Top-earning actor
James Cagney
≈ $362,500
Repeats his 1941 salaryEstimate
About $7.1 million in 2025 dollars
Wartime rules held back parts of the salary lists. The figure repeats Cagney's 1941 figure; Yankee Doodle Dandy won him the Oscar.
War and the Big Lists · 1940s
1942
Top-earning actress
Bette Davis
≈ $271,083
Repeats her 1941 salaryEstimate
About $5.3 million in 2025 dollars
By 1942 Davis was reported as the highest-paid woman in America, though Claudette Colbert is also credited with the title that year.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1942
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
Mrs. Miniver
$5.4 million
- 2
Random Harvest
$4.7 million
- 3
Yankee Doodle Dandy
$4.6 million
★ Starring James Cagney