will Rogers
≈ $375,000
$125,000 a picture × 3Estimate
About $9 million in 2025 dollars
America's top box-office star of 1934 was paid $125,000 a picture by Fox and made three that year.
The Studio Era · 1930s
1934
Top-earning actress
Mae West
$399,166
U.S. Treasury salary listReported
About $9.6 million in 2025 dollars
The first salary list made public under the 1934 Revenue Act. William Randolph Hearst topped it at $500,000.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1934
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
Kid Millions
$2 million
- 2
Cleopatra
$1.9 million
- 3
Forsaking All Others
$1.4 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.