Top-earning actor
Burt Reynolds
$5,000,000
The Cannonball Run: $5M + share of profitsDeal
About $17.7 million in 2025 dollars
$5 million plus a percentage for a promise of only 14 days on set.
Forbes Starts Counting · 1980s
1981
Top-earning actress
Barbra Streisand
$4,000,000
Fee for All Night LongDeal
About $14.2 million in 2025 dollars
Hired to replace Lisa Eichhorn mid-shoot for $4 million, the highest salary for any actor up to that time. The film flopped.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1981
By U.S. and Canadian box-office gross
- 1
Raiders of the Lost Ark
$212 million
- 2
On Golden Pond
$119 million
- 3
Superman II
$108 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.