Who is the highest-paid debut actor ever?
There was a time when actors barely had two pennies to rub together. And then something very simple happened. The distribution of cinema was centralised in Hollywood, and suddenly, it became a very affordable medium. So, by 1946, roughly 60% of the American population was going to the cinema once a week, and the industry was printing money. These punters had their favourite faces, so the actor’s pockets were suddenly in favour too.
This created an aura of celebrity around previously faceless thespians, and the cult of personality was underway. One of the first to make a killing was Mary Pickford. The silent era star was a working-class hero who rose through the ranks thanks to her talent and love of theatre and soon started earning $10,000 a week as a minimum baseline with almost laughably decadent add-ons like $150,000 a year “goodwill” payments to her mother as part of her contract. In an era when most people in the US earned a mere $2,000 a year, this was crazy money.
But it was worth it if 60% of the US were willing to pay to see her every week. Then Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle soon got in on the act when his rotund tomfoolery earned him a minimum guarantee of $1million per year. During a period when you couldn’t pipe the latest trailer into the audience’s home, the name on the poster was vital, and payment reflected this while the Golden Age was booming.
However, this soon faltered with the birth of home entertainment, and by the mid-1970s, producers were wondering how to get bums back on cinema seats. They decided that the lure of a name on the movie poster might be a good thing to return to… except the lure had now changed. Famous actors were now commonplace, and having the latest Oscar winner on your poster might not be enough, but the novelty draw of a famous musician suddenly starring on the silver screen could surely kick up some degree of curiosity.
This craze almost maddeningly resulted in Neil Diamond starring as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver! He knew the producer for Martin Scorsese’s classic and was considered for more than just a fleeting moment to boot. Alas, in 1980, four years on from potentially starring in Taxi Driver, the ‘Sweet Caroline’ singer would take on the lead role in The Jazz Singer alongside perhaps the most revered thespian of all time, Laurence Olivier.
The film comes with the following official synopsis: “The son of a Jewish Cantor must defy the traditions of his religious father in order to pursue his dream of being a popular singer.” With Diamond – remarkably his real name – playing the lead role.
For his part in the movie, he became the highest-paid debut actor ever, cashing a cheque of $3.5million. While this fact in of itself is a tricky one to digest, at least the pompous quiff and pose-striking ways of The Jazz Singer suit him a lot more than the punk attitude of the Mohawk sporting Bickle. And in fairness to Diamond, his acting may not have been, well, to the standard of an ‘actor’, but he did write ten songs for the film and sang them all live in the takes.
The film and Diamond’s performance won Razzie awards in 1981. However, the legacy of a musician receiving a lofty fee to effectively bolster the novelty lure of a film remains.
