Yeah, probably still too early, paid under the studio system. I was trying to think of someone who could be big enough to command a major salary, but never have been in any movie. The early movie stars do, at least, have the latter going for them more than anyone else, but the studio system makes it all different.
A good solid single reel picture (longer films were often mounted as 10 minute reels: the technology went to perhaps 15 minutes if pushed??).
I wonder if it was filmed as a single reel? When he was doing his own production, CC did editing ‘in the camera’: he wasn’t saving costs, so he kept shooting until he had what he wanted, but if you were doing it on the cheap…
Maybe there’s a TV star who had a breakout hit before ever appearing in a movie. Jerry Seinfeld would be a good example - I think the Bee Movie was his first big movie part, and it happened well after his show was popular. Although IMDB lists a couple small movie parts for him prior to Bee Movie.
Millie Bobby Brown apparently got a million for Godzilla, which was her first feature film.
Once you exclude those who were already famous in other fields (e.g. Michael Jordan, Dwayne Johnson), I think the next category down is probably children of entertainment icons. They have parents who know how to navigate the industry and whom producers may be trying to cozy up to by throwing their kid an expensive bone. While I couldn’t find info for his first film (The Pursuit of Happyness), Jaden Smith reportedly earned at least $3M for his third film, The Karate Kid.
Another category should be stars - often writer/director/stars - of b-movies or indie films that became unexpected hits. People like Melvin Van Peebles in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.
I was thinking someone like Sydney Greenstreet, who was a stage actor when he was hired to play Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon. It was his first movie at the age of 61. I couldn’t find his salary for that one, but for Casablanca the next year he was paid $3,750 per week for seven weeks, which would be worth around $440,000 today, not bad, but no record.
I don’t think you’re going to find anybody approaching a record until recent times (even adjusting for inflation). The old studios weren’t going to pay the kind of salaries you see nowadays. It was considered newsworthy when Marlon Brando received a million dollar salary for appearing in Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962.
Of course, if Ridley’s deal included a back end percentage, she made a lot more than that.