Q for Mike: Actor salaries

[haoledw]

Hi Mike,
Did you ever find information about how much CBS paid Lord and the rest of the regulars per episode?

[Will]

Hi Mike,
Did you ever find information about how much CBS paid Lord and the rest of the regulars per episode?

I figure Lord got about as much as a typical leading man in an hour drama got. For instance, William Shatner initially got $5K per episode as
Star Trek's Captain Kirk in 1966 (and as many of us know, Lord was offered that role before Shatner). I can imagine that MacArthur got considerably less (back to Trek, Leonard Nimoy originally got $1250/episode). As for the rest, I wouldn't be surprised if Zulu and Kam Fong Chun, both essentially amateurs when they were cast, were offered anything other than SAG minimum at first.

[Mr. Mike]

No idea!

[vrinda]

According to an interview in a newspaper I read, which I would have to find to pinpoint the date and source, Jack was paid $30,000 per episode in 1974. I posted that information on the IMDb a while back. This salary might be due to Jack being a co-producer. Today, $30,000 is what a guest star on a hit sitcom would make. A guest star on The Big Bang Theory would get paid $38,000.

[Bobbi]

According to an interview in a newspaper I read, which I would have to find to pinpoint the date and source, Jack was paid $30,000 per episode in 1974. I posted that information on the IMDb a while back. This salary might be due to Jack being a co-producer. Today, $30,000 is what a guest star on a hit sitcom would make. A guest star on The Big Bang Theory would get paid $38,000.

What would that be in today's money? Sure, we can compare $30,000 then to now but it wouldn't necessarily be accurate.

According to this link: https://www.dollartimes.com/inflatio...0000&year=1974 $30,000 in 1974 is equal to about $169,139 today! That's close to 4.5 guest stars on The Big Bang Theory!

[Mr. Mike]

$169,000 is chicken feed.

According to various WWW sites, the five top actors on the Big Bang Theory were making between $900,000 and a million dollars per episode during the show's final seasons.

I have never seen a single episode of The Big Bang Theory, aside from a few seconds of it here and there while flipping channels.

[Bobbi]

The Big Bang Theory is a pretty funny show. It has a lot of heart.

I knew the cast was being paid well, I seem to remember they all demanded the same pay too when their contracts came up for renegotiation.

My point with conversion is that people talk about making x number of dollars in so-and-so year. You have to factor in inflation when comparing that to prices/salaries of today.

[Mr. Mike]

Perhaps $30,000 wasn't that bad. According to Mike Connors' obituary (Jan. 27, 2017) in the New York Times:

“Mannix” made Mr. Connors one of the highest-paid television actors of the 1970s; by the end of its run he was earning $40,000 an episode (almost $180,000 in today’s dollars).

Mannix ran from 1967 to 1975, contemporary with H50.

I wonder if JL got any residuals from the show?