Top-earning actor
James Stewart
≈ $600,000
Percentage dealsEstimate
About $7.1 million in 2025 dollars
Stewart kept working for a share of the profits instead of a salary through the 1950s; the figure repeats his documented Winchester '73 take.
Points, Not Paychecks · 1950s
1956
Top-earning actress
Audrey Hepburn
$350,000
Record fee for War and PeaceDeal
About $4.1 million in 2025 dollars
Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti won her with a record salary of $350,000.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1956
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
The Ten Commandments
$34.2 million
- 2
Around the World in 80 Days
$22 million
- 3
Giant
$12 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.