Billie Ritchie's Salary at L-Ko

[Thomas Reeder]

I'm looking at a small piece in the September 23, 1916 issue of the Titusville (PA) Herald, page 5, touting the newest Ritchie comedy for L-Ko, FALSE FRIENDS AND FIRE ALARMS. After touting the merits of the comedy itself, the article goes on to say: "He is becoming one of the favorite comedians of the screen and drawing a salary of $8,000 a week now." $8,000 a week, or $416,000 a year; sounds like a lot for L-Ko, but he was their lead comedian, and not having a good feel for what other comedians were making at that time (aside from Chaplin), I turn to the more knowledgeable members of this site to solicit your opinion: could this be factual, or do you think it was inflated by the PR people at Universal? This is the only reference I've ever found regarding Ritchie's salary at any time in his career.

Tom Reeder

[Richard M Roberts]

I'm looking at a small piece in the September 23, 1916 issue of the Titusville (PA) Herald, page 5, touting the newest Ritchie comedy for L-Ko, FALSE FRIENDS AND FIRE ALARMS. After touting the merits of the comedy itself, the article goes on to say: "He is becoming one of the favorite comedians of the screen and drawing a salary of $8,000 a week now." $8,000 a week, or $416,000 a year; sounds like a lot for L-Ko, but he was their lead comedian, and not having a good feel for what other comedians were making at that time (aside from Chaplin), I turn to the more knowledgeable members of this site to solicit your opinion: could this be factual, or do you think it was inflated by the PR people at Universal? This is the only reference I've ever found regarding Ritchie's salary at any time in his career.

Tom Reeder

It's baloney. Billie would have doing nearly as well as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin at the time if he made that. Somehow, the Titusville Herald doesn't strike me as a major Hollywood News Source either.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Michael J Hayde]

It's baloney. Billie would have doing nearly as well as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin at the time if he made that. Somehow, the Titusville Herald doesn't strike me as a major Hollywood News Source either.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Forget Ritchie... I'd be astonished if Lehrman was getting that much!

To be fair, the Herald was probably relying on a press release; most of those smaller papers just printed whatever the exhibitors got from the manufacturers. To be doubly fair, sometimes the Hollywood News Sources also relayed bogus figures. When D.W. Griffith left Biograph for Mutual in 1913, his new salary was given as "over $2,500 per week" in both Motography and the Dramatic Mirror. Years later, Roy Aitken admitted that they paid Griffith $300 per week, plus 400 shares of Majestic stock.

Michael

[Thomas Reeder]

Most of the blurbs I've found in these smaller papers are lifted directly from Universal's weekly promotional piece to exhibitors, the UNIVERSAL WEEKLY (aka MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY mid-1915 on), so I assume that's the case here as well. What I find curious is that this is the only instance of this particular claim I've found to date, while most any other given Universal promo piece pops up in numerous papers in one form or another. Regardless, assuming this was pulled from one of those pieces, why would Universal throw out such a seemingly ridiculously high number? Perhaps the Herald accidentally added an extra zero? But does even $800 sound realistic? I guess we'll never know.

Tom Reeder

[Rob Farr]

I think it was just a case of puffery to make Ritchie sound more important that he really was. And I speak as someone who gets paid $10,000 a week just for putting up ocassional posts here.

[Bob Birchard]

I think you have to put this into perspective. In 1918 Tom Mix was making something like $450.00 per week, and would not reach $7,500.00 per week until ca. 1926. While Ritchie may have been more popular in 1918 than Mix, it is almost certain he was not in the Fairbanks, Talmadge, Bara class--and $8,000.00 a week would be in that realm of the stratosphere. Generally speaking, where I've been able to access real figures, you can divide most published silent era costs by 5 and get something much closer to what things actually cost. It was widely published that "Intolerance" cost $2,000,000.00, for example, but it actually cost something just above $400,000.00. There might be an exception here vis a vis Ritchie's "salary" if (as he had a personal service contract with Henry Lehrman and not with L-Ko) the cost of production was to come from out of the sum paid to Ritchie/Lehrman. So, for five two-reelers, taking about a month each to make, Ritchie/Lehrman might have been paid $160,000.00 ($8,000.00 per week for 20 weeks), but out of that money would cover all production costs, studio overhead, salaries of crew and supporting casts, prints and advertising, etc. Even this seems high, over $32,000.00 per film, but on the other hand, a film like "The Squaw Man" in 1914 had a direct cost of around $15,000.00, but when all other distribution,profit participation, and overhead costs were toted up the film actually cost in excess of $50,000 [also, at least one Fox Sunshine comedy had a reported budget in excess of $31,000.00]. Without getting a squint at the original contract, which likely does not survive (but would be in the Universal legal files if it did), there is no way to know for sure, except suffice to say that Billie Ritchie was not taking home anything like $8,000.00 per week as his personal salary. [math, never my strong suit, corrected].