PLAYERS' SALARIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 14

PLAYERS' SALARIES

COMPARED WITH P ARLIAMEN-

TARY PAY.

Sin William Joynson-Hicks made a hit in the English House of.Commons with his discovery that one film star has just been offered a-salary equivalent to that earned by seven Secretaries of State, writes a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." Actually this is not the first time that people in high official employ have glanced with some consternation at the gains of actors. A Duke of Graiton when Lord Chamberlain was approached by~ a deputation of actors headed" by Garrick praying redress "for certain grievances, Graf ton proceeded to ask Garrick what'his salary was, and, being told that it was £500 a year, lifted' up his hands in amazement. "And tliis you think too little; whilst I have a eon, who is heir to my title and estate, venturing -his life daily for-, his King and country at much lesss ihan half that sum?" Five hundred, a yenr may sound little enough for a Garrick, and yet it is not, quite certain that' the stars of. the acting profession earned substantially less in the past than now. Actors and actresses in the distent days, had fewer expenses. It was not necessary that they should be 'iseen" at expensive pnd fashionable resorts. There were no photograhpers and fewer retailers of what passes for fashionable intelligence. But the managers iof a Dublin theatre in the eighteenth century offered (and in vain) £1000 to Mossop f or a single season.

Michael Kelly, the actor and singer, found the Income Tax Commissioners very sceptical when lie returned £500 as his annual income from his profession, and about 140 years ago an unknow' singer got £800 for a, first season at.the opera. Mucreudy cleared move'than £5000 by hia first lour in America, and he and others obtained very large salaries for special appearances. No doubt there are extravagant salaries paid,here and therenowadays, but it is quite possible Unit a careful examination of the-whole- subject, taking into account *the different value of-money and the difference, in the scale of .expenditure of theatricnl stars at different, periods, would show that the successful actoi's are not substantially much better off now than they were in Uic jjaaU-BWopL that they do not hu,vt> , to .work so toil.