LEADING LADIES

SAM HALL looks at the biggest female box office draws as Olivia Colman hits out at Hollywood’s gender pay gap

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Meryl Streep has a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three. She starred in The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs Kramer in the late 1970s which were both major criticial and commercial hits.

The Mamma

Mia! star’s films have grossed almost

$3 billion. 6

Swedish-American actress Greta Garbo was a firm fixture during Hollywood’s silent and early golden eras. In 1928, Garbo starred in A Woman Of Affairs, which catapulted her to the position of MGM’s biggest box-office star, ending the long-reign of Lillian Gish and securing her place as a Hollywood icon. 1

Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman, left, has hit out at gender pay disparity, with the performer saying she would get “paid more” if she was a man.

Known for her roles in The Favourite, The Crown and Peep Show, she dismissed the suggestion that it’s a film’s male lead that most influence cinemagoers to watch a particular movie.

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Dame Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. Appearing in lavish historical epics like Cleopatra (below), she became the world’s highestpaid movie star in the 1960s. She won two Oscars, for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf.

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Films featuring Pretty Woman’s Julia Roberts have collectively grossed more than four billion dollars globally, according to movie industry database The Numbers, making her one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. She received fees of $20 million and $25 million for Erin Brockovich (2000) and Mona Lisa Smile (2003) respectively.

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The world’s highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, Scarlett Johansson’s films have grossed more than $15 billion worldwide, according to The Numbers, making her one of the highest-grossing box office stars of all time.

As well as starring in the Marvel blockbusters, she is known for her appearing in independent films like Lost In Translation. 3

The “First Lady of American Cinema”, Lillian Gish was huge in the silent film era. A major film actress. from 1912 into the 1920s, she starred in the highest-grossing movie of the period, DW Griffith’s The Birth Of A Nation in 1915, which sparked anger for its depiction of the Ku Klux Clan as heroic.

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Child star Shirley Temple was Hollywood’s number-one box office draw from 1934 to 1938, in films like Curly Top. In later life she would became a diplomat and was named United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also Chief of Protocol. 4

Marilyn Monroe remains a pop culture icon. The Some Like it Hot star was a top-billed actress for a decade from the 1950s. Her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962.

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According to Variety, Australian actress Margot Robbie, below, stands to make approximately $50 million on 2023 ‘s smash hit Barbie, between her salary and box office bonuses in her dual role as both star and producer.