STAR SALARY CUTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1940, Page 9

STAR SALARY CUTS

CONDITIONS IN HOLLYWOOD. EFFECT OF WAR ECONOMIES. The Hollywood stars have been adding up the chances of 1940 being a happy new year —and they don’t like lhe answer. There is talk of salary cuts. Marlene Dietrich, who once, according tc report, persuaded British film kings that her services for one picture were worth something like £lOO,<.’oo, has led the way to smaller salaries by accepting less than £15,000 for her come-back picture. "Destry Ride:' Again.” The solution to the “big money" star problem will probably be contracts calling for smaller stellar stipends plus a percentage of thv profits.

The reason why Mae West has been absent from the screen for so long is because her demands were too high.

Now she is making “My Little Chickadee" on a salary-plus—percentage basis. So is W. C. Fields. Loretta Young has been used to getting £25,000 a picture. She accepted about half that amount for her work on “Eternally Yours.” Even Ronald Colman, whom producers regard as the safest box-office bet on the screen today, is altering the figures on his price tag. Mr Colman, it is whispered in the executive offices, “will now talk business at around £37,000 a picture, plus It: per cent of the gross takings over a million dollars,” which is still nice work if you can get it. In recent years, moreover, the studios have been building up new stars “on the cheap.” The days of milliondollar contracts are over. That is why the old-established “names" are nervous.