Top-earning actor
Marlon Brando
$9,000,000
Apocalypse Now: $2M + 10% of rentalsDeal
About $39.9 million in 2025 dollars
$2 million for a month on location, then 10% of the gross rentals and TV sales, about $9 million in all.
New Hollywood · 1970s
1979
Top-earning actress
Jane Fonda
≈ $2,000,000
Fee for The Electric HorsemanEstimate
About $8.9 million in 2025 dollars
Her first seven-figure paycheck.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1979
By U.S. and Canadian box-office gross
- 1
Kramer vs. Kramer
$106 million
- 2
The Amityville Horror
$86.4 million
- 3
Rocky II
$85.2 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.