Top-earning actor
Bing Crosby
$318,907
U.S. Treasury salary listReported
About $7.5 million in 2025 dollars
The crooner topped the actors on the 1935 list, ahead of Gary Cooper ($311,000).
The Studio Era · 1930s
1935
Top-earning actress
Mae West
$480,833
U.S. Treasury salary listReported
About $11.3 million in 2025 dollars
The highest-paid woman in America and the second-highest-paid person, after William Randolph Hearst.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1935
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
Mutiny on the Bounty
$2.2 million
- 2
Top Hat
$1.8 million
- 3
China Seas
$1.7 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.